After Environmental Accidents, Public Deserves Full Candor

When the Robert E. Ginna Nuclear Power Plant near Rochester, N.Y., released radioactive steam into the atmosphere in 1982, utility representatives and government officials were quick to call it a "problem" or an "occurrence," rather than an "accident," which--in nuclear power-generation terms--is far more serious. Nor did they frame the situation as a "risk" story. Author: LEE A. KIMBALL, p. 11 Nobody disputes the importance of Antarctic research to understanding the earth's global cycles and systems. But increasing public concern about strengthening Antarctica's environmental protection has raised fear among scientists that overregulation will impede their investigations. They point out that any adverse impacts from scientific research carried out in Antarctica are at worst quite localized and that much of the public mistakenly assumes that such research causes global environmental damage. An example is the ozone hole, which many people believe results from activities in Antarctica even though it actually stems from those occurring outside the region. Still, Antarctic research--and, particularly, associated transport and supply operations--is not impact-free. The near-pristine nature of Antarctica is one of the things that makes it such a valuable research laboratory. In a land where traces of natural and human events are frozen in virtual perpetuity, even localized contamination can distort research results. A recent accident proves the point. In early 1989, the Bahia Paraiso, used both as a tour ship and a supply boat in the Argentine research program, ran aground off the Antarctic Peninsula, spilling its cargo of fuel oil bound for Argentine research stations. Although the spill's effects are still under study, long-term research on Antarctic species--including investigations of how increased ultraviolet radiation penetrating through the Antarctic ozone hole affects marine life--has apparently been compromised. Obviously, the goal of Antarctic research should be to minimize harmful effects without curtailing significant scientific activities that contribute to global understanding and well-being. But who draws the line? And what criteria should be used? What ground rules make the most sense? First, we need to strengthen the environmental impact assessment procedure for scientific research and associated logistics operations in Antarctica. Focused not only on potential adverse impacts, but also on feasible alternatives, a review should reveal whether the research in question can be carried out as effectively and with less impact by other means outside of Antarctica. Key here is making this procedure subject to open and widespread review. Second, to make sure that the research carried out in Antarctica remains environmentally benign and complies with all applicable regulations, follow-up evaluation and oversight must be provided for. Third, we need well-defined principles for determining whether research proposals would extend the range of human knowledge and understanding as well as satisfy accepted performance standards. Essentially guidelines for international peer review, these principles could help weed out poorly designed or unnecessarily duplicative research. Next week, when parties to the 1959 Antarctic Treaty meet in Madrid, they will focus on a draft protocol dealing with comprehensive environmental protection of Antarctica. The draft's provisions on environmental impact assessment would create new opportunities for widespread review and comment before final decisions are made on proposed activities. The protocol would also strengthen institutional mechanisms for ongoing evaluation and oversight of the adequacy of these protective measures, including establishment and maintenance of a regional data base. Means to increase international cooperation in avoiding ad- verse environmental impacts-- whether through increased sharing of information on appropriate procedures and technologies or the establishment of shared research and logistics facilities to avoid concentrating research stations and programs in specific regions--will also be considered at the meeting. The physical isolation of Antarctica has fostered a collaborative spirit among investigators perhaps unequaled here in the world. That a scientific organization--the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR)--has grown up around the broad range of Antarctic science issues, rather than in accordance with the normal breakdown along scientific disciplines, helps perpetuate that spirit. Contacts made at SCAR meetings form the basis of frequent, year-round communications. In 1987, SCAR collaborated in a seminar on the Southern Ocean with the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of the United Nations family of organizations. More recently, SCAR developed a report on global change research in Antarctica--its contribution to planning for the worldwide International Geosphere/Biosphere Program (IGBP), a far-reaching effort to describe and understand the interactive physical, chemical, and biological processes that regulate the earth's systems and human effects on them. Antarctic scientists are beginning to emphasize the importance of designing top-notch monitoring protocols that would make such global process studies easier to conduct. One idea on the table is to let SCAR take the lead in producing these protocols, drawing on its long-standing interdisciplinary composition. Specifically, SCAR could identify information needs and gaps, agree on baselines for monitoring, and define the kind, location, and frequency of indicators to be monitored. In turn, these indicators could be incorporated into widely accepted monitoring protocols that reflect global aims and priorities and draw on models developed by the world meteorological community. Equally important is the question of integrated data management. Whether for Antarctica alone or as part of global scientific investigations, data collection and management programs need to be better integrated so that all findings can be compared and shared--already a high priority within Antarctic circles, including SCAR. By allowing nations to merge research objectives and split total program costs, international cooperation can also help secure funding for long-term initiatives in global monitoring. Following the 1980 Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources model, the scientific committee meets annually to evaluate five-year projected research plans, to define priorities, and to coordinate national research efforts to achieve them. Although each nation ultimately sets its own research agenda and level of funding, endorsements by the decision-making commission can sway national decisions. In a more formal arrangement, the 1984 Long-Term Financing of the Cooperative Program for Monitoring and Evaluation of the Long-Range Transmission of Air Pollutants in Europe, a protocol to the 1979 Economic Commission for Europe's Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution, establishes a monitoring program that its parties collectively agree to fund. As the Antarctic component of IGBP is elaborated, similar funding commitments might be sought. Lee Kimball is a senior associate at the World Resources Institute in Washington, D.C., and the author of Southern Exposure: Deciding Antarctica's Future (Washington, D.C., World Resources Institute, 1990), from which this essay is adapted. By framing the story as they did, most discussions of the event--and the subsequent news coverage--focused primarily on the "relatively minor problem" and what caused it, and not on the short-term and long-term risks to nearby residents from exposure to radiation. Unfortunately, the Ginna case is not an exception to the rule. Politicians, bureaucrats, and corporate managers regularly insist that information about environmental risks and crises be channeled through them so they can screen the news before it is funneled through the media to the public. The news allegedly is screened to protect the public from itself. In reality, it is frequently screened to protect government agencies and corporations that have acted irresponsibly, or to avoid a damaging public opinion shift against an industry. Scientists have several reasons for remaining silent when all of the relevant facts they have generated are not disseminated. Some may actually buy into the arguments that the public must be protected against itself, or that an industry or agency must be protected. Other scientists may be paid by the government and corporate officials who insist that they go through the "proper" channels in releasing information. One can be fired for insisting upon something (full disclosure) the boss doesn't want to do. Another reason is that scientists usually see themselves strictly as makers of scientific decisions, and not as the appropriate makers of political decisions about what is and what is not good for the public to know. Generally, scientists also view themselves as seekers, not disseminators, of truth. They are accustomed to seeing information held back because that is the essence of science: Facts are not disseminated until they are "validated" through the referee process. Some scientists may see parallels between that process and the process through which political decisions are "validated" by government and corporate leaders. Moreover, the culture of science certainly does not encourage scientists to get involved in politics. Since the release of risk-assessment information is essentially a political process, scientists tend to avoid it. Despite these many reasons for remaining silent in the face of potential environmental dangers, scientists must insist on the timely release of information because people have a right to know when their lives or the lives of their children are in danger. Also, the media will produce stories regardless of whether credible sources of scientific information--that is, scientists--cooperate with them. The major reason that these stories are frequently quite weak and misleading is that such sources have not cooperated. A National Aeronautic and Space Administration scientist recently complained about media coverage of one of NASA's secret missions for the United States Army. "They got everything wrong," he said. Of course they did; they had to do a story and nobody would talk. Scientists are uniquely qualified to argue for full disclosure of all information surrounding environmental crises. They are trained observers who have a better feel for risk assessment data than government and corporate officials do. Scientists also are less likely to let self-interest dictate that certain information not be released. Furthermore, many scientists, unlike many government and corporate officials, recognize the importance of the news media in conveying risk information. Research clearly shows that people rely on the media for information about risks of all kinds, and they can be influenced by that information. Given the media's importance in conveying risk information, it is critical that scientists be allowed to work with reporters to ensure that the public gets information as it becomes available. Even if the picture of a crisis is incomplete, as was the case with the recent oil spill in the Persian Gulf, scientists must work with journalists to make risk information available as soon as possible. Scientists not only must argue for full disclosure, but also must have an important say in how a story is "framed," which means deciding what a story means, what the appropriate context is, and how it is presented to the media. Typically, government and corporate officials frame stories in ways that will minimize political or economic damage. A study of magazine and newspaper coverage of the 1982 Ginna accident suggests that utility and government officials did not wish to report information until they had the "complete picture," and then they tried to frame the story as a "relatively minor problem." Newsweek (Feb. 8, 1982, page 65) quoted a Rochester Gas & Electric Co. spokesman as saying, "This accident didn't come within a country mile of Three Mile Island." And a Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman was quoted by the Los Angeles Times (Jan. 26, 1982, page 5) as saying, "I couldn't even try to compare it to Three Mile Island. You would not really say this is an accident. It is a `problem' and an `occurrence.'" The lack of information and the inappropriate framing of the Ginna accident were misleading at best. Residents should have had immediately the information they needed to decide whether to leave the area. When information is not made available immediately, corporate and government officials are, in effect, making the decision (usually to stay) for residents. Would scientists have framed the story differently? Probably so. They presumably would have been more honest about calling the accident an accident, and they probably would have presented specific risk assessments. In playing a more proactive role in the reporting of environmental crises, scientists must avoid two pitfalls into which many government and corporate officials have fallen. First, they must not make judgments about how the public will accept information because they then will inevitably worry that certain information is "dangerous" to publicize. That is the short road to censorship. Second, scientists should not underestimate the intelligence of the public. Many corporate and government officials are reluctant to discuss risk assessments because they fear journalists and the public cannot understand them. However, risk assessments must be discussed and journalists must report them. In the coverage of the Ginna accident, slightly more than one-half of the stories we studied reported risk data. Articles that did not report risk data were primarily "second day" stories. Writers and editors covering the Ginna accident apparently assumed it was enough to report the risk assessments one time and then move on to other aspects of the story. That is unsound for two reasons. First, many readers need reassurance that their chances of suffering harm have not increased since the "first day" story was published. Second, journalists covering a breaking story about a hazard should continue to seek risk information from a variety of sources, including the source from whom an initial risk assessment was obtained. Even when scientists and journalists work together to enlighten the public about environmental dangers, the task is difficult--primarily because it is so hard to explain how risk assessments are developed and what they mean. For example, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Rochester Gas & Electric Co. said that about 3 millirem of radiation were released at the Ginna plant boundary and that the risk to the human body was minimal. Where did that number come from? And how many millirem are required to harm the human body? Some journalists ignore specific numerical estimates (only 12 percent of the articles about Ginna reported quantitative risk data, for instance), but it is far better to report the numerical estimates and then use translating strategies--definitions, anal- ogies, comparisons, examples, and testimonials--to make them understandable. The Associated Press, for example, tried to place the 3 millirem number in perspective by pointing out that a dose of 600,000 millirem is considered lethal. The Los Angeles Times said 3 millirem is less than the amount of radiation one would get after flying from New York to London and back (Jan. 26, 1982, page 5). Scientist sources can and should help journalists think of translating strategies that will help media audiences understand complex risk assessments. That, in turn, will help audiences understand the magnitude of an environmental crisis. Many scientists are convinced this is not their job, but they must understand that it is, indeed, their job to help the public understand science--specifically, risk assessments. One problem with making the public understand is that reporters don't always understand complex scientific issues themselves. Editors, of course, can help ensure the dissemination of accurate, clear, precise, and timely information by assigning to crises journalists who are well-educated about science and whose beats are science-related. In the Ginna case, overall media coverage was weak because, acting on the best information furnished to them by government and corporate officials who characterized the event as a "problem," the media did not approach the event as a "risk story." When editors think they are covering a "risk story," they send their specialized science reporters on an overt hunt for details about the level of risk and tell them to seek explanatory information. In most other cases, they send general assignment reporters and tell them to focus on what happened, rather than on the level of risk presented by the accident. For their part, scientists must learn to recognize when they are dealing with scientifically illiterate reporters. They may well have to take some time to teach them about science and risk assessment. In the end, it is scientists--rather than corporate or government officials or representatives of the media--who must define "responsible" coverage of environmental risk and crisis. After they do so, it is also up to scientists to help insure the immediate dissemination of the best information available by working with journalists to explain clearly the risks associated with environmental events, regardless of whether such events are cast by others as mere problems or occurrences. Sharon Dunwoody is a professor at the University of Wisconsin's School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Michael Ryan is a professor at the University of Houston's School of Communication. James Tankard is a professor in the Department of Journalism at the University of Texas-Austin.

After Environmental Accidents, Public Deserves Full Candor

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