[This Place is Not a Place of Honor] The Futures Panel: Writing Sci-Fi on the Government Dime

 The comprehensive report created by Sandia National Laboratories in 1993 was and still remains one of the foremost studies on nuclear waste warning markers. It utilized guidelines and research done by the HITF in 1984, though the iconic hostile architecture design proposals, tiered system of information delivery, and infamous written waste warning (This place is not a place of honor etc.) all arrived from that effort to prevent long-term human intrusion on the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. Up to now, when we’ve discussed the Sandia Report we’ve been mostly examining the proposals and guidelines put forth by the markers panel. However, another crucial aspect of the process, one which informed the markers panel to create their innovative and adaptable solutions, was the preliminary “futures panel”, whose task it was to chart future methods of human intrusion into the WIPP, examine the probability of various types of intrusion, and model scenarios for the development of human societies over the next ten millennia. This is where we find science fiction bleeding into nuclear semiotics. 

    The Futures Panel, like the HITF and the markers panel, was composed of a wide variety of disciplines: physics, social science, law, science fiction, climatology, and futures research (a deeply intriguing field of study I hadn’t heard of until now) to name a few. They hired 16 consultants, and to fully exhaust every possible scenario, divided them into 4 groups of 4 based on geographical location, each group containing experts in different fields. Due to this split, the panel ended up with a variety of methodologies carried out by each team and differentiating factors for intrusion projected by each one. Specified in the issue statement was the need for broad-based knowledge and creativity in the projections for future societies, and a call for “scenario analysis” of future civilizations, and the product was a vast, interdisciplinary range of detailed, vaguely science fiction-sounding concepts. 

    The Futures Panel first determined the different modes of inadvertent intrusion into the WIPP. Some are what you might already know or expect, such as archaeological or construction-based excavation of a site, drilling for oil, mining, or water impoundment, though a few of these methods may appear less obvious. The Boston team raised the possibility of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant being reopened for the storage of additional waste materials, and a few of the teams realized inadvertent intrusion could occur from digging transportation tunnels. 

    They then examined potential influencing factors which could lead a society to forget the danger of the site, misinterpret or ignore markers, and pursue these methods of intrusion. All four teams agreed that technological advancement or regression would be a great determining factor in future intrusion, and the patterns of technology might switch back and forth in a variety of ways. The Boston team argued that both technological innovation and stagnation might both increase the likelihood of interference, as more advanced and less dangerous mining tech might increase the incentive to drill on a site, and technological stagnation might promote excavation when resources are scarce. The Washington A team, on the other hand, identified a scenario in which technology stagnates due to 100% efficiency energy recycling, which would make intrusion for resources unnecessary and unlikely. 

    Additionally, population growth would create incentives to excavate the site for potential resources. Economic growth was of foremost concern to only the Washington B team, which argued that other factors such as a need for resources and the industrialization of the future would vary based on wealth, and that trade might cause less technologically advanced communities to have access to drilling technology, without knowledge of the risks drilling at a site would pose. As expected, a lack of awareness would be key, and improper records would largely increase the probability of intrusion, especially if there is only partial memory of the WIPP, as an understanding of the site’s location but not its dangers could incentivize archeologists or salvagers. Two of the four teams asked for consideration of not marking the site whatsoever in order to discourage deliberate exploration by “treasure-hunters”, though the Markers team concluded from their overall recommendations that possibilities of inadvertent intrusion through mining might increase if the WIPP is left unmarked. 

    The last influencing factor is government control, something guaranteed by all four teams, as cultural transitions caused by political change would discontinue the perpetuating information or mythology surrounding the WIPP and cause markers to become lost in translation. Strangely enough, three out of four of the teams modelled specific scenarios in which New Mexico secedes from the United States, two of which predict its annexation by Mexico. 

    These established factors were displayed in a number of scenarios, the variety of which is too great to cover in a single post, but I’ve cherry picked some of the more influential or intriguing ones. 

    The Boston team presented ten highly detailed “point scenarios”, and for each one determined the probability of each of its most important features occurring. A scenario titled “Mysticism and Religion- 2091” projected that an anti-science cult would dig into the site to discover alternate realities and the meaning of life, describing the scenario in a notably detailed style, even explaining the ideologies of the cult and the names of several priests. Of course, the probability is astronomically low that the scenario would take place word for word, down to the religious epiphanies and childhood experiences of a cultist named Senoj, though this scenario echoes some concerns raised against Sebeok’s atomic priesthood, in that the propagation of warnings surrounding nuclear waste may lead some to misinterpret it as religious significance. 

    Also created by the Boston team, “A Feminist World- 2091” presented an extremist female-dominated society, which disregards all science from the 20th century as byproducts of male arrogance, and dismisses the warnings because they discovered they were all created by white middle aged men. The writing arguably villainizes feminism as a movement to reject all men and all scientific knowledge associated with men, rather than it being a push for equality between genders, though this is beyond the scope of my analysis. One thing to gain from the exploration of this scenario is that it does highlight some biases of the WIPP team, and in the conclusions section, the Boston team proposed consulting more women or members of ethnic minorities. 

    A “seesaw scenario” in which technology fluxes between advancement and regression was deemed one of the most dangerous by the Southwest team. In this particular model, an energy crisis after the exhaustion of fossil fuels causes machinery to become unusable, and plunges society into a technological dark age. Overtime, the languages we use today fall out of practice (though, in an interesting detail, they are maintained exclusively by the scholars of religious institutions). Society builds back up to around the level of the 18th or 19th century, until old machinery is rediscovered which is deemed to be much more efficient, and the search for a source of energy to power them up again causes people to drill for oil in New Mexico and eventually breach the WIPP. The rise, fall, and remembrance of technology is a common device in many science fiction stories, and it’s one the Southwest team argued would be both likely and dangerous

    The Washington A team centered their research around the availability of resources in the future, and presented four possible scenarios. The fourth is presented as an optimistic best-case scenario, and many of their recommendations aim to spur societal change in that direction. The ideal that population growth and technological advancement regardless of environmental consequence is disregarded, and humans enter an era of constant harmony and coexistence with the environment. The spare technological efforts are to develop renewable energy to the point of 100% efficiency, and the population remains stagnant to reduce stress on the environment. In this scenario, there would be no need to drill for oil, as no energy shortage or demand is present. It’s a lofty goal, though it does provide a beneficial end goal to their recommendations, one of which is to focus efforts on propagating renewable energy technologies around the site such as solar panels or wind turbines, so there will be no future energy hunger.  

    The Washington B team did not model a highly specific scenario like the other teams, though their “general” projections were arguably the most narrow of all 4 teams, notably affixed to the idea that capitalism is going to be a constant in all human society for the next ten millennia. The majority of their report detailed the projections for the GDP per capita and population growth. Inflation of oil costs would be the most dangerous possibility for the future and the most likely incentive for intrusion, though they argued the lowest possible scenario would be a rejection or erosion of Western powers. If such a “social shock” were to cut people off from Capitalist Western civilization, it would either be due to fanatic religious extremists forcing people to reject capitalist ideologies, or due to some unknown disease afflicting the mind or emotions which would alter human behavior to inflict such an unprecedented “civilization break”. I am by no means exaggerating; these two situations are their only modelled instances in which society would de-Westernize, and of course, both were deemed unlikely. 

    It’s apparent some of these projections are pretty tongue-and-cheek, as the Boston team prefaced their “point scenarios” section with, “Even though we have written the scenarios with an occasional attempt at humor, they have a serious purpose.” Though, as these researchers emphasize, just because a scenario is wildly improbable does not mean it can’t be useful. The same result of intrusion could result from a vast number of societies, and 10,000 years from now there are bound to be aspects of society which sound absurd to us today. Absurd fictional models of the future may be just what we need to provoke creative solutions for an existentially long-term problem, and as a result, their suggestions were relied upon and referenced often in the markers panel report. 

References:

Trauth, Kathleen, et al. United States, Department of Energy, Sandia National Laboratories. Expert Judgment on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. Albuquerque, New Mexico, Government Printing Office, 1993. https://prod-ng.sandia.gov/techlib-noauth/access-control.cgi/1992/921382.pdf

Hora, Stephen, et al. United States, Department of Energy, Sandia National Laboratories. Expert Judgment on Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. Albuquerque, New Mexico, Government Printing Office, 1991. https://www.wipp.energy.gov/library/cca/CCA_1996_References/Chapter%207/CREL3329.PDF
[This is the final report of the Futures Panel for the WIPP project. It summarizes the teams' findings, methodology and conclusions, and in its appendix you'll find all four individual team reports.]

Gordon, Theodore, et al. United States, Department of Energy, Sandia National Laboratories. Inadvertent Intrusion into WIPP: Some Potential Futures. Albuquerque, New Mexico, Government Printing Office, 1990.
[The Future Panels Boston team report. It takes a double sided approach, offering general suggestions for what could cause a breach in the WIPP, then adds 10 highly specific narrative scenarios. I would argue that out of the four teams, this one explores the most absurdly creative possibilities.]

Benford, Gregory, et al. United States, Department of Energy, Sandia National Laboratories. Ten Thousand Years of Solitude? On Inadvertent Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Project Repository. Albuquerque, New Mexico, Government Printing Office, 1990.
https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/22/064/22064107.pdf
[The Futures Panel Southwest team report. Their research revolved around a few predicted patterns of technological advancement or regression and models at least one highly specific society for each pattern.]

Chapman Duane, et al. United States, Department of Energy, Sandia National Laboratories. Inadvertent Intrusion into the WIPP Repository: Report of Washington Area Team A to the Sandia National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy. Albuquerque, New Mexico, Government Printing Office, 1990.
[The Futures Panel Washington A team report. Their focus was placed on availability of energy resources in the future, and modelled 4 general possibilities for technological and societal development due to the society's access to fuel.]

Glickman, Theodore, et al. United States, Department of Energy, Sandia National Laboratories. The Report of the Washington Area Second Team on Future Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the WIPP Repository. Albuquerque, New Mexico, Government Printing Office, 1990.
[The Futures Panel Washington B team report. It's mostly concerned with the state of the economy 10,000 years into the future and how the market's demands might incite intrusion onto the WIPP in search for oil.]

Glenn, Jerome C. “Introduction to the Futures Research Methods Series.” The Millennium Project, Futures Research Methodology—V3.0, April 30 2009. 

Benford, Gregory. Deep Time: How Humanity Communicates Across Millennia. New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 2000. 
[Gregory Benford is a science fiction author who consulted on the Southwest team of the Futures Panel; his first nonfiction book, Deep Time, explores various ways in which humanity has attempted to send messages to future societies, and it recounts his experiences working on the WIPP project. It provides an intriguing personal perspective that's hard to come by between cut and dry government report sources, and you really get insight into the thought process of the panelists, plus his background as an author contributes to its readability.]