Assessing and Managing Risk in the Public Sector: An Urban Hazardous Waste Landfill

ABSTRACT:

This paper examines how risk was assessed and managed at the Adams Center Hazardous Waste Landfill in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The landfill is one of 21. federally licensed hazardous waste landfills in the United States. Like a majority of these landfills, Adams Center evolved out of an existing sanitary, nonhazardous landfill. The process used to transform the Adams Center landfill was deficient in considering technical and cultural factors in risk assessment and in providing a forum where these differences could be addressed and where issues of risk mitigation and compensation could be discussed. The landfill operators are facing strong opposition in their attempt to expand. The author suggests alternative models for assessing and managing the risks of hazardous waste that would more broadly represent affected interests in decision making and produce a more comprehensive definition of risk and a more integral focus on risk mitigation and compensation.