Organizing and managing radioactive waste disposal as an experiment

This paper examines organization and management issues engendered by the national program for permanent disposal of commercial radioactive wastes. Our description of current organizational and managerial responses to the waste disposal problem serves as a springboard for consideration of the technical, political, and organizational constraints that impinge upon the waste-management effort. Taking these constraints into account, we apply ideas that have emerged from previous radioactive waste-management studies and research on organizations, concluding that a change of course is needed. As an alternative, we propose an experimental approach predicated on the waste-management organization's acknowledging uncertainty and constructing responses that seek to reduce uncertainty systematically and without distortion.