NRC and Stakeholder Interactions

Scott Burnell & Lance RakovanUS Nuclear Regulatory Commission

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Involving the Public

• NRC Organizational Value of Openness• Formal Processes

– Information Exchanges– Public Commenting– §2.206 Petitions– Annual end-of-cycle meetings at each power

reactor facility– Adjudication process

Public Meeting Objectives• Ensure that members of the public have the

opportunity to enhance their understanding of the agency’s regulatory process

• Ensure that all public meetings are noticed in a timely manner

• Inform interested stakeholders about NRC’s meetings

Primary Challenge:Balance openness against regulatory and safety

responsibilities

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Information Gathering

• From Early to After the Fact– New Rulemaking– Post-Event

• Townhall Meetings• Workshops• Meeting facilitation Primary challenge:

Volume of comments received

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Risk Communication• Different risk paradigms (e.g., engineering, health, lay)• Absolute (body count) or

relative (individual risk)• Voluntary or involuntary• Natural or manmade• Risk versus benefit• Radiation fears• NRC Risk Communication Guidance

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/brochures/br0308/br0308.pdf

ADD PICTURE

Groundwater Contamination

• Multiple leaks at multiple sites over several years

• Offsite levels consistently below EPA drinking water limits

• Zero expected health effects

Primary challenge:Converting complicated EPA limits into “every day” risk

State-of-the-Art ReactorConsequence Analysis (SOARCA)• Realistic examination of possible health effects from

reactor accidents• Preliminary results indicate much less contamination

would reach the environment, and take much longer to do so, than previously thought

• Prior studies generated “body counts” based on projected doses to entire populations

• SOARCA intends to generate individual risk metrics

Primary challenge:Addressing ingrained media/public expectation of “body counts”