CHEMICAL RISK DECISION-MAKING

G. L. Elamm and R. G. Schwartz, Issues and Strategies in Risk Decision Making, International Process Safety Management Conference and Workshop, September 22-24, 1993, San Francisco, CA, 351-371, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, New York, NY, 1993. 

Investigating Chemical Process Incidents Auditing Process Safety Management Systems Making Acute Risk Decisions... 

CCPS G-21. Tools for Making Acute Risk Decisions with Chemical Process Safety Applications. American Institute of Chemical Engineers, Center for Chemical Process Safety, New York. 

Risk-based decision making and risk-based corrective action arc decision making processes for assessing and responding to a health hazard. The processes take into account effects on human healdi and the enviroiunent, inasmuch as chemical releases vaiy greatly in terms of complexity, physical and chemical characteristics, and in the risk that they may pose. Risk-based corrective action (RBCA) was initially designed by the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) to assess petroleum releases, but tlie process may be tailored for use with any hazard. 

IRIS is a database of human health effects that may result from exposure to various substances found in the environment. IRIS was initially developed for EPA staff in response to a growing demand for consistent information on chemical substances for use in risk assessments, decision-making and regulatory activities. 

PRIO is a web-based tool intended to be used to preventively reduce risks to human health and the environment from chemicals. The aim of PRIO is to facilitate in the assessment of health and environmental risks of chemicals so that people who work as environmental managers, purchasers and product developers can identify the need for risk reduction. To achieve this PRIO provides a guide for decision-making that can be used in setting risk reduction priorities. 

As a practical matter, risk reduction should always be considered before proceeding with QRA. If the cost of proposed risk-reduction measures is high, a detailed QRA may be justified. In this event, various risk-reduction options can be evaluated to determine which options produce the greatest benefit at the lowest cost. Additional guidance on risk-based decision making is available in the CCPS s Tools for Making Acute Risk Decisions with Chemical Process Apphcations (Ref. 77). 

This paper will summarize briefly some work my colleagues and I at Decision Focus Incorporated have carried out for EPA to show how decision analysis might be used to assist decision making under TSCA ( 5). I will first briefly review the concepts of quantitative risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis to show how decision analysis fits with these concepts and provides a natural way of extending them. Then I will illustrate the approach using a case study on a specific chemical, perchloroethylene. 

Risk Assessment. What is the incidence of the adverse health effects from the chemical agent This crucial question for regulatory decision making might be answered by combining the unit risk assessment with the exposure assessment. As In the exposure assessment, the question must be addressed in the context of one or more specific control policies. 

Decision making, process risk management decisions, documentation, 105-106 Decision point, chemical reactivity tests, 90 Decommissioning, chemical reactivity hazard management, 25 Decomposition pressure test, chemical reactivity tests, 88... 

In sum, if viewed apolitically, the problem of chemical hazards tends not to include considerations of (1) who gains and loses in risk decisions, (2) what logics and forces act on firms making such decisions, and (3) what responsibilities contemporary consumers are increasingly faced with, under the conditions of risk and uncertainty that result. A political approach to the risk ecology of the lawn, which addresses all these issues, seems relevant for understanding the problem. 

This approach may sound pretty good, but it does not make much sense. The I can t find it, so it must be safe approach to controlling environmental risks is flawed because it depends upon the operation of a relationship between technical capabilities to detect the presence of a chemical and the magnitude of the health risks it poses. There is no such relationship. Further elaboration of this issue is in order, and a specific example will be useful, because it leads us into the heart of risk-based decision-making. 

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