Decision making based upon modeling of property devaluation generated by the attached stigma from the routine transportation of spent nuclear fuel (Idaho)

Significant pressure is applied by radioactive material transportation opponents on both elected and appointed decision makers who, by virtue of their positions, are required to approve radioactive material transportation routes and ensure preparations for the potential impacts from incidents or accidents involving these materials. Decision makers find that it is difficult to predict the long-term socio-economic impacts of their decision especially for those where there are significant environmental safety issues. They find it is extremely difficult to answer assertions that property will be devalued along radioactive material transportation routes. There is very little evidential history to base their decision on in this area. This project will attempt to answer the questions; is stigma attached to the routes, does it have a potential to devalue personal property, and can a tool be developed that can be used by elected and appointed decision makers to use in estimating the costs of technologically induced stigma?; The debate between those who propose environmental actions and those who are impacted from the proposed action continues to be contentious. The debate is centered as much on the interpretation of the models used to predict impacts as it is on the predicted impacts. Evidence seems to be in the eye of the beholder. Everyone frames mental images of the potential action and how that action will impact them, or in the case of the public decision maker, how that impacts those whom he/she has responsibility to protect.; The project has been conducted to determine if stigma is socially constructed, and if socially constructed stigma is affixed to property along nuclear waste transportation routes. Additionally this was conducted to determine if a model could be created that could assist political decision-makers in determining the appropriate level of support for these types of contentious environmental policy actions.; The completed research indicates that stigma is attached to several environmental community attributes including the transport of nuclear waste along a section of Interstate 15 located adjacent to the City of Pocatello, Idaho. The data collected as part of this project has been used to rank positive and negative community attributes and to estimate property devaluation for several of the most significant negative attributes.; The larger question of this project is, could a model be developed for use as a tool by political decision-makers to evaluate assertions by the differing sides of an environmental policy decision? The conclusion reached through this project leaves this question unanswerable. Factors such as the knowledge level of those participating in the survey instruments, the motivation of those asking the questions, the wording of the questions, the right of the public to choose to not participate in the valuation process, all these significant components of model construction must be first addressed.