hegemonic+backdrop_pedlt3

I have had a very hard time with this memo, which is worrying. I was going to talk about the introduction of “Risk Based End States” (RBES), which the DoE defined as “ representations of site conditions and associated information that reflect the planned future use of the property and are appropriately protective of human health and the environment consistent with that use” ([|DOE P 455.1]). I had read a report by a technical consultant at Hanford over winter break, and he argued that RBES, implemented fairly unilaterally by the DoE in 2003, represented the introduction of a corporate management style and an attempt to reduce DoE obligations by tying remediation goals to easily manipulated probability risk assessments guided by future restrictions on land use (2006). It did seem particularly problematic, and one could say that it pointed to a “scientific” probability risk assessment as a hegemonic framework for understanding risk and guiding policy, as well as some kind of discourse that would not contemplate temporal limits of state power. This could be opposed to much of the thought about the “end state” for WIPP, which explicitly contemplates and plans for the end of state control.

I just found out that the directive instituting RBES was scrapped in 2011, however (DOE N 251.106). Clearly, I have more work to do to understand just what hegemonic discourses are at work at this site, and the document that I examined instituting the policy seemed fairly vague on how it would be implemented—so figuring this out could be part of the ethnographic/historical work of the project.

In terms of broader question, however, I do think RBES and more general trends means that I should keep an eye on:


 * Assumptions about limits on the continuity of state power, knowledge, culture
 * Assumptions about the ability of the U.S. government to keep promises in the long term
 * The role and authority of “scientific” probability risk assessments (the “scientific” is often used to describe them), and the assumptions that structure what is and is not considered in the models used
 * How these factors interact and reshape (including temporally) ethical/political obligations of the DoE and other actors.
 * Efficacy of cleanup technology