OUTREACH, PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT

In cooperation and consultation with the Site Specific Advisory Board the Voinovich School developed video and photographic documentation that fostered greater understanding of past, present, and future conditions at the PORTS site. The primary objectives of the documentary and the complimentary photographic essay were to capture oral histories of the site and to illustrate the current public engagement process as it related to the ongoing cleanup of the PORTS site. The documentary (approximately 40-minute in length) and photographic essays allowed the Department of Energy to showcase the model of community participation that guided the end state vision process at PORTS. This model encompassed the entire end state visioning process, including but not limited to, public meetings, outreach to local communities via different media formats and events, and the visioning teams in Jackson, Pike, Ross, and Scioto counties.

Casey Hayward

None at this time

The Ohio University (OU) PORTSfuture project engaged hundreds of community members from Pike, Jackson, Ross, and Scioto counties in developing possible future-use scenarios for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PORTS) facility in Piketon, Ohio.

Community groups developed nine possible scenarios that were voted on by the public-at-large during the summer and fall of 2011. OU has summarized the results of the PORTSfuture project and the public preferences. This report has been submitted to the DOE Office of Environmental Management for their consideration as they make clean-up and risk reduction decisions about the site. The PORTSfuture process was documented by Ohio University in a recently released video documentary entitled “Vision”.