Next >>

The Equitable Resilience Builder (ERB) is a newly released tool to support community resilience planning. ERB is a downloadable application that supports communities in strengthening resilience to disasters and climate change. It walks a core team of users through a guided proces...

Microplastics are ubiquitous in the environment and present potential adverse effects on human and environmental health. EPA's Office of Research and Development is interested in developing sampling and analytical methods for microplastic detection, investigating their effects on...

Ricin is a highly toxic protein, capable of inhibiting protein synthesis within cells, and is produced from the beans of the Ricinus communis (castor bean) plant. Numerous recent incidents involving ricin have occurred, many in the form of mailed letters resulting in both buildin...

This study characterized Bacillus globigii (BG) as a Bacillus anthracis Sterne (BAS) surrogate for wastewater treatment-related studies of UV inactivation, adsorption onto powdered activated carbon (PAC), and bioaerosol emission. The inactivation of BG was faster than that of BAS...

Industrial and waste management facilities can emit air pollutants and odorous compounds from fugitive leaks, process malfunctions, and area sources that are difficult to predict, quantify, and manage. These sources can produce a range of environmental and life quality impacts an...

Extensive research in recent years has reported higher per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS) concentrations in municipal solid waste (MSW) landfill leachate than other municipal wastewaters, including multiple studies of leachate from MSW landfills in the United States. Becau...

This presentation will examine how serious games are being used to enhance the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (US EPA’s) emergency response mission, by improving the ability of the emergency response community to quickly and effectively respond to a range of env...

Should biosolids be contaminated with an intentional malicious release or natural outbreak of Bacillus anthracis spores, a water resource recovery facility (WRRF) may need to consider if their treatment processes can sufficiently inactivate this pathogen. Three methods commonly e...

Disaster debris removal is essential for community recovery and resilience. However, it is a lengthy, costly, and logistically challenging part of response and recovery operations. Managing waste in a disaster situation requires the coordination of multiple entities at ...

The Sample Collection Plan (SCP) Template Tool for Addressing Radiochemical Analytes in Environmental Matrices is intended to provide a “ready-to-go” outline for creating a SCP in EPA-report format. The Tool provides a general description of the types of information and sections ...

Bacillus anthracis, the causative agent of inhalation anthrax, is one of the most highly studied biological threat agents. Significant gaps remain related to the remediation of a wide area following such biological release. This extends to the remediation of critical assets owned...

EPA has conducted prior decontamination research for traditional CWAs, but there is a scientific data gap for decontamination technologies capable of remediating sensitive equipment contaminated with a Fourth Generation Agent (FGA). The purpose of this project was to evaluate the...

A probability-based sampling design can be used to create statistically defensible sampling plans. However, these plans may have sampling collection and/or processing demands that exceed allotted resources. Targeted sampling designs, also referred to as judgmental sampling, use p...

This technical summary report provides a review of the U.S. EPA Office of Research and Development’s (ORD) laboratory studies that evaluated the efficacy of decontamination techniques to neutralize ricin on a variety of different surfaces. The tests referenced in this summa...

Global positioning systems (GPS) provide users with positioning, navigation, and timing services. However, this resource is limited when it comes to gathering information and guidance for interior spaces: GPS signals communicate with satellites and do not move easily through soli...

In the event of a chemical, biological, radiological, and/or nuclear (CBRN) wide-area incident, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is responsible for environmental remediation, waste disposal processes, data collection, and data quality checks to advise decision-makin...

Battelle and EPA evaluated the effectiveness of UAV platforms to perform volumetric measurements of various types of debris (e.g., biomass such as fallen vegetation, stacks of building material, and other debris) using  lidar and structure from motion (SfM) photogrammetry. T...

The purpose of this work is to provide data and information to refine existing guidance about how to flush per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from firefighting systems, specifically hangar systems and Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting (ARFF) vehicles. It is relevant to the...

Radioactive fallout could have debilitating effects on drinking water and wastewater systems. At least some drinking water system operators have plans to mitigate the effects of a contaminated water source, but most, if not all, wastewater operators have no such plans.  Both...

Legionella pneumophila (Lp) is an opportunistic drinking water pathogen that can cause infections through the inhalation of Lp-containing aerosols. Lp can occur in premise plumbing systems as these systems often have low disinfection residual, high surface area-to-volume ratios, ...

The threat of cascading and compounding disasters in low-income and underrepresented communities with hazardous and polluting sites makes urgent the need to build resilience. The Equitable Resilience Builder (ERB) is a new tool designed for situations where capacity and resources...

Report on the Wide Area Demonstration (WAD) under the Analysis for Coastal Operational Resiliency (AnCOR) project. The AnCOR WAD was conducted from May 2 through May 27, 2022. The test venue was located at Fort A.P. Hill (FAPH), Bowling Green, VA. All work will was conducted at F...

Drinking water storage tanks serve several important functions, which include but are not limited to providing an adequate water supply in the case of firefighting emergencies, power outages, water main breaks, or other system failures. The water level elevation in storage tanks ...

The purpose of this research was to determine the viability of installing low-cost storm sewer retrofit devices in multiple locations within an urban watershed.  A major component of this was the necessity for designing, fabricating, and operation of such retrofits which are not ...

This is a power point presentation that summarizes the potential for phototoxicity of crude and refined oils. The presentation will cover the phototoxic components of oil, mechanisms of petroleum phototoxicity, and the environmental and biological modulation of phototoxicity.