The assessment of risk is an important part of the cleanup process on hazardous sites. Remedial Investigations, risk assessments, and Feasibility Studies are designed to determine what cleanup actions are necessary to clean up contaminated sites. The Remedial Investigation identifies the nature and extent of the contamination. A risk assessment is used to identify human health and ecological risks of contaminated sites. Finally, a Feasibility Study is completed to evaluate remedial options based on the site specific risks that exist.
Over the next few blogs we are going to look in detail at each of the following topics; Ecological Risk Assessment, Human Health Rick Assessment, and the why behind assessing risk.
Ecological Risk Assessment
Ecological risk assessment is the qualitative and quantitative evaluation of occurring or potential impacts from contaminants at a hazardous waste site on plants and animals (excluding people).
Human Health Risk Assessment
Human health risk assessments employ quantitative models to approximate risk from contaminants at a hazardous waste site(s) on the human population.
Because the cleanup of these sites is highly regulated by local, state, and Federal agencies the EPA has produced a variety of guidance documents that are useful in understanding the risk assessment process, potential outcomes, and the types/amount of risk that is deemed "acceptable."
Why Assess Risk
In general, it is unrealistic to think that you can remediate a contaminated site from Superfund status to completely free of all contaminants. Therefore some level of risk must be identified and accepted.
So stick around...it is going to be a "risky" next few blog posts.
Photo via wyk
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