The Clark County Monitoring System – An Early Warning Indicator System for Clark County, Nevada
Abstract
The U.S. Department of Energy proposed shipping 77,000 metric tons of high-level nuclear waste from civilian nuclear reactor sites and weapons facilities from throughout the country through Clark County, Nevada on its way for permanent geological burial at a repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. This proposal is met with steadfast concern and opposition by Clark County residents and decision makers. The primary areas of concern include potential stigma-related impacts to the area’s tourism economy, negative quality of life impacts, and public health and safety issues. In response to these concerns, Clark County and its incorporated jurisdictions have developed an indicator based monitoring program that serves as an ‘‘early warning system’’ of changes occurring to the area’s socio-economic, fiscal, environmental, and public health and safety well-being. This chapter discusses the reasons the monitoring program was developed; describes how the monitoring program was designed and implemented; details the components and methodology used in developing each of its components; summarizes the lessons learned in implementing a monitoring program; and concludes with a look forward to the future for monitoring.
Keywords
Monitoring Program Emergency Medical Service Nuclear Waste Community Indicator Location QuotientPreview
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