By Amy
Charlene Reed, RiskWorld staff
E-mail to: reed@tec-com.com.
The California
Environmental Protection Agency now says that its final
report on chemical risk assessment practices related to human
health will be available on the Internet by November 1. "We
are very, very close," says spokesperson Bev Passerello of
the agency’s public affairs department.
For now, the preliminary public review draft of A Review of the California Environmental Protection Agency's Risk Assessment Practices, Policies, and Guidelines that was released in May remains on-line at the agency's World Wide Web site, http://www.calepa.cahwnet.gov/oehha/docs/raac/cover.htm (the preceding link is outdated; the final report is available at http://www.oehha.ca.gov/risk/raac/final.html).
The California state legislature mandated the review in 1993 as part of a regulatory reform effort that aims to provide adequate protection of the environment and public health while at the same time avoiding placing an unnecessary burden on business. Only those practices related to human health were considered, since ecological risk assessment is being covered by an ongoing and parallel effort to create new ecological risk assessment guidelines.
As required by the legislature, an external scientific committee -- the Risk Assessment Advisory Committee -- conducted the review. The committee’s specific charge was to determine whether the agency’s risk assessment practices are based on sound science and to assess the appropriateness of any inconsistencies between its practices and those of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the National Academy of Sciences.
Chaired by James N. Seiber, director of the University of Nevada’s Center for Environmental Sciences and Engineering in Reno, the 34-member committee expressed "strong endorsement of risk assessment as the primary tool for characterizing, quantifying and prioritizing risk associated with chemical hazards." The committee offered 11 major recommendations to the agency in the report:
1. Take the lead in initiating steps to ensure consistency and cooperation with U.S. EPA and other federal counterparts.
2. Establish an advisory committee consisting of scientists from outside the state’s government with a charge of providing advice and oversight in the areas of risk assessment, risk assessment--risk management interactions, and risk communication.
3. Establish an internal working group whose specific charge is to ensure agency-wide consistency and harmonization.
4. Provide a forum for the identification, evaluation, and promotion of new or existing knowledge which can improve the scientific basis for risk assessment in California.
5. Develop a formalized program for peer review.
6. Encourage and, as needed, formalize staff participation in continuing education programs and national and international scientific organizations.
7. Seek early input into the risk assessment process from risk managers and from external stakeholders. Identify effective and efficient mechanisms for participation by the general public and interested stakeholders and apply these throughout the agency.
8. Establish a process to bring together risk assessment and risk management personnel to better translate emerging methods in risk assessment into risk management policy.
9. Establish an internal mechanism through which the agency secretary can receive expert advice on a broad range of issues in risk assessment.
10. Evaluate the various scientific disciplines required for risk assessment to ensure that adequate resources are available within the agency.
11. Consider an approach in conducting chemical risk assessments that balances the level of effort and resources with the importance of the risk assessment.
The report also makes specific recommendations regarding hazard identification, dose-response assessment, exposure assessment, risk characterization, and data management issues.
Related Links
Members of the Risk Assessment Advisory Committee
Story originally posted on August 30, 1996; updated on October
25, 1996.
Copyright © 1996 by Tec-Com
Inc.