We had a strong response to our July 15 blog: Media Disappoints in Covering Prairie Island’s Nuclear Waste Challenge. One reader pointed out that the Department of Energy is hosting a public hearing tomorrow, Thursday, July 21, to improve the way the government makes nuclear waste siting decisions.
Here, with minor edits, are the details from John Kotek, Acting Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy, U.S. Department of Energy:
On Thursday, July 21st, the Department of Energy will host a public meeting in Minneapolis on designing a consent-based process to site facilities needed to manage our nation’s nuclear waste. The Department is seeking diverse viewpoints to strengthen the design of its consent-based siting process.
The meeting will be held at the Hilton Minneapolis, 1001 Marquette Ave. S., from 5:00 – 9:30 p.m. Registration is encouraged in order to assist planning. To register, please visit this registration page. Those unable to attend in person can view the meeting online through a live webcast.
The Department of Energy wants to hear from people about:
- fairness
- models and experience to draw from
- the roles of communities, states, Tribal Nations, and others in consent-based siting
- information and resources needed to achieve informed consent
- other perspectives and values the Department should consider
Ultimately, based on your input, the Department will design a proposed process for developing a site, which will in turn serve as a framework for collaborating with potential host communities in the future.
For more information, here is a Siting Process Meeting Flyer and the Agenda. For more, visit energy.gov/consentbasedsiting.
healingmnstories.wordpress.com 
I intend to go to this hearing. However, your description of what DOE is up to is naive. They are really trying to design a process for shoving nuclear waste dumps into communities without their informed consent. In other words, more or less the opposite of what they say they are doing.
LikeLike
Just trying to get the word out. I plead guilty to being naive on this issue. It is not one I have followed in depth.
LikeLike
Here’s my main question: Whose consent? Who can legitimately give consent for a permanent, forever and ever, nuclear waste storage facility? Oh, and another… Who or what is regarded as a stakeholder?
LikeLike