Transparency of environmental decision making: a case study of soil cleanup inside the Hanford 100 area

Environmental decisions in a democracy should be transparent. Transparency allows all those who are interested in a decision to understand what is being decided and why. Transparency is especially critical for decisions that are intended to protect public health and safety, and that have long-term consequences. Decisions are recorded through publicly available documents (such as Records of Decision), collectively known as the public record. In this paper the transparency of the public record is examined for a specific decision at the US Department of Energy (DOE) Hanford site. To do this, the concept of transparency is unpacked into seven objectives: clarity, accessibility, integration, logic/rationale, truth/accuracy, openness, and accountability; and a framework for measuring decision transparency is developed. Then a Record of Decision is evaluated based on four of the seven objectives. Throughout, the importance of understanding decision processes and expected outcomes, and the broad values underpinning activities and choices are emphasized. It is found that, while many aspects of the process are transparent, it is difficult to discern and connect the values, objectives, subobjectives and criteria used as the basis of the decision. Several information structuring improvements (value trees, decision paths, and simple graphics and tables) that could make the public record more transparent are suggested. Such improvements are necessary for long-term stewardship because future decision makers are likely to rely on the public record as the primary source of decision information. If information is not transparent, future decisions may be compromised.