They may have different understandings of technical issues and diverse values and philosophies, but the Tribal and Stakeholders Working Group is in agreement on the need to improve the relationship between people and their environment. The group represents an effort by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science and Technology to collaborate early on with tribes and stakeholders to evaluate alternatives for treating mixed low-level waste.

Ginger Swartz, an independent stakeholder coordinator for the group, said the TSWG represents the first substantial effort to pay attention to tribal and stakeholder issues during the technology evaluation process. "Stakeholders have been calling for a closer connection to the technical people because once a technical decision has been made, it's really difficult for stakeholders to have meaningful input. If you include them early on, you won't have to stop the train. They will have either expressed their dissatisfaction or offered an alternative," Swartz said.

Now in existence for little more than a year, the TSWG came into being when DOE's Office of Science and Technology heeded the advice of a peer review panel commenting on DOE's Integrated Thermal Treatment Study completed in late 1994. (See Initiatives, December 1995.) Noting that thermal technologies pose concerns for many stakeholders and that nonthermal technologies had not been substantially considered, the panel recommended that OST expand its review to nonthermal technologies. This recommendation was supported by the Mixed Waste Working Group of the Western Governors' Association, which further proposed that DOE include stakeholders as soon as possible in the decision-making process.

OST began its search for participants by sending a letter of invitation to those people listed with the Community Leaders Network (an informal OST stakeholder group), the Tribal Leaders Council, and the Western Governors' Association Mixed Waste Working Group. Out of approximately 45 people who responded, OST selected 20 to form TSWG. OST recently sought additional tribal participation by posting an announcement to the Internet Listserv for the American Indian Science and Engineering Society. TSWG works in conjunction with a Technical Support Group, which was initially formed to look at the technical issues. The memberships of the two groups overlap, bringing a closer connection between those with technical and nontechnical expertise.

Carl Cooley, an OST senior technical advisor, commented on the benefit of early interactions between technical and nontechnical people: "Technical people can tend to become myopic and get so focused on a solution that they don't think broadly enough about the options. In reality, your technical options are driven by the issues of the environment where you want to apply them, and they aren't just issues of today but issues of the future. If you have interactions with stakeholders early on, and you have to explain what you're doing and why, that helps you to think long-term. It can also be an eye-opening experience."

Bill Quapp is a consulting engineer with Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, which took the lead in the original technical study; this was his first experience in a technology evaluation process of this nature. "The level of involvement of these stakeholders was far more detailed than normally occurs in public hearings. The group is composed of a wide range of backgrounds, and it was challenging to communicate the engineering in broad terms because the messages are so complex."

From a tribal perspective, the TSWG presents a challenge not only of working with people of different technical understandings, but of different values, belief systems, and philosophies.

"Everyone works out of a philosophical base," says Lt. Governor Steve Juanico of the Acoma Pueblo in Acoma, New Mexico. "Our tribe's view has to do with nurturing the environment and the elements [and avoiding further destruction]. The relationship between man and the environment must be there. What's spoiled this relationship is a different value system that exploits those resources. I don't know if others can totally understand our view. [Through the TSWG,] we've been able to submit our viewpoints into the process, but how our belief system will fit into technology development is still a question because we don't know what the outcome of the technology will be. What will it produce?"

Making an attempt to add cultural, social, and spiritual values to the technology planning process, the TSWG and TSG are recording tribal and stakeholder concerns and are creating a matrix to identify matches between these principles and the technical evaluation criteria. "Our goal," said Cooley, "is to reach a consensus on the future R&D direction for systems that can treat mixed low-level waste. What should we be supporting in the future?"