Science in a fishbowl: Public involvement in the Hanford Environmental Dose Reconstruction Project

The Hanford Environmental Dose Reconstruction (HEDR) Project was initiated in 1987 by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in response to public concerns about potential health effects from releases of radioactive materials from the site. The public responded to DOE's efforts with claims of conflict of interest. The DOE addressed this issue by agreeing to the formation of an independent technical steering panel (TSP). The TSP met for the first time in early 1988 and assumed the sole direction of the project. Since that time, the TSP has defined scope, budgets, and schedules for all work of the project. Even with the transfer of responsibility for the project from DOE to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 1990, the TSP continues as the technical director of the contract between Battelle and CDC