ON INTERGENERATIONAL EQUITY AND POLICIES TO GUIDE
THE REGULATION OF DISPOSAL OF WASTES POSING
VERY LONG TERM RISKS
David Okrent
UCLA School of Engineering and Applied Science
ABSTRACT
There is a great dichotomy in the stringency of regulation of disposal (and cleanup) of high-level radioactive wastes on the one hand, and of non-radioactive, carcinogenic chemical and mining wastes that never go away, such as arsenic, nickel and chromium. Foremost among the inconsistencies in the approaches to such regulation is the very long time horizon for high-level radioactive wastes (tens or hundreds of thousands of year) and the (implied) time horizon of 100 years for long-lived, hazardous chemical wastes. Reliance on institutional controls and land management practice is vital to many accepted decisions for chemical wastes, while no such reliance beyond 100 years is the regulation for high-level radioactive waste. There is little or no assessment of long-term risks for chemical wastes, while the EPA regulations do not allow discounting of far-future health risks from geologic disposal of high-level radioactive wastes. Nor do EPA regulations permit allowance for the major improvements likely in the medical profession's ability to prevent and cure cancer.
Should institutional and land management controls break down, the lifetime risk of cancer to subsistence farmers resulting from living over some former RCRA waste disposal sites, or some capped Superfund sites, is of the order of unity. If long-term risks hundreds or thousands of years in the future had to be considered, different alternatives with much higher costs would be needed for many chemical waste sites.
How much is it worth while to spend to avert a hypothetical, premature, statistical death thousands of years in the future? Should society spend millions of dollars for each such premature death averted if the same amount of money could prevent a hundred or thousand times as many premature deaths in the current generation in the U.S. or in the third world? This policy question lacks adequate consideration, and currently is being made on an ad-hoc basis with little philosophical basis.
INTRODUCTION
Within the United States, and across the world, there has been and is today only limited, piecemeal consideration of how society should deal with those of its activities which have the potential to pose very long term risks far into the future. The absence of accepted broad philosophic guidelines to deal with such issues makes decision making that much more difficult.
The proposed geologic disposal of high-level radioactive wastes has received much attention by regulatory authorities responsible for radiation protection, and some attention by political bodies. But absent from consideration of high-level radioactive waste disposal has there been any debate on a guiding philosophy for how society should treat the related issues of intragenerational and intergenerational transfer of risks and benefits for this activity, as well as for all of its activities. Rarely has there been even a preliminary evaluation of the disparity in the regulations for disposal of high-level radioactive wastes and hazardous chemical wastes posing equivalent or greater very long-term risks. The concept of very long-term risk is usually absent from most environmental impact assessments. Clearly, the issue of geologic disposal of long-lived radioactive wastes presents, by itself, too narrow a perspective from which to try to establish philosophic guidance concerning intergenerational equity.
In its original 1985 standard dealing with geologic disposal of radioactive wastes, (40 CFR Part 191) and in its 1993 rule, EPA has adopted the position that there is to be no discounting of predicted, statistical future health effects out to 10,000 years, and that the limitation on radiation exposure for future generations should be at least as stringent as for the current generation for this period of time. The 1993 rule requires stringent limits on societal effects, individual doses, and on groundwater contamination for 10,000 years.
For geologic disposal of high-level radioactive wastes, EPA has not recognized the advice of a committee of the National Academy of Sciences that future health effects should be discounted. EPA has not sought a broad discussion of this issue in its search for comments on a proposed rule, or recognized the considerable body of scholarly opinion which runs counter to the EPA position on intergenerational equity. EPA has presented its standard as a mixture of the technically achievable, what was environmentally compatible with other radiation risks, and what would find broad public acceptance. EPA has not provided a broad risk perspective by presenting a comparison of 40 CFR Part 191 with a broad selection of other societal hazards and risks. Rather, EPA has written that the criteria in 40 CFR Part 191 are not applicable to the regulation of any other societal activities.
EPA is not alone in adopting the viewpoint that health effects in the far distant future arising from geologic disposal of high-level radioactive wastes should not be discounted. Most regulatory or advisory bodies on protection against radiological effects have adopted a similar position. However, none has presented a broad assessment of what this attitude concerning integenerational equity would mean, if society were to apply it broadly to all of its activities which present very long term risks to quality of life as well as health. Few, if any, have examined what the impact of this approach to intergenerational equity means in terms of intragenerational equity. The millions spent today to save a relatively few statistical lives thousands of years in the future could save more lives during the current generation. But this moral issue is not examined, discussed and resolved. It is ignored.
One concept which emerges from several of the scholarly discussions of intergenerational equity is, that current generations owe future generations the development of science and technology that will afford a better chance of meeting the needs of food, water, energy, electricity, health, and the quality of life, despite an absence of resources like those of today. In this regard, the legacy of various technologies should become a factor in judging the issue of intergenerational equity. Nuclear power affords future generations at last one technology for meeting many of the energy needs in the long term. Not all societal activities leading to long term risks afford an equivalent legacy, yet many are less stringently regulated with regard to the disposal of wastes.
Probably, the biggest uncertainty in any assessment of the risk to generations living many thousands of years in the future is the future state of society itself. The state of technology, the nature of the biosphere, the kind of governmental and societal system, the climate in the vicinity of a repository, these are all unknowable. It is questionable that one can calculate a risk to future generations, given that some amount of contaminant is predicted to be in the water near the repository, because one doesn't know the state of society. Yet it has become customary to assume away this huge uncertainty, to require the assumption of a society like today's, but which lacks the currently available means for detection and cleanup of the water, and a society having made no progress in medical science toward the prevention and cure of cancer.
These are all major policy questions, just as is the choice of a time horizon such as ten thousand years, the treatment of discounting, the form of the health standard (individual, societal, or both), and the balance between intergenerational equity and intragenerational equity. Most importantly, there is the need for development of a broadly based philosophy, and a corresponding group of policies, to guide action for all of society's activities which pose longer term threats to health and to the future quality of life. These policy questions need to be addressed in a socio-political perspective by a body representative of all of society's activities.
Unfortunately, the National Academy Committee on the "Technical Bases for Yucca Mountain Standards" (3) chose not to deal with such policy issues in making its one major policy recommendation that for the Yucca Mountain Repository the risk be regulated out to the time of peak dose, hundreds of thousands of years in the future.
INTERGENERATIONAL EQUITY AND INTRAGENERATIONAL EQUITY
Intergenerational equity is a very complex subject, having many points of view, and involving many stakeholders. It cannot be divorced from considerations of intragenerational equity, nationally or worldwide. It should not be addressed in isolation and applied to a single societal activity, e.g., geologic disposal of high-level radioactive wastes, without giving careful consideration to society's current treatment of intergenerational equity for all other societal activities (a treatment which consists for the most part of benign neglect).
Most of the international community of regulators dealing with geologic disposal of high-level radioactive wastes, and their advisory counterparts, appear to have taken a somewhat myopic view, ignoring what is not being done vis-à-vis intergenerational equity in essentially all of the society's other activities, and proposing standards or regulations which society cannot apply or possibly meet in an equivalent way for the bulk of its activities. Furthermore, little or no attention has been paid by these bodies to issues of intragenerational equity, namely that $1 million spent today to avert one or a fraction of a statistically uncertain, future health effect 10,000 years in the future, could be used to avert much more than 1,000 premature deaths in the world today, and perhaps 100 in the U.S.A.
The ethics, the morality, the inequity of such actions appear not to have been attributes in decision making by those responsible for advising on the safe disposal of high-level radioactive wastes. Similarly, these bodies have not discussed in detail the vast disparity in the regulation of disposal of long-lived, non-radioactive carcinogenic wastes compared to radioactive wastes.
Why has EPA chosen a standard for regulation of HLW disposal that runs counter to its own regulation of hazardous chemical waste disposal, and counter to the current national policy, which is benign neglect of intergenerational equity thousands of years in the future for almost all of society's activities?
Is it that the legacy to future generations is large from the activities that lead to disposal of the arsenic, cadmium, nickel, lead, etc., in RCRA sites, having a three-meter cap on closure? EPA has not discussed such a justification. Is it not commercial nuclear power that offers a potentially major legacy to distant generations, a means to generate electricity and heat many hundreds and thousands of years in the future, after the fossil fuels are consumed? To many, this legacy appears to vastly overbalance the relatively small risks likely to result to individuals 10,000 years or more in the future from a HLW disposal site. In addition there are potential legacies, which can be important in ameliorating the greenhouse effect, should it materialize in a truly adverse form.
However, EPA has not considered such future benefits, and in particular, such legacies. Why? Their stated attitude is that today's generations will be the only beneficiaries of nuclear power and future generations will have the inequity in hazards from HLW disposal sites.
EPA has similarly ignored the recommendation of the National Research Council Committee report on the Decision Making at EPA (4), a recommendation to discount future health effects. EPA ignores issues of intragenerational equity raised eloquently by Cohen, as well as Cohen's discourse to the effect that one has little expectation that the people, if any, living near a HLW disposal site many hundreds or thousands of years in the future, will be direct descendants of those living there today. He uses this valid point to argues strongly for intragenerational equity, and a more efficient use of money to defer "premature deaths" (5)
The office of Radiation Programs at EPA made major policy decisions for the U.S. without examining the policies of the rest of EPA, or the nation, for harmonization with other societal activities, and without providing philosophic justification for these policies.
Foutes of EPA concedes that EPA has made arbitrary conservative choices and he himself suggests the need for a high level policy on intergenerational equity, on not permitting discounting of future health effects, the assumption of no (or negative) scientific, medical or technological progress, etc. (6)
In the statement of considerations for its 1993 rule for WIPP and sites other than Yucca Mountain (7), EPA mentions that an additional $3.2 billion might be required for more robust containers. EPA does not follow up this potential extra cost with an introspective review of intragenerational equity. However, the World Health Organization has estimated that about five million deaths per year among children could be averted by immunization programs, at costs ranging from $50 per life saved in Gambia and Cameroon to $210 per life saved in Indonesia (Cohen 1991). Even at the larger cost of $200 per life saved, five million premature deaths averted costs only about $1 billion, or less than a third of the added $3.2 billion for more robust cans whose cost EPA rather casually dismisses. The more robust cans could be expected to save orders of magnitude less lives thousands of years in the future. Some might say the immunization shots would be to save lives in a different nation. But no one can say who the nations or peoples are that may incur health effects from radioactivity emanating from a particular geologic waste disposal site many thousands of years in the future. The current inhabitants in the vicinity of Yucca Mountain are not descendants of the people inhabiting the same region some hundreds of years ago. Nor is the country the same. Even in the United States, $3.2 billion spent to save current lives would be far more effective than the more robust cans would to save lives thousands of years in the future.
What are the considerations of intragenerational equity, and how should they be brought into harmony with considerations of intergenerational equity?
Finally, it is of some interest to note that while EPA says that taking a 10,000 year time frame for individual dose is consistent with their regulations relating to RCRA and underground injection, it is a matter of record that the reviews for the use of underground injection are relatively perfunctory (8), and that the requirements and analyses for RCRA (and Superfund) sites have not dealt with very long-term risks (9).
FUTURE STATES OF SOCIETY AND THE NEED FOR POLICY
The future states of society and the biosphere thousands of years from now probably represent the largest uncertainty in any meaningful calculation of risk to future generations at or near a particular waste disposal site, where risk includes the probability that someone will be exposed and will suffer health effects, given that some contamination by hazardous pollutants has occurred.
But for HLW disposal, and only HLW disposal, EPA has chosen a position of stasis for future societies, except that some current capabilities are assumed by EPA not to exist or not to be used. No advances in societal capability, e.g., medicine, can be contemplated, according to EPA, although the bulk of expert opinion is that scientific advances will be major if not huge. The means to detect and cleanup contamination exists today and are part of the implementation of the Safe Drinking Water Act. However, such techniques are also not to be used by future societies.
EPA, and several other HLW regulatory groups, discusses a "principle" that future generations should not be exposed to risks greater than those accepted today. We have already questioned the basic foundation for the "principle" expressed in these terms. But what are the risks which are "accepted" today? The Nordic Authorities concede that there is no way of defining such a
risk. (11) Travis and Hester (12) compute a lifetime global risk from only eleven pollutants to be one in 700. Smith has estimated a still larger risk from drinking water containing arsenic at the current EPA MCL. (13)
Indoor radon, indoor air pollution, living near hazardous chemical storage tanks or downstream of dams, all can pose risks far larger than those which correspond to EPA's promulgated acceptable dose from groundwater in its 1993 rule for the WIPP facility, 40 CFR Part 191.
It is time to develop a philosophy and policies which provide sensible direction to the nation, not only for waste disposal issues, but also to the broader spectrum of activities in which society is engaged which pose long term risk.
A very high policy group, such as a Congressional Commission, which included economists, philosophers, historians, public health and environmental leaders, could develop recommendations which the U.S. Congress and the president could endorse, or modify as is appropriate. Hopefully, from some such process, policy recommendations would emerge based on a guiding philosophy, which had been thoughtfully developed, debated, and adopted by the socio-political system, and reflected all the important societal needs.
SOME QUESTIONS FOR THOSE MAKING RECOMMENDATIONS INFLUENCING REGULATORY ACTION ON GEOLOGIC DISPOSAL OF HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTES
What is the philosophical basis for this application of intergenerational equity to high-level waste disposal by the USEPA, the IAEA, the Nordic Authorities and many other groups? If it is applicable in this fashion to high-level radioactive waste disposal, is it not also applicable to disposal of non-radioactive, long-lived carcinogenic chemical wastes, such as arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, chromium and nickel?
Why should consideration of intergenerational equity apply only to waste disposal? Does not the current generation owe future societies access to good topsoil, adequate water, adequate sources of power, raw materials for petrochemicals, metallic components, etc.? How can the voracious consumption of a huge portion of the world's mineral resources be made compatible with intergenerational equity?
Does the public truly place the same value on averting a premature death 10,000 years into the future as averting a premature death during this decade? Or the next century? Would the public be willing to actively commit its own money to spending as much to avert a premature statistical death 10,000 years in the future as in the next decade?
Is there unanimity among the world of scholars as to how to interpret and apply the concept of intergenerational equity? Can one find many scholars who disagree with the concept of zero discount of future health effects, thousands of years into the future, especially when these have a significant chance of being prevented by mitigative measures or by progress in medical science?
Does the USEPA have a philosophic basis to guide the disposal of all hazardous wastes posing long-term risks? Is long-term risk a serious consideration in the current regulation of disposal in the USA of non-radioactive carcinogenic wastes, which will never decay?
Is there a technical or philosophic basis in the USA for the huge disparity in the approach to long-term risks arising from the disposal of radioactive and non-radioactive wastes?
Is it wise public policy to spend today about $1 million, or more, to avert a premature death 10,000 years in the future, when that same $1 million might avert ten or more premature deaths in the U.S.A. today? What if $1 million would avert about 10,000 premature deaths of children elsewhere in the world today?
In the USA, and in most countries in the world, there is a huge disparity in the consideration of long-term risk in the disposal of radioactive and non-radioactive wastes.
What is the justification?
More importantly, is not the issue of intergenerational equity a much broader issue? Is there not need for a philosophic basis, which encompasses what intergenerational equity means across all facets of society?
If intergenerational equity means "Ensuring that there are no predicted future risks to human health and environment that would not be currently accepted", what are the current risks to be compared with? What about the many risks from existing chemical pollution which today are calculated to cause greater risk than that proposed by the ICRP for disposal of high-level radioactive wastes? What about the large number of private wells that are known to contain large amounts of radon? What about the overall health effects from indoor radon? What about the potential for a loss of societal memory and the future intrusion by a farming community into a shallow chemical waste disposal site containing long-lived carcinogens?
In view of the many scholars supporting points of view on intergenerational equity different from that chosen by EPA for radioactive wastes and only radioactive wastes, should this subject not be a vital part of the considerations of any regulations for the disposal of high-level radioactive waste?
Should not the future benefits and the legacy to future generations be a part of the decision making process on the regulation of activities posing long term risks?
Is it not a policy decision to recommend that individual dose, or individual risk, or societal effects, or some combination thereof, be the basis for a standard? Is not a justification required for a recommendation concerning this policy decision?
Is it not a policy decision to recommend that risk to the individual or society be regulated for 1000 years? Until that time when the calculated dose decreases? What is the basis for any such policy recommendation?
Is it not a policy decision to assume a future state of society with certain characteristics? What is the basis for such a policy decision?
Is it not a policy decision to assume science and technology will or will not progress beyond today's status? Is it not a policy decision to ignore current medical research progress and judge that no improvements in cancer prevention or cure will occur? What is the basis for this policy decision?
Is there not a need for some very high-level body to develop national policy guidance on intergenerational equity, intragenerational equity, and discounting of future health effects, as it applies to all of society's activities?
REFERENCES