Miljöhot och medborgaroro.pdf - Myndigheten för samhällsskydd ...

than the non-affected citizens. Those affected described the local government
in Båstad as uninformed and uninterested. The local authorities took neither
them, their worries nor the incident seriously. Those not affected sympathised
with the Båstad authorities in their struggle against the giants - the National
Rail Administration and Skanska – and were also of the opinion that the
information they received had fully satisfied their need for information.
Those affected described the information as, e.g., insufficient, contradictory
and unreliable. The emotional state of those affected might have influenced
these negative judgements. However, these circumstances do not exclude the
possibility that actual deficiencies in information did exists (e.g., the unclarity
of the maps sent out by the local authorities). The citizens' confidence in the
sender also plays a role. The interviewees were already suspicious of the local
government in Båstad before the poison catastrophe. The interviewees –
affected as well as non-affected – expressed a low level of confidence in local
authorities which was based on various "political affairs". However, it also
appeared that certain of those who had earlier been critical toward the local
Båstad government were inclined to trust it during the crisis period ("who
else could we trust?").
The participating Bjäre residents considered the media to be an independent
actor - an actor that stood on the side of the citizens and against the
"enemy" (the National Rail Administration and Skanska). The media's coverage
of the crisis was largely judged positively by the interviewees, and the media
were also one of the few groups of people that the interviewees dared to trust
during the catastrophe period. After the poisoning, the interviewees had no
confidence in the "experts" (the National Rail Administration and Skanska).
However, the interview material suggests that the incident at Halland ridge
has not only led to a loss of confidence in the actors involved, but also to reduced
confidence in social institutions in general.
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