Socioeconomic impact assessment in a complex economic environment

This presentation was to have been given in coordination with several others which shared, as a common focus, the analysis of potential socioeconomic impacts of a proposed high-level nuclear waste repository at the Hanford Site, Washington. In December of 1987, Congress removed the Hanford Site from consideration as a repository location and, effectively and immediately, terminated the socioeconomic study. The immediate drawback to all of this is that this paper cannot be presented in the context created by the other papers as intended. This paper presents one important aspect of the difficulties associated with long-term socioeconomic impact projections at the Hanford Site, and has a narrower focus than otherwise would have been the case