Reconciling state wide needs and local impacts

Host community compensation is now widely recognized as an integral component of policies and procedures designed to site low level radioactive (llrw) management facilities. A carefully formulated compensation, or offsets, package serves both efficiency and equity objectives by redistributing statewide or regional benefits to communities which bear the health, socio-economic and environmental risks. New York's recommended offsets package, mandated under its 1987 LLRW Management Act, contains seven measures aimed at compensating both perceived and actual risks. In addition to purely monetary payments for fiscal, property value and administrative cost burdens, measures to empower local populations and minimize stigma effects are assigned equal weight. Estimated lifetime cost for the package in current dollars is under $10 million