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The importance of maintaining public trust and understanding in emergency preparedness and response is well recognized [2], [3]. However, experience has shown that public trust associated with a nuclear or radiological emergency, including nuclear engineers, regulators, decision makers, and associated technical experts, will be greatly diminished as mentioned in Section 2.2.2. Therefore, it is important to consider methods for proactively engaging stakeholders before an emergency in order to establish trust. This could help avoid losing trust and credibility after an emergency.

Experience shows that waste management decisions need to be clearly, carefully and thoroughly explained and discussed across the spectrum of stakeholders during the recovery phase. Such discussions can have a tremendous impact on the efficiency of eventual decisions regarding waste management in the recovery process, especially their scientific soundness, and on the inevitable need to optimize use of limited resources. Local community leader or facilitator can serve a

51 valuable role in this process. In this context, a local community leader or facilitator is defined as someone who is trusted by both the public impacted by the waste management decisions and by the organizations that manage and regulate the waste. They can interface with stakeholders translating individual concerns into general opinions. Examples of the effectiveness of such an approach have been seen in communities impacted by the Fukushima Daiichi NPP accident where facilitators have been a constant presence, living close to or within the impacted population. They can also have a role to play in communities surrounding nuclear facilities where no event has occurred and can foster trust. If the country already has a certain extent of waste management programme for radioactive waste arising from routine operations, such existing waste management programme would already have a process for involving stakeholders.

Maintaining and enhancing such a process is another way to enhance the relationship with stakeholders.

Among the desirable provisions that may be chosen prior to a nuclear or radiological emergency to foster trust, education is arguably the most important. Without a fundamental understanding of radiation and the nature of the contamination and associated radiological health risks, it will be difficult for the public to participate in an informed decision making process. Therefore, it is very important to provide the population with a basic education on radioactivity and risks. Ideally, it becomes part of a national initiative to cope with a potential nuclear or radiological emergency by involving and preparing the population as much as possible through education.

Also, self-help protective actions such as monitoring become important for residents to identify those areas where remediation is necessary or certain countermeasures are appropriate. Therefore, it is beneficial if training on self-help protective actions is included as a part of educational programme.

Participation of the population in every major decision during recovery and waste management helps to ensure the sustainability of these decisions, though it has to be emphasized that such participation of the population doesn’t reduce the responsibility and importance of relevant authorities for making timely decisions.

Fukushima Daiichi NPP emergency example: Ministry of Environment (MOE) and Fukushima Prefecture jointly established the Decontamination Information Plaza in January 2012. The plaza provides an opportunity for people to learn in an interactive way, not only about the remediation projects being undertaken, but also about the principles of radiation protection, background radioactivity and how radioactive materials are used in daily life. Information is provided through websites and pamphlets, and a telephone hotline is available to provide answers to technical and health-related questions.

Individuals have the opportunity to talk to medical and technical experts about the remediation works [69].

Date city is one of the municipalities which conducted decontamination with active involvement of public from early phase. By the end of 2012, public hearings in relation to the municipality’s decontamination plan had been organized more than 200 times since July 2011. Five Decontamination Support Centres were established in October 2011, whose activities include consultation on radiation protection and decontamination, publication of newsletters to introduce latest topics on decontamination etc. Those

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activities enhanced understanding of the public and facilitated remediation activities in the city [70].

U.S. Liberty RadEx drill Example: The Liberty RadEx drill was organized by US-EPA in April 2010 to practice and test federal, state, and local assessment and cleanup capabilities in the aftermath of a dirty bomb, “a radiological dispersion device incident,”

in an urban environment. More than 1,000 participants, representing federal, state, and local agencies, as well as private citizens and companies, were involved. Field drills and training exercises took place around Philadelphia for three days. During the Liberty RadEx exercise, participants were provided opportunity to enhance understanding on emergency response and other associated activities, supported by EPA scientists and engineers [59], [60], [71].

U.S. Waste Management Workshop example: The Wide Area Recovery and Resiliency Program (WARRP) Waste Management workshop, hosted by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), was a two-day workshop, held in Denver, Colorado, in March, 2012. The workshop involved representatives from federal, state, and local agencies with the aim to advance the planning of federal, state, and local officials in the area of waste management (segregation, temporary storage, transportation, processing, and disposal) following a chemical, biological, or radiological (CBR) wide-area emergency in the Denver, Colorado, urban area. The objectives of the workshop included [72]:

• Understanding the importance of preparedness for waste management;

• Identifying the significant issues and exploring efforts underway to address the priority issues.

In summary, in order to avoid complete loss of public trust after an emergency, the following preparatory actions can be taken:

• Involve relevant stakeholders from the preparedness stage;

• Develop mechanisms for stakeholder participation in response and recovery;

• Consider the value of local community leaders or facilitators in stakeholder participation;

• Develop a strategy for communication with the public and education in long term.

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