Achieving Good Risk Assessment Practices in the EPA Hazardous Waste Program. D. A. Canter, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC 20460
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has taken a number of steps in recent years to help ensure the use of good risk assessment practices in the many assessments conducted by its program and regional offices. This includes the issuance of an updated risk characterization policy in 1995, an updated peer review policy in 1994, and a peer review handbook in 1998. EPA’s Superfund Program has distributed guidance on making risk assessments more consistent and fully identifying and evaluating uncertainties in risk characterization. The waste program has also employed external peer reviews for two risk assessments of highly controversial facilities that burn hazardous waste. Lessons learned in implementing the two policies include the need for scientific collaboration early and often in the development of multi-disciplinary risk assessments, the need for identifying science policy decisions in the assessments, the benefits of soliciting input into the risk assessment process from stakeholders, and the value of peer review of multiple phases of the risk assessment process of nationally important and highly controversial activities. The presentation will use as a case study the risk assessment of a commercial hazardous waste incinerator for which local opposition has received ongoing national attention, to illustrate the implementation of the two processes, to expand upon the lessons learned, and to offer areas for further development of good risk assessment practices.
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