Science and Public Participation: An Analysis of Public Scientific Argument in the Yucca Mountain Controversy

Abstract

While they make valuable and significant theoretical moves, new models of public participation in environmental decision making may not help publics navigate within traditional models of public participation. In this essay, the author builds from Kinsella's (2004) concept of public expertise and examines what she calls public scientific argument. Through an examination of the Yucca Mountain site authorization public comment period, the author analyzes how non-scientist citizens attempt to engage in scientific argument in current technocratic models of public participation. This essay not only calls our critical attention to providing practical resources for citizens faced with current technocratic models of public participation but also challenges new models to more fully consider citizen abilities to engage in scientific argument as a form of technical competency.

Keywords:

• Public Participation in Environmental Decision Making
• Rhetoric
• Nuclear Communication
• Public Expertise
• Public Scientific Argument

Acknowledgements

A previous version of this essay was presented at the Conference on Communication and the Environment (COCE) in June 2007. The author worked on this essay under the University of Utah Research Professorship in Environmental Humanities fellowship. The author would like to thank Stephen Depoe, the three anonymous reviewers, and Leah Ceccarelli for their assistance in the development of this essay.

Notes

1. The NWPA provides the legal framework for selecting a site for geologic disposal of high-level nuclear waste in the USA.

2. This public hearing was run by the Department of Energy as part of the public comment period on the site authorization decision. The public comment period preceded the site authorization decision in 2002.

3. This interview was part of the Nuclear Technology in the Great Basin Oral History Project at the University of Utah.

4. See MacFarlane (2003) for a discussion of regulatory science.

5. The Yucca Mountain Legacy Project includes citizens, chemists, and hydrologists in monitoring groundwater contamination in the Yucca Mountain region. It released a report in 2006 establishing a baseline of groundwater contamination in the region (Viereck, Hadder & Rice, 2006).

6. Although I do not adhere to the notion of a monolithic public, most current technocratic models of public participation use the term “public” to subsume anyone who participates in the public comment or public-hearing process. This monolithic conception of the public fails to recognize the multiple publics/counterpublics that are involved in public participation processes. The use of a monolithic conception of the public is a rhetorical strategy that reifies the division between public/expert that Fischer (2000) and Kinsella (2004) explain in detail. Although I will not further explore this topic in the essay, and I will not specifically delineate all of the different publics/counterpublics that participated in the public comment period, I will use the term publics or citizens throughout the remainder of the essay when referring to participants in the public comment period.

7. I define public in the context of public participation in environmental decision making (albeit a simple conception of the public). In public participation venues, a public is called forth by the design of the process; anyone who is not a decision maker or expert is defined as a part of the public. In the case of the Yucca Mountain site authorization decision, the DOE automatically defined anyone who participated in the public comment period as the public. However, because this broad definition of public could include some credentialed scientists (and some did submit comments), I narrow my definition to non-credentialed non-scientists.

8. The NRC established an independent center for review of the Yucca Mountain Project called the Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Danielle Endres

Danielle Endres (Ph.D., University of Washington) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication, and a Faculty member in the Environmental Humanities M.A. Program at the University of Utah