Hierarchy+of+Questions_pedlt3

1. How are intergenerational relations enacted within complex debates about our “environmental” legacy?
 * Memo: Hierarchy of Questions**
 * How are future generations conceptualized in debates about long term risks and stewardship at Hanford and other radioactive sites?
 * o //Policy/document analysis// – future land use plans, plans and expert panels on human intrusion and markers, archived testimony at public meetings, press releases and other publications from “stakeholders”
 * o What are the long term risks or implications of X? Why should we care? What could X mean for people living in the area 100 years from now? What about a few thousand years from now?
 * o How will land use restrictions be enforced or put in practice in 100 years? What about a few thousand years from now?
 * o How clean do we have to make the site in order to meet our ethical responsibilities?
 * o How should the DoE (or similar agencies) deal with the challenge of long-term stewardship? Do we need to create markers or other buildings to warn future generations about potential dangers? If so, what should they look like?
 * How are intergenerational ethics embedded in practices, discourses, and institutions surrounding debates about nuclear waste and contamination? What proposals exist to give these concerns more institutional force, and how are they received?
 * o //Policy/document analysis:// EPA policies (among other things, definition of timescale of containment), studies about relevant issues by the DoE and others, proposals in law journals and elsewhere about creating institutional protections for future generations, and probability risk assessments and other ways of assessing the danger of these facilities over time.
 * o How did X policy (e.g., requiring that a facility is expected to contain waste or release only certain amounts of radionuclides over its “lifetime”) come about? How is it enforced? How are these calculations made?
 * How are science and engineering mobilized as a response to intergenerational concerns, and how do sociotechnical systems help frame these concerns?
 * o Why is it important to design or use X technology? How do you know it will do what it is supposed to for X number of years?
 * o What role did X technology play in creating X policy, or in the studies conducted to certify that that this site will meet the criteria set out by the EPA, DoE, or relevant institution?
 * o How has your work at X helped you to contribute to your field? Were there methods that people working on this issue have adopted that have changed the way that Y (e.g., geology) is done?

2. What is the relationship between political economy, geography, and environmental justice when it comes to the deployment and consequences of nuclear technologies?
 * What has the role of “stakeholders” been in the Hanford cleanup, and how has it changed over time? How are “stakeholders” recognized (or misrecognized, or not recognized at all), and how are groups with vastly different relationships with the site and the issue categorized under the same label?
 * o How did you get involved in the stakeholder process? What were things like in the advisory group when you first started participating?
 * o //Policy/Document analysis:// Policies and documents about setting up or changing the Hanford Advisory Group, public hearings, etc.; minutes, transcripts, or video from meetings and hearings; press releases and other forms of communications from various interested parties about public participation
 * o When you were helping to set up this group/process/event, how did you decide who should and shouldn’t be at the table? Were you on the fence about including or excluding anyone?
 * o Whom do you represent? What is their “stake” in this site/issue? What do you do to make sure that you are representing this constituency well?
 * Is Hanford and similar sites a “sacrifice zone?” Is this a good concept for thinking about radioactive sites?
 * o //Policy/Document analysis:// Data/literature on economic impact of Hanford activities, policies about who can go where in or near the site and limitations upon their activities, future land use plans
 * o How has the cleanup affected Richland? How many people here go to the Hanford site on a regular basis (like workers)?
 * o If you had to guess, how would say that Hanford would look in 100 years?
 * o When you were working at this site, what did they tell you about the risks? What contribution did you make by working at this site? What responsibilities does the government have for those who were exposed while working at this site?
 * o When did you find out about the secret releases of radiation during the cold war? Why do you think they kept it a secret for so long?
 * How has the history colonialism and militarism in the U.S. west shaped the geography of radioactive sites, and what does this suggest in terms of how to deal with questions of participation and environmental justice?
 * o //Policy/Document analysis:// Regional histories, histories of affected nations, documents about the stakeholder process, treaties with affected nations, legal cases about the responsibility of the DoE (or other relevant suits), histories of the cold war nuclear complex
 * o How has X nation been involved in the public participation processes around the cleanup? Is your input generally weighed more, less, or about the same as other “stakeholders?”
 * o How seriously do you think other stakeholders or the DoE take the fact that this land was supposed to be protected by treaties?
 * o What do you think of the word “stakeholder?”
 * o The government promised that they would protect this nation’s ability to use this land around (100?) years ago. Is there anything that this nation’s experience with long term promises can tell us about “long-term stewardship” or “future land use restrictions?”