Participation in the 2018 public survey on issues at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state was less than half the count from the prior year.
Only 55 people took part in the latest online survey, with 51 completing all the questions, far below the 119 responses a year earlier.
Of those responding to the latest survey, just over half described themselves as members of the general public, while 19% said they were members of interest groups. Of the respondents who revealed their location, 35 were from Washington state, 10 from Oregon, two from New Hampshire, and one each from California and Idaho.
The survey is conducted by the Energy Department, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the Washington state Department of Ecology, which in 1989 signed the Tri-Party Agreement that sets cleanup milestones at the 586-square-mile former plutonium production complex. The Tri-Party agencies published results of the new survey this week.
The annual public involvement survey for the Tri-Party Agreement has been conducted since the early 2000s. It went online via the Survey Monkey service in 2012. The survey is meant to keep the agencies abreast of public attitudes about the nuclear remediation project.
Issues people most want to learn about in a public forum, according to the responses, are: the Hanford budget (20%); underground radioactive waste storage tanks (17%); the Waste Treatment Plant (17%); remediation progress and challenges (13%); and groundwater contamination (13%).
Zero respondents expressed interest in having a speaker from Hanford address their club or school group.
More than half, 54% of those answering the survey, said they typically get their information about Hanford via email from Tri-Party Agreement agencies. About 43% get their information from agency websites and social media.
