Citation:

Impact/Purpose:

Cumulative Risk Screening Methods Development Project

Description:

ASA Background and Overview - In 1995 the Chcago Legal Clinic and 11 Chicago-area community advocacy groups filed a partition under the Toxics Substances Control Act requesting that the USEPA Administrator prohibit or further regulate the emissions from eight proposed or constructed incinerators in the Chicago metropolitan area and Northwest Indiana. The petitioners believed that neither current statutes or local siting laws adequately address cumulative impacts of multiple sources of toxic pollutants in a geogrpahic area. They asked that the Administrator restrict emissions of dioxins, furans, mercury, lead and cadmium from these sources. In May 1996 the petition was withdrawn in response to the USEPA offer to participate in the investigation of multimedia pollutant impacts in Cook County, Illinois and Lake County, Indiana. This effort became ASA which is an attempt to investigate cumulative loadings and hazards from pollutant sources, develop communty-based activities to halp address these concerns and use analytc results to help prioritize the use of regulatory agency resources. USEPA and the petitioners agreed to a four phase project: (1) Environmental Loading Profile (complete); (2) Petitioner Risk Workshop (complete); (3) Hazard Screening Report; and (4) Risk Management Response (pending). Hazard Screening Report is authored mainly by the Argonne National Laboratory with input from local, state and federal participants. Reflecting stakeholder deliberations, the report focuses on cumulative hazard (not risk as typically defined by the USEPA) associated with noncriteria air pollutants ("air toxics") in the two county study area. It reles on "off the shelf" air pollutant information including USEPA's Toxics Release Inventory, Cumulative Exposure Project, Regional Ar Pollutant Inventory Development System and outdoor air monitoring data. Emissions estimates are "toxicity weighted" while modeled/monitored outdoor air pollutant concentrations are compared with reference values to develop "hazard index"-like ratios. The ratios or toxicity weighted emission estimates are used to derive indicators of cumulative hazard which are then mapped over study area locations. To identify geographic areas where potentially elevated hazards and individuals with potentially greater susceptibility are colocated, another part of the study assembles hazard information and data on existing human disease rates and indicators. External peer review of the report was completed in 2002.

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