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Society For Risk Analysis Annual Meeting 2007

Risk 007: Agents of Analysis

Session Schedule & Abstracts

* Disclaimer: All presentations represent the views of the authors, and not the organizations that support their research. Please apply the standard disclaimer that any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations in abstracts, posters, and presentations at the meeting are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other organization or agency. Meeting attendees and authors should be aware that this disclaimer is intended to apply to all abstracts contained in this document. Authors who wish to emphasize this disclaimer should do so in their presentation or poster. In an effort to make the abstracts as concise as possible and easy for meeting participants to read, the abstracts have been formatted such that they exclude references to papers, affiliations, and/or funding sources. Authors who wish to provide attendees with this information should do so in their presentation or poster.

Common abbreviations

W4-I Decision Analysis Approaches for Industrial Facilities Room: 207B   4:00 - 5:20 PM

Chair(s): Tom Brody

W4-I.1  16:00  Estimating Populations Around Superfund Sites Using National Land Cover Infused Geographic Interpolation. Lehrman L, Brody T*; US EPA   brody.tom@epa.gov Abstract: A November 13, 2006 memo from The United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) Deputy Administrator Marcus Peacock instructed agency staff to undertake a Workload Assessment for the Superfund Program. The Assessment was in response to several reviews that recommend EPA manage Superfund resources more effectively. A working group was formed to tackle the various facets of prioritizing initiatives in the Superfund program. One of these facets included establishing the population affected around the portfolio of sites in the program. The working group established the definition of population as the population within one mile of the site boundary. Analysts interpolated this population using block data from the Census by appropriating the percentage of the block inside the one mile buffer to block’s population count. This simple interpolation method assumes the population is uniformly distributed within the block. Although population count can be relatively uniform in urban blocks, this simple interpolation method may lose accuracy in rural areas where larger blocks may capture several unpopulated areas such as farms and water bodies. To this end, the authors wanted to see if there are significant differences between using this simple interpolation method and a method that infuses the newly released 2001 National Land Cover Data (NLCD 2001). NLCD 2001 separates developed areas from other land cover. This NLCD 2001 infused method proportioned the population in the blocks to the developed areas from the NLCD 2001 and then interpolated the data in the one mile boundary. The analysis indicates substantial differences between the simple interpolation and NLCD 2001 infused methods when the population count within the one mile boundary is small (<10,000 people). Other anecdotes will be described in our exploration of the new NLCD 2001 layer. The views expressed in this abstract and presentation are solely those of its authors and do not express the views or policies of the US EPA. This document does not create any rights, duties, obligations and/or privileges, either substantive or procedural, which may be asserted in any enforcement action against any party.

W4-I.2  16:20  Cumulative Risk Assessment for Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) from Petrochemical Plants in Southern Taiwan. Chu H*; California State University, Chico   annchu815@yahoo.com Abstract: Researches have shown that volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are human carcinogens to cause various kinds of cancers and also cause non-cancer health effects such as leukemia. VOCs emitted from petrochemical plants have been a major concern for human health in the neighborhood of the petrochemical industrial park in southern Taiwan. The purpose of this research is to conduct a cumulative risk assessment to evaluate the risk associated with emissions of VOCs from petrochemical plans in southern Taiwan, and build a framework of risk-based decision making to help the government to set regulatory standards to reduce people’s exposure and the risk of experiencing health problems. Cumulative risk assessment has been used to evaluate the risk associated with exposure to multiple agents by multiple routes. In this research, as for the agents, we focused on benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene, xylene, butane, and 1,3-butadiene. As for the routes, we focused only on air dispersion and deposition. The toxicity information (i.e. unit risk and RfC) were extracted from the U.S. EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), Cumulative Exposure Project (CEP), or California Environmental Protection Agency (Cal EPA). We first used EPA’s ISC3 model (based on Gaussian dispersion model) to simulate the dispersion and deposition of VOCs. Using ArcGIS to combine the results of Gaussian dispersion model and population data, we further conducted human risk assessment to calculate the risk associated with VOCs, including maximum individual lifetime risk, distribution of individual risk, and population cancer risk. Finally, this study provided suggestions in risk-base decision making.

W4-I.3  16:40  Application of a risk management method to contaminated sites in Japan. Fujinaga A*, Uchiyama I, Morisawa S, Yoneda M, Yoshioka M, Sasamoto Y; Osaka Prefectural College of Technology   fujinaga@ipc.osaka-pct.ac.jp Abstract: In Japan, environmental criteria, which are set in case of drinking groundwater through lifetime, are used as criteria for contaminated soil and groundwater. On the other hand, USA and Netherlands manage contaminated sites by risk assessment (RA), which can consider site conditions. However, RA needs additional survey and analysis of the contaminated site. A new framework was proposed for setting a practicable remediation goal of mixed contaminants in soil and groundwater to manage human risks due to exposure to the contaminants. The framework was applied as a case study on a contaminated site to determine the remediation goal, and it was discussed on its effectiveness and applicability. For the site where groundwater is not used for drinking or for industrial use, exposure pathways are limited, and the soil/groundwater concentrations of remediation goal were set larger than environmental criteria without losing the estimated health risks. This may suggest that a wide variety of in-situ remediation methods such as monitored natural attenuation and bioremediation, which are difficult to achieve the Japanese environmental criteria in limited time, could be used for the practical candidate remediation methods. Tasks to apply this risk management method in Japan are advertising health risk to the Japanese society, setting up Japanese RA method, evaluating toxicity for Japanese RA, creating an official third party to approve RA. From now on, researchers, business men, and governors, who are related to RA, need to cooperate to solve these tasks. Then, residents can select RA as a useful method to manage contaminated sites.

W4-I.4  17:00  A specific history task : Retrieving former tracks of first "radioactive" industry : radium industry in FRANCE during the first quarter of XX th century. DAVID J F*; COMPAGNIE NATIONALE DES EXPERTS JUDICIAIRES EN ENVIRONNEMENT   jf.david.@experts-judiciaires.org Abstract: FRANCE has been location of preliminary work in nuclear industry with discovery of radium by Pierre and Marie CURIE in 1898. Since that time, some industries developed in order to : - provide radium for health treatments and research work, - be a source of development for new applications for radioactive products, in that time those were products of natural radioactivity. That "heroic" time lasted some decades ; after 1934 discovery of artificial radioactivity reshuffled that industry. The first plants disappeared and land use changed. Industrial history was swallowed in a black hole. At the end of the XXth century a part of that history was uncovered. In order to decide properly the kind of "clean up" to be performed, a new assessment of that former industry had to be conducted, including an industrial history. Beside written contribution, oral presentation will be backed by power points slides (schemes, photographs) Presentation will tackle : -1) An overview of a true case, in the outskirts of PARIS, -2 ) Stand points from external assessment (through environmental measurements – soils and buildings) to assessment through archives (and few historical sources), the pieces of past which can be handled, -3) method developed to rebuild an industrial history for forgotten “pre nuclear” radioactive sites, leading from a black hole to a grey hole, - the crosswise approach in information and knowledge management (versus "silo" or vertical approach of public official agencies, each of them with its own file) - pieces of information gathered and consequences for new "hazard management plan" in new clean up project -4) consequences for land owners : liability, financing (public and private part), burden sharing in land rehabilitation project management -5) Outlook for historical and archive work inclusion in design of project management rules for old industries clean up.

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