The Risk Assessment Information System (RAIS): A Standardized, Online Approach for Developing Site-Specific Risk Information to Enhance Transparency, Consensus-Building, and Credibility. M. Clauberg, F. G. Dolislager, L. D. Bloom, D. J. Thomas, and C. W. McGinn; UT Center for Information Studies & Forshcungszentrum, Germany, University of Tennessee, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory
The University of Tennessee (UT) & Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) RAIS is a web-based package of online tools developed to meet the information needs of the expert as well as the public. RAIS takes advantage of searchable and executable databases, menu-driven queries, and data downloads to provide tutorials, tools, guidance, risk results, and other risk information. RAIS is based on EPA guidance for performing risk assessments. The integrated RAIS tools include: Preliminary Remediation Goals, Federal and State Water Guidelines, Toxicity Values, Toxicity Profiles, Chemical-Specific Factors, Human Health Risk Values, Ecological Benchmarks, Background Comparison, and Soil Screening Guidance Levels. The RAIS presents all equations, assumptions, and definitions of the tools and risk assessment process in user-friendly and publicly available webpages. A configuration control process ensures that all changes/additions are consistently controlled, documented, tracked, and distributed to users. These efforts have greatly enhanced the transparency of the basic risk assessment tasks for all stakeholders. When used in the context of a decision-making process with public and stakeholder involvement, the intermediate selections & decisions necessary are clearer and more relevant. Thus, consensus-building is facilitated because the decision authority is shifted towards all stakeholders, and the role of the risk expert is to assist the process by providing guidance and to point to the self-paced education tools on the RAIS as needed. The implementation of an online, transparent, and consensus-building process with public and stakeholder involvement helps to alleviate public mistrust and lack of credibility currently plaguing the risk assessment field and community.
Supporters and contributors include A.L. Young of the U.S. Department of Energy, Center for Risk Excellence; T.C. Perry of the U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge Operations Office; and L. Simms of the Bechtel Jacobs Company, LLC.
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