The Lessons of the CRESP Experience

April 26, 2000, EMSP National Workshop, Atlanta, Georgia

How and why science from CRESP is being used directly to impact decisions that improve regulatory response and the very structure of regulation governing DOE environmental management activity.

Presentations

Introduction

Charles W. Powers, Ph.D., CRESP Executive Director Presentation slides

Defining Acheivable Remediation

David Kosson, Ph.D. Presentation slides

Science for Ecological risk, Food Chains and Regulation

Joanna Burger, Ph.D.

When Science Informs Better Worker Protection

Elaine Faustman, Ph.D. Presentation slides

Stewardship as the New Context for the Science/ Regulation/Risk Protection Process

Frank Parker, Ph.D.

Summary: The CRESP Progress in Achieving the use of its Science in Processes and Decision

Bernard Goldstein, M.D.

Discussion:

Institutional ways for EMSP and CRESP participants to collaborate on active utilization of technical and scientific data in DOE decisions and applications. – Charles W. Powers, Ph.D., Bernard Goldstein, M.D.

Posters:

CRESP Peer Review of DOE’s Use of Risk Analysis in Decision Making

Art Upton, M.D. Poster Presentation

Heavy Metal and Radionuclide Bioavailability from Savannah River Site Soils

Kristie Ellickson Poster Presentation

Economic Impact of Policy and Technology Choices within the Department of Energy’s EM Programs

Mike Frisch Poster Presentation

Terrestrial Insects and Ecological Health: Links to Cleanup Decisions at Hanford

Diana Kimberling, James Karr, and Leska Fore

Using Integrated Food Web and Population-based Models for Environmental Monitoring and Decision Making

Joanna Burger, John Hunter, Keith Cooper

Mapping Air Pollutants at Hanford’s Tank Farms Using Optical Remote Sensing

Ram Hashmonay, Michael Yost, Robert Crampton Poster Presentation

Policy Analysis and Clinical Research on Occupational Beryllium Exposure at DOE Sites

Raphael Ponce, Tim Takaro, Scott Bartell, A. Jacob Jabbour, Kathy Ertell, John Abbotts, Scott Barnhart, Elaine Faustman Poster Presentation

Structure and Function of Occupational Health Services at 10 DOE Sites

Mary Salazar, Tim Takaro, Kathy Ertell, Michael Gochfeld, Sally O’Neill, Scott Barnhart Poster Presentation

Speakers:

CHARLES W. POWERS, Ph.D.

Dr. Powers is a Professor of Environmental Health and Community Medicine at the University of Medicine and Dentistry -New Jersey. He is the architect of CRESP and is widely recognized for resolving environmental and public health controversies for which he has been given the Rene Dubos Environmental Achievement Award. Underlying his work are efforts to focus scientific findings to better address with appropriate regulatory frameworks the risk concerns of the public.Currently, Dr. Powers is also the President of the Institute for Responsible Management, an organization whose primary focus is research to facilitate and chart Brownfields work in 357pilot locations nationwide. He is primary author of A Great Experiment: Brownfields Pilots Catalyze Revitalization to be published in June2000 and hundreds of articles and other publications. He has been the architect and first CEO of the Health Effects Institute, Clean Sites,Inc. The Institute for Evaluating Health Risksand Resources for Responsible Site Management,the first custodial trustee of a Superfund site.He has been a faculty member at Harvard, Yale,Princeton and Tufts and was Vice President forPublic Policy and chief environmental officer at Cummins Engine Company in the late 70’s.

DAVID KOSSON, Ph.D.

Dr. Kosson is a Professor and Chair Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Professor of Chemical Engineering at Vanderbilt University. He coordinates CRESP efforts to understand sediment chemistry and the physics of contaminants through groundwater. Dr. Kosson is Chairman National Academy of Sciences Committee on Review and Evaluation of the Army Chemical Stockpile Disposal Program, the Committee on Alternative Chemical Demilitarization Technology.

JOANNA BURGER, Ph.D.

Dr.Burger is Distinguished Professor of Biology at Rutgers University. Her CRESP research activities include ecosystem characterization; risk estimation ; the development and evaluation of biological indicator species; understanding future use preferences and integrating ecological concepts in stewardship ; and evaluation of ecological services. She is currently on the National Academy of Sciences /NRS Commission on Life Sciences and on the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE). Dr. Burger serves on the editorial boards of several journals including Science for the Total Environment and the Journal of Environmental Health and Toxicology. She is also a member of the New Jersey Governor’s Council for Endangered and Non -Game Species and the Global Change Advisory Committee.

ELAINE M. FAUSTMAN, Ph.D., D.A.B.T.

Dr.Faustman is Professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Director of the Institute for Risk Analysis and Risk Communication. She has also served as the department’s Associate Chair. She is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has served on the National Toxicology Program Board of Scientific Counselors, the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Toxicology, and numerous editorial boards. Currently she chairs the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Developmental Toxicology. Her research interests include understanding mechanisms of developmental and reproductive toxicant, characterizing in vitro techniques for developmental toxicology assessment, and development of biologically based dose -response models for non cancer risk assessment. Her research expertise also includes development of decision -analytic tools for incorporating new scientific findings into risk assessment and risk management decisions.

FRANK L. PARKER, Ph.D.

Professor Frank L. Parker graduated from MIT and Harvard and is Distinguished Professor of Environmental Engineering at Vanderbilt University. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He has served as the Head of Radioactive Waste Disposal Research at both the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the International Atomic Energy Agency. He has served as Chairman of the Board of Radioactive Waste Management of the National Academy of Sciences /National Research Council.He has directed the radioactive waste research activities at both the Beijer Institute of the Swedish Academy of Sciences and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria (IIASA). At IIASA, he and his team are investigating radioactive waste problems at the 3spent nuclear fuel reprocessing sites in Russia.For the USDOE, he has just completed a major study on the recycling of concrete from radioactively contaminated buildings. If then recommendation is implemented, it has the potential of saving over one billion dollars in cleanup costs. He is a new researcher in CRESP remediation task group.

BERNARD GOLDSTEIN, M.D.

Dr.Goldstein is Director of the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute and Professor and Chair of the Department of Environmental and Community Medicine at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. His research has primarily been in laboratory toxicology but he also has had a long interest in risk policy.Dr. Goldstein is a member of the Institute of Medicine and Chair of the IOM Section on Public Health, Biostatistics, and Epidemiology. Among the NAS /IOM/NRC committees he has chaired have been the Committee on Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials for the National Academy of Sciences. He was also the NAS -appointed member of the Presidential/Congressional Commission onRisk Assessment and Risk Management. Dr.Goldstein is the former head of the EPA’s Office of Research and Development. He is a past recipient of the Ambassador of Toxicology Award of the Mid -Atlantic Chapter of the Society of Toxicology and the Robert A. Kehoe Award of Merit of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

Poster Session Participants:

ARTHUR C. UPTON, M.D.

Dr.Upton is Clinical Professor of Environmental and Community Medicine, UMDNJ Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, and Emeritus Professor of Environmental Medicine, New York University School of Medicine. From 1977 to 1980, he served as Director of the National Cancer Institute. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, the Board of Directors of the International Consortium for Research on the Health Effects of Radiation, the Board of Trustees of the Rene Dubos Center for Human Environments, the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Chairman of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements Scientific Committee on Evaluation of the Linearity of Dose Response, Chairman of the Health Effects Institute Expert Panel on the Reanalysis of the Harvard Six Cities Study and the American Cancer Society Study on Mortality in Relation to Particulate Air Pollution, and a member of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Steering Committee on Comparative Risk.

KRISTIE ELLICKSON

Ms. Ellickson is a Doctoral Candidate in the Exposure Assessment tract of the Department of Environmental Sciences at Rutgers University and UMDNJ. She is assisting in developing invitro methods for bioavailability estimation using synthetic human gastrointestinal fluids, concentrating on heavy metal bioavilability from contaminated soils and wastes. Her current focus is on the measurement of bioavailability of select radionuclear from Savannah River Sites soils.

MICHAEL FRISCH, M.C.P.

Mr. Frisch is a Doctoral Graduate Student in the Department of Urban Planning and Policy Development in the Graduate School at Rutgers University. His CRESP activities focus on regional economic modeling. He is a past member of the Technical Advisory Committee of the Citywide Recycling Advisory Board and former appointed member of the Manhattan Solid Waste Advisory Board.

DIANA N. KIMBERLING, Ph.D.

Dr. Kimberling is Research Scientist in Fishery Sciences at the University of Washington. Her research has included entomology, biological control, plant -insect interactions, and molecular genetics. Work experience for over 20 years has also included plant community studies from desert ecosystems to mountain regions. Dr. Kimberling’s current research efforts are focused on developing a terrestrial index of biological integrity with insects. The index will be used to assess the biological condition of sites that are being considered for cleanup and restoration.

RAM A. HASHMONAY, Sc.D, M.S.

Dr. Hashmonay is Manager of the ORS Lab in the Department of Environmental Health at the University of Washington. He has spent the last five years developing novel methodologies to estimate fluxes from air pollution fugitive sources using ORS, CT and mathematical inversion techniques, and dispersion modeling. He has experience in development and evaluation of mathematical inversion and CT algorithms for reconstruction of spatially resolved concentration maps, field data collection with open path FTIR and aerosol LIDAR systems, and integration of ORS data with dispersion modeling.

RAFAEL A. PONCE, M.S., Ph.D.

Dr. Ponce is Research Scientist in the Department of Environmental Health and Technical Director of the Health Hazard Identification Task Group at the University of Washington. He has ten years of experience in investigating the environmental chemistry and toxicology of metals. His research interests focus on the mechanisms of neurodevelopmental toxicity and immunotoxicity of metals, especially mercury and beryllium. In addition, Dr. Ponce is involved in developing new risk assessment methods. Particularly interesting to him are the use of uncertainty analysis and decision analysis to improve risk management, decision making and the identification of research priorities. He is working on identifying and developing biomarkers for use in risk assessment.

MARY SALAZAR, Ed.D., R.N.

Dr. Salazar is an Associate Professor and the Director of the Occupational Health Nursing Program at the University of Washington School of Nursing. She is currently a member of the Board for Occupational Health Nurses and the managing Editor of the AAOHN Core Curriculum for Occupational Health Nursing. She has served on various regional and national committees, and as President of the State Occupational Health Nursing Association. Much of her research has focused on workers health and safety behaviors and on the effective delivery of occupational health services. She just completed a study of factors that affect Hanford workers use of respiratory protective equipment. She has also completed two evaluation studies, one of occupational health and safety services at nuclear weapons sites, and another of case management services for injured workers in Washington State.