A thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree
Master of Arts in Geography

by

Travis Roy Longcore

1995

A plan to build a low–level radioactive waste dump in the Ward Valley near Needles, California has generated significant controversy. This controversy provides an excellent example to investigate the dynamics of conflicts over the siting of noxious facilities. While the literature about risk and hazard should illuminate such situations, it leaves the problem of expert-lay disagreements largely unsolved. I review what seem to be some weaknesses of risk and hazard research and introduce a new method for understanding conflicts over risk–taking. My contention is that risk-related decisions are based on appeals to what I call a "narrative matrix"–the intertwining sets of narratives about personal identity, place, nation, nature, and science that form the psychological backdrop for moral decisionmaking–rather than on purportedly objective risk assessment. Applying this insight to the Ward Valley conflict exposes the strategies that various actors use to appeal to common elements of the narrative matrix and allows for a discussion of the underlying sources of conflict.

I. INTRODUCTION

II. RADIATION, WASTE, AND THE LAW

III. RISK, HAZARD, AND NARRATIVE

IV. TORTOISES, WASTE, AND GROUND WATER

V. CONCLUSION: NIMBY RECONSIDERED

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hartmut S. Walter

J. Nicholas Entrikin

Michael R. Curry, Committee Chair