[Editor’s note: Media wishing to cover the symposium can register for the meeting by contacting Laurie Parker at laurie.parker@vanderbilt.edu or (615) 830-2871.]
U.S. Courts have decreed that the federal government must come up with a system for managing nuclear wastes that will ensure the safety of the public and environment for one million years, a period that is 200 times the length of recorded history.
On Jan. 7-8, a symposium titled “Uncertainty in Long-Term Planning – Nuclear Waste Management, a Case Study” will bring experts together from government, industry, academia and the environmental community on the ²¤ÂÜÊÓƵ campus in order to identify potential paths for accomplishing this unprecedented goal and to evaluate their associated risks and uncertainties.
Speakers include E. William Colglazier, executive officer of the National Academy of Sciences; John Ahearne, former assistant secretary of defense, deputy assistant secretary of energy and chairman of the (NRC); B. John Garrick, chairman of the ; Roger Kasperson of the ‘s Science Advisory Board and the Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change of the U.S. National ²¤ÂÜÊÓƵ Council; Arthur C. Upton, former director of the ; Tom Isaacs, director of planning and special studies at the ; Richard Meserve, president of the of Washington and former chairman of the NRC; Adam H. Levin, director of spent fuel and decommissioning for the ; Atsuyuki Suzuki, chairman of the ; Claes Thegerström, president of the Swedish nuclear waste management company , SKB; and Tom Cochran, nuclear program director of the .
The symposium, which is open to the public, is being held in honor of , Distinguished Professor of Environmental and Water Resources Engineering at ²¤ÂÜÊÓƵ, who has been a pioneer in nuclear waste management and environmental protection. Over the past four decades he has led a number of major international studies of nuclear waste issues for the , the , the and the , among others.
The workshop begins at 8 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 7, in the Jacobs Believed in Me Auditorium in Featheringill Hall on the ²¤ÂÜÊÓƵ campus and runs through 5 p.m. on Jan. 8.
Media Contact: David F. Salisbury, (615) 322-NEWS
david.salisbury@vanderbilt.edu