Oak Ridge Site Specific Advisory Board Adapts To Engage - 16459
- Oak Ridge Site Specific Advisory Board (United States)
Environmental Management (EM) Site Specific Advisory Boards (SSABs) are representative of their communities and exist for the purpose of advising DOE EM. As such they are the conduits between the public and the DOE EM. To remain relevant to the community they cannot exist in a vacuum and the public needs to be aware of the Boards' function, purpose, and progress and have opportunities for input. Since the SSABs generally deal with fairly complex issues related to environmental cleanup, and the members of the Boards represent a diversity of background, there are many challenges associated with informing and eliciting input from Board members as well as informing and engaging the public. To that end, Oak Ridge SSAB (ORSSAB) has instituted changes to facilitate Board and public engagement. As the ORSSAB has matured and the work has become routine, it has become a challenge to keep members interested and invested. So the Board asks its members to provide input on how to make the process better. Through our annual member surveys and facilitated meetings, we query the board for ideas, and the results of these surveys and meetings are discussed at the annual planning meetings. Agreed changes are instituted in the following year. Recently the ORSSAB has instituted positive changes in the meeting structure, locations, and content. There are fewer formal meetings and these meetings are shorter. The board has also incorporated field trips to specific sites prior to presentations on those areas to further enhance membership understanding of the problems at hand, site conditions, and enormity and scope of the work to be undertaken. Changes of meeting location have occurred. Instead of the standard meeting room, the ORSSAB has met at local restaurants (in private rooms) where food service is available, and the atmosphere is more relaxed and informal. This gives members an opportunity to interact with each other rather than sitting in designated places at a formal meeting with video cameras rolling. Not only are the members more at ease, the presenters are more relaxed in their response to questions. Open discussion sessions have also been added to the meeting agendas. The ORSSAB participates in both public outreach and public engagement. Public outreach activities have included: presentations to local citizens groups; televising meetings on public access cable channels in three local communities; publishing The Advocate, a quarterly newsletter; and recently setting up and maintaining a Facebook page. Activities related to public engagement included the Board's participation at a DOE-sponsored community budget workshop. The ORSSAB strives for value and relevancy, attempting to convey a clear message to the community and to DOE. It also strives to inform its membership in a way that allows for clarity of understanding, and above all it tries to be enjoyable to its membership. The ORSSAB listens to its membership and has evolved its process to allow for effective advocacy. (authors)
- Research Organization:
- WM Symposia, Inc., PO Box 27646, 85285-7646 Tempe, AZ (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 22838255
- Report Number(s):
- INIS-US-19-WM-16459; TRN: US19V1448083610
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: WM2016: 42. Annual Waste Management Symposium, Phoenix, AZ (United States), 6-10 Mar 2016; Other Information: Country of input: France; 1 ref.; available online at: http://archive.wmsym.org/2016/index.html
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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