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USING BIOASSAYS TO EVALUATE THE PERFORMANCE OF RISK MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES
Citation:
Acheson*, C M., C. Brinkman, AND G D. Sayles*. USING BIOASSAYS TO EVALUATE THE PERFORMANCE OF RISK MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES. Presented at EPA's Effective Risk Management of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals, Cincinnati, OH, 1/29/2002.
Description:
Often, the performance of risk management techniques is evaluated by measuring the concentrations of the chemials of concern before and after risk management effoprts. However, using bioassays and chemical data provides a more robust understanding of the effectiveness of risk management strategies. For example, bioassay testing evaluates the aggregate effect of the environmental sample on the reporting organisms, and thus, includes aspects such as environmental matrix effects, sorption/desorption behavior, bioavailability, and chemical mixture interactions. As a result, nioassay testing can demonstrate changes in toxicity rather than inferring risk reduction from chemical concentrations. When bioassays are used to evaluate samples following risk management techniques, increased responses are observed in some cases. These increased responses may be due to incomplete treatment or toxicity introduced through process amendments. When these types of problems are identified through bioassay testing, risk management techniques can be altered to correct the problem. The combination of chemical and bioassay data has been helpful in evaluating risk reduction technologies treating soils contaminated with hazardous wastes. Due to the limited knowledge about the endocrine activity of various chemicals and their degradation products, bioassays are even more important in evaluating the performance of EDC risk management treatments.