Interview+Questions+_+pedlt3

Question for Scientist / Engineer Working on Environmental Remediation at Hanford (loosely based upon questions prepared for prior interview):


 * 1) How did you get involved with the Hanford cleanup?
 * 2) How would you sum up the history of the cleanup efforts?
 * 3) What kind of dangers does this site currently pose?
 * Do your colleagues generally feel the same way?
 * What about the local community, do they usually have a different take than the scientists? Are they worried about the same things, or do they talk about different risks?
 * Why do you think that is?
 * 1) How does your area of expertise/project relate to the site?
 * OK, now explain that as if I were a 5th grader, cause I’m not sure I follow.
 * How has / will your work impact other environmental remediation efforts?
 * What would be/are the long-term implications of this project?
 * How do you know? How is it measured?
 * What will it mean in 20 years? 100? 10,000?
 * How have X group responded to the idea?
 * 1) Have the complex challenges that Hanford presented created new kinds of collaboration between, say, different disciplines, or between scientists and engineers, or between other folks and scientists?
 * 2) What is the role of secrecy in the science and engineering around the site?
 * Does it make collaborations difficult?
 * What does it mean for people’s personal lives and ability to make friends at the lab (or whatever)?
 * 1) Do you have any concerns about the DoE / contractors / others not listening to dissenting opinions?
 * What about the treatment of whistleblowers?
 * 1) Have you been involved at all in stakeholder processes or other forms of public engagement about the cleanup or other issues (like downwinders) related to the site?
 * How did you get involved?
 * Have these processes affected your work at all, or how you think about the impact of your work?
 * How did other involved in this process respond to your ideas? To scientists/engineers in general?
 * What are some things that these groups aren’t talking about and should be?
 * 1) Some folks have suggested some ideas for institutionalizing intergenerational justice when it comes to environmental issues. For example, an ombudsman for the future, with the obligation to advocate for and even sue on behalf of future generations. Have you heard about any of these ideas?
 * What is your impression of these proposals?
 * How would something like that affect big nuclear remediation efforts?
 * How do you think it would affect the nuclear industry / nuclear weapons complex?
 * If you were elected king of the world, would you put something like this in place, or would you deal with this issue in a different way?
 * 1) Do you think that there is enough investment in expertise related to environmental remediation, nuclear waste, and monitoring?
 * Has this changed? How come?
 * What is the relationship between expertise and the ability of the public to have a say when it comes to these issues? Is it enabling? Is there a tension between the two? Both?
 * 1) What is your favorite joke about Hanford or nuclear stuff in general? Or if not joke, tell me a funny story about your experiences with the site.
 * 2) Obviously, there have been some pretty big mistakes at Hanford, at least in the early days. What lesson should we take away from these mistakes? Do they contain any lessons for scientists?
 * 3) There was an artist in Richland a while back—James Accord—who was the only person with an individual license for handling some pretty dangerous radioactive materials. Have you heard of him?
 * One of his ideas was to build a monument at Hanford to warn future generations about radioactive contamination. Good ideas?
 * On a rather massive scale, a quasi-monument with the same intention is also planned for WIPP. Some of the ideas for this were pretty interesting, like giant spikes coming out of the ground at weird angle to make people feel like this was a dangerous place—they felt that they couldn’t rely on language, symbols, or government control of the site since the goal was to keep people away for at least 10,000 years. They felt they had to do this because they found all of these bore holes that no one knew were there. What do you think about this? Would you do something differently?
 * So, in terms of dealing with contaminated sites/nuclear waste sites that could be dangerous for extremely long periods of time, what message about our obligation (if any) to future generations do the following send:
 * Clean it up to a point where it is not dangerous, then treat it like any other piece of land
 * Long term stewardship – clean it up, but maybe a little less, since we should limit the ways people can use the land in the future
 * Perhaps clean it up, and perhaps even try to keep people out of the site, but also create some kind of warning system that will be around even if the government or whatever is not
 * Something else?