Recommendations


- the Board can reimburse in a timely manner expenses incurred by a community looking into the possibility of volunteering;

- the Board is formally endowed with the authority to offer and provide incentive or reward money to a community during the process of consideration, which may be as important as the promise of money down the line once the disposal facility is operational;

- the Board remains a quasi-independent body;

- Board staff remain independent, hired by and reporting to the Siting Board not only so that they have a mandate to focus on their mission, but also so that they can be dismissed if their services are no longer required;

- The Board commence a bimonthly or quarterly schedule beginning in September.

- recognize and specifically authorize the voluntary process adopted by the Board;

- continue to prohibit locating a disposal facility in the State Pinelands area, but permit consideration of sites outside the State Pinelands area that are within the Federal Pinelands Reserve. This would enable military reservations such as McGuire Air Force Base and Fort Dix, as well as property controlled by the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Plant, to be evaluated if requested by a potential host community so long as they meet the stringent siting criteria adopted by the Board;

- permit consideration of a facility design that emphasizes ongoing, long- term management and oversight as an alternative to permanent disposal of low-level radioactive waste. A long-term isolation facility that preserves options for future waste management by incorporating into its design accessibility for direct inspection and preventive maintenance may prove to be feasible-as well as publicly acceptable;

- authorize the Siting Board to make unrestricted grants to communities during the process of consideration;

- remove the requirement for an adjudicatory hearing before an Administrative Law Judge if the potential host community is selected in a voluntary siting process. The hearing requirement automatically turns a voluntary process into an adversarial one.


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Last updated January 1999