Environmental risk reporting

In New Jersey Peter Sandman and a group of researchers from Rutgers University are involved in a far reaching project examining that state s environmental risk reporting. Their work so far has... 

Gotsch, A. R. Gochfeld, M. "Environmental Risk Reporting in New Jersey Newspapers," Environmental Risk Reporting Project, Industry/University Cooperative Center for Research in Hazardous and Toxic Substances, New Jersey Institute of Technology, January, 1986. 

Peterson, R. Invitational Symposium on Environmental Risk Reporting, 1985. 

An environmental risk in solution mining is surface subsidence. This risk is greatest with embedded salt. No cases of salt subsidence have been reported in mining domes that have been mined according to standard industry approved practice in the United States, but some have been seen in other countries. One side benefit of dome solution mining is use of the cavities later for storage of industrial fluids, chiefly petroleum and natural gas. 

EPA. 1980b. 8E Substantial risk report Symptoms of all employees who had some contact with exotherm, follow up study of EPA document control no. 8EHQ-0480-0338. Submitted to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Pesticides and Toxic Substances, Washington, DC, by the Lockheed Missiles Space Company, Inc. EPA/OPTS 8EHQ-0980-0338. Fiche no. OTS0200599. 

Rosenblatt, D.H. "Environmental Risk Assessment for Four Munitions-related Contaminants at Savanna Army Depot Activity," Technical Report 8110, U.S. Army Medical Bioengineering Research and Development Laboratory, Fort Detrick, Frederick, MD, November 1981, AD A116650. 

Brooke DN, Crookes MJ, Gray D, Robertson S (2009) Environmental risk assessment report decamethylcyclopentasiloxane. Environmental Agency of England and Wales, Bristol... 

The liquid and solid effluents are well characterized. As the ACW I Committee noted in its original and supplemental reports, the gaseous process emissions will have to be characterized for health risk assessments and environmental risk assessments required by EPA guidelines (NRC, 1999, 2000a). These results, along with the results of analyses of metals emissions (including chromium VI), can be used to assess the environmental impact of a facility through accepted risk-assessment methods (EPA, 1998). 

EPA. 1980b. Substantial risk report EPA number 8EHQ-0879-0301. Environmental Protection Agency. Washington DC. 

The first draft of the risk assessment reports are written by the Member States, which act as rapporteurs . Generally, one Member State acts as rapporteur for a prioritized substance or group of substances however, for some prioritized substances, more than one Member State can act as rapporteurs. The risk assessment process is coordinated by the ECB. Stakeholders are involved in the process through the Technical Committee for New and Existing Substances (TC NES). The Commission mediates the meetings, which attempt to reach consensus on the conclusions of the risk assessments. During the risk assessment process, the Scientific Committee on Health and Environmental Risks (SCHER) is requested to provide an opinion. 

The most important question for biomonitoring efforts to address is whether exposure to a chemical causes health effects. Few data are available on most of the chemicals measured in population studies, such as NHANES, to address that question (Metcalf and Orloff 2004). For example, the Government Accountability Office (GAO 2005) reports that EPA has limited data on the health and environmental risks posed by chemicals now used in commerce. A survey of risk-assessment practitioners on the extent to which biomarkers are used in risk assessment concluded that the absence of chemical-specific data (for example, toxicologic and epidemiologic data) was the primary limitation in using exposure biomarkers in risk assessment (Maier et al. 2004). 

Several papers have also reported toxicity data for a variety of metals and organic substances simultaneously. Reasons for conducting such investigations include 1) establishing the concentrations at which chemicals exert their adverse effects (e.g., at the ng/L, pg/L or mg/L levels), 2) estimating environmental risk based on measured toxicity endpoints and predicted environmental concentrations for specific chemicals and 3) defining toxicant concentrations harmful for specific biotic levels and/or assemblages of species within each level. 

European Centre for Ecotoxicology and Toxicology of Chemicals, The Role of Bioaccumulation in Environmental Risk Assessment The Aquatic Environment and Related Food Webs, Technical Report 67, Brussels, Belgium, 1996. 

Verbruggen EMJ, Rita JP, Traas TP, Posthuma-Doodeman CJAM, Posthumus R. 2005. Environmental risk limits for several phosphate esters, with possible application as flame retardants. National Institute for Public Health and the Environment Bilthoven (NL) RIVM Report 601501024. 118 p. 

Fairman R, Mead CD, Williams WP. 1998. Environmental risk assessment approaches, experiences and information sources. Environmental Issue Report 4. Copenhagen (DK) European Environmental Agency. 

King DJ, Lyne RL, Girling A, Peterson DR, Stephenson R, Short D. 1996. Environmental risk assessment of petroleum substances the hydrocarbon block method. Report 96/52. Brussels Concawe, Petroleum Products Ecology Group. 

USEPA] US Environmental Protection Agency. 1999. Residual risk report to Congress. EPA-453/R-99-00. Triangle Park (NC) Office of Air Quality, Planning and Standards US Environmental Protection Agency. 

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