Science Inventory

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Field-level exercises with the purpose to assess remediation following the deliberate release of a highly toxic chemical in an indoor environment can be conducted using low(er) toxicity simulants if they are closely linked to the behavior of the toxic chemical itself. Experimenta...

The EPA is enhancing the nation’s ability to respond to and recover from a chemical warfare agent (CWA) incident through research to develop environmental countermeasures and response exercises/training. Recently, researchers and responders were brought together to conduct ...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Homeland Security Research Program has been conducting research to evaluate the efficacy of air cleaning and treatment technologies against infectious bioaerosols. The COVID-19 pandemic has increased interest in these technol...

Summary of the research investigating the fate of pesticides on porous surfaces, including the transport into permeable paint or sealant and porous sublayers. The mis- or overuse of pesticides continues to occur across the USA in relation to the bed bug epidemic. The fate and tra...

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...

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...

The U.S. EPA’s Homeland Security Research Program (HSRP) is charged with protecting human health and the environment from accidental and intentional releases of toxic chemicals and other threat agents. Such chemical agents include Fourth Generation Agents (FGAs), which repr...

The Analysis for Coastal Operational Resiliency (AnCOR) program is an interagency collaboration between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the United States Coast Guard (USCG). The overall purpose of this multiagency pro...

This subproduct contains text and pictures for an update/extension of the EPA Emergency Response Research's Analysis for Coastal Operational Resiliency (AnCOR) webpage (https://www.epa.gov/emergency-response-research/analysis-coastal-operational-resiliency). It describes the wide...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) strives to protect human health and the environment from adverse impacts resulting from incidents involving biological outbreaks or the intentional release of threat agents. Over the last 15 years several interagency efforts have bee...

Rapid decontamination following a biological terror incident is paramount for the return of a city’s operations and economy to normalcy. An outdoor urban biological agent incident may require remediation of thousands of vehicles. In this research, the utilization of widely availa...

Aims: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of steam heat for inactivation of SARS-CoV-2 when applied to materials common in mass transit installations. Methods and Results: SARS CoV-2 (USA-WA1/2020) was resuspended in either cell culture media or synthetic sali...

Illicit fentanyl activities can lead to complex contamination incidents and create exposure risks to law enforcement, emergency responders, remediation contractors, and the public. The objective of this presentation is to provide an overview of conducted research to assist i...

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the role that airborne transmission can play in the spread of disease. Accordingly, there is increased interest in technologies that claim to reduce or eliminate virus transmission via aerosols in occupied indoor spaces, such as in schools, t...

Analytical methods exist to detect biothreat agents in environmental samples during a response to biological contamination incidents. However, the coastal zone facilities and assets of the United States Coast Guard (USCG), including response boats in diverse geographical areas an...

Lack of surface sampling and analysis methods are available to identify potential toxic byproducts of Novichok agents. While Novichok agents were sampled and analyzed, there was not much information to support and/or investigate potential breakdown/byproducts from environmental F...

EPA’s Homeland Security Research Program conducts decontamination efficacy studies that identify technologies that can be used to clean surfaces, materials, or objects contaminated with chemical, biological, or radiological agents. This project consisted of an assessment of the m...

Outdoor contamination incidents such as those following non-spore-forming zoonotics (Burkholderia, tularemia, FAD, etc) may necessitate decontamination. Currently, COTS disinfectants have been assessed for a limited number of indoor and outdoor (concrete) materials. Previous inci...

A release of a chemical warfare agent (CWA) will create an acute and significant exposure risk to the public as well as remediation contractors who would be tasked to cleanup a contaminated site. It would require decontamination of the contaminated area which may hold sensitive e...

The COVID-19 pandemic has raised interest in using chemical air treatments as part of a strategy to reduce the risk of disease transmission, but more information is needed to characterize their efficacy at scales translatable to applied settings and to develop methods for evaluat...

An intentional and nefarious attack or unintentional release of a chemical warfare agent (CWA) is expected to trigger a significant effort to clean up a contaminated area. Such effort becomes more complex when considering the permeability of common indoor building materials to so...

Ultraviolet-C (UVC) radiation has long been used to disinfect air, water, and surfaces. The COVID-19 pandemic has recently raised interest in using UVC devices as an alternative approach for disinfecting surfaces and materials, as an increasing number of UVC devices come to marke...

The Town Hall will provide three different case studies that show how clearance goals developed by city and county health officials interact with characterization and sampling that occurs in response to cleaning up a biological and chemical incident. EPA will describe real-life e...

Presentation to attendees of the Operational Testing and Evaluation of Chemical Remediation Activities (OTECRA) visitor day  describing the connection between the bench scale research and this full-scale test. The purpose of this field test is to test and evaluate EPA remedi...