United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
EPA/600/9-87/022
September 1987
Research and Development
<>EPA Long-Range Research
Agenda for the
Period 1988-1992
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EPA/600/9-87/022
September 1987
Long-Range Research Agenda
1988-1992
Library (5PL'-lj5
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Contents
Page
Executive Summary v
I. Introduction 1
Congressional Request 1
ORD Mission/Obligations 1
ORD Planning Process 3
Plan Perspectives 4
II. Research Committee (Legislative) Perspectives 5
Air/Radiation 5
Water 19
Pesticides/Toxics 32
Hazardous Waste/Superfund 43
Multimedia/Energy 54
Interdisciplinary 62
III. Appendix
Interagency Coordination 74
Science Advisory Board Letter 76
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The mission of the Agency is to administer, in a
comprehensive and balanced manner, specific federal
legislation developed to control and abate adverse impacts
of pollution on the human environment. To support the
Agency in a cost-effective manner, a research program is
required which addresses both fundamental information
needs common to all the operating program offices and
those relating to program-specific issues. Each program
office needs (1) reliable estimates of the risk of adverse
impacts to the public health and the environment associated
with any policy action, (2) reliable estimates of cost-
effective risk reduction options, and (3) reliable
measurement methods for the indicators used to assess the
state of the environment for the pollutants specified by the
legislation being administered. The Office of Research and
Development (ORD) plans to continue to provide a strong
cross media multidisciplinary research program that
enables the office to respond to both the specific
programmatic applied research and technical assistance
needs of the Agency and to anticipate future scientific
information requirements The core program which has
general utility to all program offices is based on a
framework that comprises four broad areas of research.
They are:
1. human health risk methods development and application,
2. ecological risk methods development and application,
3. total exposure methods development and applications,
and,
4. risk reduction/control technology.
Research activities in the major category of human health
risk assessment will focus on assessment methods for
non-cancer endpomts, improvement in techniques for
using data from animal studies for estimating risks to
humans, development of statistical models to characterize
dose-response relationships and associated uncertainties,
and determination of utility and limitations of structural
activity relationships for estimating the potential toxicity of
untested chemicals.
For the major category of ecological risk assessment,
emphasis will be placed on research activities that
contribute to improved prediction of impacts on ecosystem
function and structure, on techniques for assessing effects
from complex mixtures and on characterizing uncertainties
in risk estimates.
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In the major area of total exposure methods development,
emphasis will be directed toward developing techniques for
determining frequency distributions of population exposures
to toxic chemicals. Biological indicators of exposure and
effect in human and other ecosystem populations will be
emphasized through the use of pharmacokinetic and
metabolic information.
In the area of risk reduction/control technology, emphasis
will be placed upon improving transport, transformation, and
fate models as well as upon working with industry to explore
alternative treatment technologies such as biodegradation,
advanced separation processes, advanced thermal
degradation, and waste stabilization techniques.
The media-specific research to be emphasized during the
next five years is as follows:
Air/Radiation
Water
For the air program, emphasis for the period is directed
toward evaluating the potential hazards posed by
unregulated air pollutants. Specifically, sources will be
characterized, the chronic impacts of real time exposures
(complex mixtures, exposure rates) will be evaluated, and
control methods will be developed In addition, attention will
be given to the following areas of concern: (1) incineration
of municipal wastes, (2) impacts of global climate, (3) ozone
damage to forests, (4) impacts of air pollutants on
susceptible populations, (5) the contribution of indoor air
exposures to total human exposures, and (6) stratospheric
ozone depletion.
Most of the water research issues are expected to continue
into the next decade. Research activities which support
evaluation of risks to humans and ecological systems
resulting from exposures to specific chemicals, complex
mixtures, and biological agents in water (drinking, surface,
ground, estuarine, marine) will continue to be required for
the development of drinking water standards, health
advisories, and toxicity based National Pollutant Discharge
Elimination System (NPDES) permits. A new effort will be
initiated to develop methods to safeguard the ground-
water resources of wellhead protection areas. Improvements
in analytical capability to identify potential deleterious
contaminants and bioassay development for toxicity based
water quality permitting will be continued. In the area of
alternative treatment technologies, biological degradation of
toxics in wastewater through the use of engineered
VI
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organisms (biotechnology) and process modifications will
be emphasized.
Pesticides/Toxics
For these media areas, current and future research needs
include (1) improved capabilities to monitor human
exposure and risk assessment, (2) ecological risk
assessment methods development and application and (3)
methods to detect and assess ground-water contamination
by pesticides. Improving human health risk assessment will
be emphasized, including research on noncarcinogenic
health endpoints, biological markers as indicators of
exposure and effects, and risk assessment transformation
methods for both dose-rate effects and non-human
species responses. Continued evaluation of structure
activity relationships (SARs) for improved assessment of
risk to humans and to ecosystems is planned, as is the
evaluation of potential adverse impacts of microbial agents
and products of biotechnology
Hazardous Waste/Superfund
Specific research is planned for characterizing the potential
exposure of populations to hazardous wastes and the
deleterious effects of exposures to complex mixtures. Such
research includes increased efforts in multimedia
monitoring, transport and fate of hazardous wastes in
groundwater, identification of potential toxic emissions from
municipal combustors, and development of improved
measurement techniques for problem diagnoses (e.g ,
exposure detection). Development of alternatives to land
disposal is also of high priority.
Multimedia/Energy
The recommendations of the interagency National Acid
Precipitation Assessment Program form the basis of the
research activities to be emphasized in this area. The
long-term goals of the acid deposition program are to
develop the following products:
inventories and maps of receptors that have been or may
be adversely impacted,
estimates of the rate of change in the extent of effects,
acid deposition dosimetry for specific regions and
receptors, and
source-receptor models for local and long-range
situations. Long-term monitoring of lakes, streams,
mountain top clouds, forest exposures, and watersheds.
VII
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Interdisciplinary
The interdisciplinary research program will continue to
provide for the development of risk assessment guidelines,
for supporting the dissemination of scientific and technical
data from ORD, for exploratory research grants and centers
programs and for support of the central management of an
Agency wide quality assurance program.
VIII
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I. INTRODUCTION
Congressional Request^
The Long-Range Research Agenda is prepared in
response to the Congressional requirement that the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) submit an annual
revision of a comprehensive five-year plan for
environmental research, development and demonstration
not later than two weeks after the President submits his
annual budget to the Congress. The annual revision is
required to convey the plans for no growth, moderate
growth, and high growth budget projections and should
include an explanation of the relationship to existing laws
which authorize the environmental research, development,
and demonstration. The budget projections contained herein
assume a 3% increase for the moderate growth scenario
and a 6% increase for the high growth scenario. The budget
projections are subject to change associated with new
Agency priorities and the availability of funds
Office of Research and Development (ORD)
Mission and Obligations
ORD is obliged to develop and implement an integrated
program which supports the mission of the Agency. That
mission is to administer, in a comprehensive and balanced
manner, specific Federal legislation developed to control
and abate adverse impacts of pollution on the human
environment.3.4
Agency management, therefore, requires quality information
on a timely basis for decisions relating to risk assessment
and to risk management of known and anticipated
environmental pollution issues. Agency management must
make decisions regarding development of policy, guidance,
standards and regulations; monitoring programs
(surveillance and compliance assessment); environmental
impact analyses; quality assurance and quality control;
grant applications and training
In view of the diverse products and services required from
ORD in support of Agency decision making (research,
problem diagnosis, technical support documents, risk
assessments, expert witness consultation, quality assurance
management, etc.), ORD staff is required to maintain an
awareness of environmental research being performed by
other governmental agencies (federal, state, and local),
industry, academia, and the public interest sector. The
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information needs of the decision makers are critically
evaluated in terms of the information available or
forthcoming from all the aforementioned sources. See
Appendix A for a listing of interagency coordination.
The research emphasized in EPA/ORD is in those areas
specified in the Congressional appropriation and on
subjects considered by the Agency-wide research
committees as not receiving sufficient emphasis to provide
the information required for Agency decision making.
To support the Agency cost effectively, a research program
is required which addresses both fundamental needs
common to all of the operating program offices and
program-specific issues. Common needs include (1) re-
liable estimates of the risk of adverse impact to public
health and the environment associated with any policy
action, (2) reliable estimates of cost-effective risk reduction
options, (3) reliable measurement methods for the
environmental indicators used to specify the state of the
environment.
These primary needs drive a continuing core research
program consisting of:
I. human health risk methods development and application,
2. ecological risk methods development and application,
3. total exposure methods development and application,
and
4. risk reduction research.
Research activities in the major category of human health
risk assessment will focus on methods assessment for
non-cancer endpoints, improvement in techniques for
using data from epidemiological, clinical, and animal studies
for estimating risks to humans, development of statistical
models to characterize dose-response relationships and
associated uncertainties, and determination of utility and
limitations of structural activity relationships for estimating
the potential toxicity of untested chemicals.
For the major category of ecological risk assessment,
emphasis will be placed on research activities that
contribute to improved prediction of impacts on ecosystem
function and structure, on techniques for assessing effects
from complex mixtures, and on characterizing uncertainties
with risk estimates.
In the major area of total exposure methods development,
emphasis will be directed to techniques for determining
frequency distributions of population exposures to toxic
chemicals. Biological indicators of exposure and effect in
human and eco'ogical populations will be emphasized
through the use of pharmacoklnetic and metabolic
information.
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In the area of risk reduction/control technology, emphasis
will be placed upon developing transport, transformation,
and fate models as well as working with industry to explore
alternative treatment technologies such as biodegradation,
advanced separation processes, advanced thermal
degradation and waste stabilization techniques.
ORD Planning Process
Integrated planning, quality assurance programs, and peer
review are all fundamental to assuring that ORD fulfills its
obligations. Integrated planning of the ORD program is
accomplished through the use of agency-wide research
committees. The research committees are structured
primarily along regulatory program office lines (air/radiation,
water, pesticides/toxics, hazardous waste/superfund,
multimedia/energy and interdisciplinary). Membership is
comprised of senior level representatives from the
regulatory offices, the lead regions and the ORD
laboratories. Each committee is co-chaired by a senior
manager from ORD and from the appropriate program office
and each office director in ORD is represented on all
committees. Each committee is responsible for ascertaining
the priority research and development issues of concern to
the subject program office and for recommending a
comprehensive, media-oriented research plan (objectives,
priorities, outputs, schedules, and resource allocations) to
the Assistant Administrator (AA)/ORD.
The ORD program must be flexible enough to respond to
changes in Agency priorities while still providing sufficient
stability to the research undertaken to obtain the quality
technical information required to support Agency decision
making. Flexibility is accommodated by reprogramming in
the operating year. Priorities for reprogramming are
established through discussions involving the Congress,
Agency management, and ORD management.
Since the ORD office directors and their respective
laboratory directors are responsible for implementing the
program and for obtaining peer reviews of their respective
programs on a regular basis, they provide
recommendations to the AA/ORD concerning the program
as viewed from an integrated disciplinary perspective.
Based upon these inputs and his interactions with the
program office Assistant Administrators, the AA/ORD
recommends an overall integrated program for ORD to the
Administrator, which is considered to be an appropriate
balance between top down and bottom up planning as
recommended by the National Academy of Science.5
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Plan Perspectives
A variety of alternative primary frameworks can be utilized
to categorize the ORD program. Examples of the suggested
perspectives for categorization of the total ORD program
include legislative, regulatory program office, research
discipline, source, pollutant, and effects. Unfortunately, no
single focus is ever fully satisfactory to the variety of groups
interested in the ORD program, especially in the case of
ORD special interest cross media, multidisciplinary studies.
Since the Congressional request requires an indication of
the relationship of the plans to existing laws authorizing the
Agency's environmental research, development, and
demonstration program, the total program is presented
primarily from the research committee perspective, which is
equivalent to the regulatory office perspective. Cross media,
multidisciplinary problems receiving special emphasis at
present, and for the foreseeable future, include the
following, and the cooperating research committees
contributing to resolution of these problems are included
parenthetically:
1. Ground Water (water, hazardous waste/superfund,
pesticides/toxic substances).
2. Total exposure assessment measurement (air, water,
hazardous waste/superfund, pesticides/toxic substances).
3. Municipal waste combustion (air, hazardous
waste/superfund).
4. Accidental releases (air, water, hazardous
waste/superfund).
5. Indoor radon (air, water).
6. Comparative risk for complex mixtures (air, water,
hazardous waste/superfund, pesticides/toxic substances).
7. Acid deposition (air, water, energy).
8. Biotechnology (air, water, pesticides/toxic substances).
A letter commenting on the review of the ORD program by
the Agency Science Advisory Board (SAB) is presented in
Appendix B.
1 Public Law 94-475, Section 5, 10/1/76 (authorization bill)
2Public Law 95- 155, Section 4, 11/8/77 (authorization bill).
3 National Environmental Policy Act, 1969.
4 Presidential Reorganization Plan #3 of 1970.
5Analytical Studies for the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, Volume III, Research and Development in the
Environmental Protection Agency, Commission on Natural
Resources, National Research Council, National Academy
of Science, 1977.
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II. RESEARCH COMMITTEE
(LEGISLATIVE) PERSPECTIVES
Each of the media-specific research programs contains
elements of activity which are related to the aforementioned
core research program. The media specific issues and
associated research planned to resolve these issues is
described in the following paragraphs.
Air/Radiation
Under the Clean Air Act (CAA), EPA is responsible for
setting ambient air quality standards for air pollutants
emitted from both stationary and mobile sources. National
Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) have been set for
six "criteria" pollutants: ozone (63); carbon monoxide (CO);
particulate matter (PM); sulfur dioxide (S02>; nitrogen
dioxide (NOgl; and lead (Pb) These standards must be
reviewed every five years and revised if necessary
Compliance with these standards is the responsibility of
each state through the development and implementation of
State Implementation Plans (SIPs) which limit emissions
from sources, set time tables for compliance and establish
monitoring procedures. The Agency is also responsible for
setting technology-based New Source Performance
Standards ;NSPS) to limit air pollutant emissions from new
sources or from existing sources which have been modified.
In areas where the air quality is better than that required to
meet primary and secondary standards, emissions from
new or modified sources are restricted under the Prevention
of Significant Deterioration (PSD) program In addition, EPA
is responsible for limiting emissions of air pollutants that are
hazardous to human health but are not already regulated as
criteria pollutants.
ORD provides the scientific data bases, methods, models,
assessments, emission reduction technologies and
corresponding quality assurance support to implement
these legislative authorities. Five major issues have been
identified within the scope of the air research program
which cut across scientific disciplines and the pollutant-
specific structure of the research program. In addition, EPA
conducts a radiation monitoring and quality assurance
program and a program to mitigate and prevent radon in
homes.
EPA has identified several topics within the air research
program which will require special attention in the coming
years. Among these are indoor air pollution, radon, support
for the ozone attainment program, toxic air pollutants,
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stratospheric ozone, and global climate modification. In
addition, attention is being turned to the problems of
municipal waste incineration, accidental releases of toxic
pollutants, unregulated pollutants in urban air, and the
effects of ozone on forests. It is these issues which will be
emphasized during the next five years of air pollution
research.
Major Research Issues
Criteria Pollutants
What scientific support is necessary to develop and review
primary and secondary NAAQS?
Health Effects: For each of the criteria air pollutants, many
of the sensitive population groups and the pollutant
exposure ranges of interest have generally been identified.
However, health effects testing of these pollutants must
continue in both animal and human subjects to ascertain
dose-response relationships. The health endpoints of
concern are mainly respiratory, metabolic, and immune
system effects of 63, NC>2, SC>2 and particulate matter; and
the cardiovascular and neurologic effects of CO. In addition,
research may be done on the health effects of very short
exposure to high levels of particles and S02 This research
would support reevaluation of emergency level standards,
particularly as they apply to sources which emit occasional
bursts of pollutants for extremely short periods of time.
Emphasis will also be placed on evaluating the effects of
long-term, low-level versus short-term, higher-peak
exposures to oxidants, particularly NOg, and the effects of
both long-term and short-term exposures to the coarse
fraction of airborne particles smaller than 10 microns in
diameter. The information obtained from this research will
be factored into the next round of criteria documents and
used in the review of NAAQS.
To improve our ability to relate animal data to actual human
consequences and to develop more reliable risk estimates
of exposure to air pollutants, techniques will be developed
to extrapolate from animal to human effects, from high to
low doses and from acute to chronic effects. To do this,
information in three critical areas will be considered:
dosimetry-the amount of pollutant which reaches
specific target sites in the body after exposure to a given
concentration of pollutant; species sensitivitythe
potential variations in response of different animal species
to the same dose of pollutant; and dose/response.
Human volunteers are being exposed to criteria pollutants
for brief periods of time at concentrations similar to those
encountered in daily life, in order to measure the resulting
effects on heart and lung function, immune response, and
other physiological and biological parameters. Similar
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studies are being conducted with animals. Animals are also
being exposed chronically to these pollutants and the
cumulative lifetime effect of these exposures will be
determined. This dose-response data, combined with
dosimetry and species-sensitivity information, provides the
information necessary to infer the effects that chronic
exposure to a given pollutant may have on humans.
Epidemiological research provides the most direct evidence
of human health effects from environmental exposures to
pollutants. Epidemiology studies are being done to
ascertain the health effects of total exposures (indoor and
outdoor) to the criteria air pollutants.
Welfare Effects: To assess the need for secondary air
quality standards for criteria pollutants, research is needed
on the impact of air pollution on vegetation and visibility
degradation. Recent research on the effect of 63 on crops
indicates that physiological stress such as from soil
moisture deficits or fluctuations of 03 levels in conjunction
with other conditions may seriously affect crop plant
response. Field work under way to quantify and reduce
these uncertainties will continue at several sites. Soil
moisture stress modeling and ozone exposure research on
forages, a major area of uncertainty, will continue.
In addition to the crop response work, a research program
to determine the extent of harm done to forests by ozone is
being undertaken. For regulatory purposes EPA needs to
quantify 03 effects on forests to: determine what types of
forests are affected and to establish their relative sensitivity;
to define dose-response relationships which allow
estimates of benefits from reduced 03 exposure; and, for
translation into air quality standards.
Atmospheric Processes: Research will be conducted to
determine the extent of visibility impairment. Specifically,
the role of aerosols on visibility reduction will be assessed;
visibility trends for the U.S. will be determined using
available data bases; and measurement and monitoring
techniques will be developed to characterize more
completely the extent of visibility changes. A regional
visibility research network will be established to provide
data for analyzing source-receptor relationships, and
models will be developed to assess visibility protection
strategies. Research is also needed to assess the influence
of particle size and composition on soiling, and to aid in the
development of a risk assessment.
Monitoring: New and improved monitoring methods are
needed to identify areas where public health and welfare
are threatened and to establish air quality trends. In
addition, accurate, reliable monitoring methods are
necessary to determine compliance with standards and to
evaluate the need for enforcement actions. This will be
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carried out through the testing, evaluation, improvement,
and standardization of methodology and systems for
measuring ambient pollutants. Emphasis will be on non-
methane organic compounds and fine particles.
Quality assurance is required to provide a reliable estimate
of the precision and accuracy of the data obtained from
measurements from sources such as the State and Local
Air Monitoring Networks. This is carried out through the use
of audits of the laboratories and from the use of standard
reference materials which have been prepared, verified and
distributed to the user laboratories.
Scientific Assessment: The review and revision of NAAQS
is a continuing effort, based upon new and evolving
scientific information. ORD contributes to this function by
publishing new or revised Air Quality Criteria Documents
(AQCDs) which are then used by regulators to revise
NAAQS. In the immediate future, revision of the criteria
documents for lead and ozone will continue and an
addendum to the PM/SOX criteria document will be initiated.
Technical evaluations are being conducted for use by the
regulatory office in evaluating the NAAQS for lead, SOX, 63
and PM. Literature searches of recently reported data will
be initiated to update the data bases for carbon monoxide
and N02.
Control Technology: Research will be conducted to
characterize emission sources and evaluate and improve
the cost effectiveness of emission reduction technologies,
thereby reducing the cost of complying with SIPs.
Because much is already known about other criteria
pollutants, priorities for control technology have shifted to
volatile organic compounds (VOCs), to assist in meeting
ozone level attainment goals. VOCs, which react with NOX
and sunlight to produce ozone, are a major cause of the
ozone non-attainment problem. Although emissions from
major stationary sources are being reduced, small sources,
such as dry cleaners, gas stations and paint users, are not
being widely controlled. Although these sources individually
emit small amounts of pollutants, collectively they may
constitute a significant problem. Control technologies such
as industrial flares, carbon adsorption, catalytic oxidation
and thermal incineration will be assessed to determine their
performance and cost in reducing VOC emissions from
such sources. Emphasis will be placed on developing and
evaluating methods to control VOCs without resorting to
costly add-on control devices.
Improved control technology is also needed for sulfur and
nitrogen oxides. For SOX, further research will be done on
conventional spray drying for utility and industrial boilers.
Also, comparative assessments are needed for various
absorbents to reduce the cost of spray drying flue gas
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desulfurization (FGD). The role of dry injection techniques m
FGD systems will also be investigated. Research to control
NOX will focus on evaluating the applicability of combustion
modification techniques to industries. Needed research on
reburning and changes in precombuster burner designs will
continue.
Research to control particles focuses on improving the
performance, reliability and cost-effectiveness of the
multi-stage electrostatic precipitator (ESP) and fabric
filtration. The major purpose of this research is to improve
collection of small particles which have become
increasingly important in meeting particle standards. ESPs
may assist in acid ratn mitigation when used with dry add-
on S02 removal processes. Precipitators are also
appropriate when facilities switch to low-sulfur coals, with
their more difficult-to-collect fly ashes Another particle
control measure which shows promise is electrostatically
augmented fabric filtration (EAFF) Also, recent research
indicates that proper conditioning of the particulate matter
can reduce pressure drop significantly, resulting in fabric
filters one-third the size of conventional units Additional
research to verify this finding is necessary and has begun.
Atmospheric Processes: Pollutants emitted into the air
often undergo chemical reactions that change the initial
pollutants into different compounds. Models to predict this
phenomenon are being developed at the urban and regional
scale and for complex terrains, such as mountainous areas
These models, when fully developed, will provide
information necessary to develop, evaluate and implement
cost-effective air pollution control strategies for SIPs and
PSD determinations.
Over the last few years, a variety of air quality models have
been developed and evaluations of these models indicate
that they need to be improved to increase the accuracy and
reliability of modeling predictions. To improve urban scale
models, smog-chamber studies will be conducted to
obtain a better understanding of the atmospheric chemical
processes associated with the formulation of oxidants and
mhalable particulate matter. Emphasis will be placed on the
impact of lower hydrocarbon/NOx ratios and the role of
specific categories of VOCs such as aromatic hydrocarbons
and aldehydes in producing atmospheric ozone and other
oxidants. Source apportionment modeling techniques will be
developed and evaluated for both non-volatile and volatile
organics.
In order to make dispersion and mathematical models
available to the regulatory and research community, the
User Network for Applied Modeling of Air Pollution
(UNAMAP) will be updated to include state-of-the-art
models.
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On the regional scale (up to 1,000 km), laboratory and field
studies will be conducted to improve the ability of models to
predict the atmospheric transport, transformation and
deposition processes for air pollutants such as ozone and
particulate matter. Alternative mathematical techniques and
new meteorological tracers will also be evaluated to
determine their ability to improve modeling predictions. The
regional scale models will be adopted to predict both
episodic (hours, days) and longer term (months, seasons)
time periods.
Monitoring: Research will be conducted to provide
improved, standardized methods for stationary source
monitoring. An important goal is to increase the precision
and accuracy of these monitoring systems. This will be
carried out through the use of audits and quality assurance
assistance for state, local, or Federal laboratories making
measurements of NOX, organic precursors, SOg, sulfate,
particulates or lead. Reference materials and guideline
documents need be and will be provided to carry out the
requirements of the CAA. Quality control standards will be
prepared, verified, and distributed to such laboratories.
Remote monitoring systems are being developed, evaluated
and applied for use in areas where data are needed for SIP
evaluation or revisions and for Agency evaluation of the
need for new standards
Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs)
What scientific support is needed for regulatory decisions
about potentially hazardous air pollutants?
Monitoring: Few monitoring methods are available for
measuring the concentration of potentially hazardous air
pollutants, especially organic compounds; therefore, new
sampling and analytical systems and a set of validated
source-sampling methods will be developed for important
sources of hazardous air pollutants that currently cannot be
monitored with adequate precision and accuracy Research
to develop methods of monitoring ambient hazardous air
pollutant concentrations will be accelerated, as will work on
passive monitors and new sorbents. This will extend the
measurement capability to chemicals not collected by
current methods and to new monitoring situations such as
exposures near hazardous waste sites. The nationwide
Toxic Air Monitoring System (TAMS) will be continued, to
characterize urban atmospheres and determine the
magnitude and extent of the hazardous air pollution
problem. In addition, TAMS will support the "urban soup"
program, which is a multidisciplmary effort to characterize
and assess risks in a complex mixture of pollutants in urban
areas. The previous Total Exposure Assessment
Methodology (TEAM) studies will be evaluated and several
focused TEAM exposure studies will be undertaken to
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better document and define the human exposures to HAPs
and the sources of these exposures. The TEAM
methodology will be extended to other pollutants and other
areas of the country to determine the relationship of
exposures to geographical factors.
Health Effects: In general, the strategy for investigating the
health effects of toxic air pollutants must be quite different
from that employed in the study of criteria pollutants. First,
because of the potential hazards of these pollutants, clinical
studies of exposed human volunteers cannot be conducted;
however, epidemiological studies may be feasible. Direct
animal-to-man extrapolation is difficult, so it is necessary
to develop animal models that use biological indicators of
neurotoxic, genetic, reproductive, or developmental effects
in humans. Research to develop such models will be
undertaken during the next five years.
Control Technology: The highest priority for research in
this area is to assess technologies for their ability to reduce
toxic emissions from various industrial and combustion
sources. A near-term goal is to control emissions from
wood-burning stoves, beginning with evaluations of the
efficiency and longevity of wood stove catalysts
As part of the long-term strategy to control HAPs,
industries which are deemed to be high-priority sources of
HAPs will be identified. Such industries include petroleum
refining, organic chemical manufacturers, and iron and steel
mills. Research will be performed to develop efficient and
effective control strategies for such high-priority emitters.
Atmospheric Processes: Consideration of the formation,
atmospheric stability, and removal of HAPs is essential in
assessing exposure and risk. Of particular concern is the
formation in the atmosphere of toxic pollutants from
chemical reactions among individually innocuous
compounds. On a schedule consistent with the Agency's
regulatory calendar, laboratory and field studies will be
performed to determine the reaction rates, products, and
natural variabilities of HAPs under review Chemistry will be
studied in isolated laboratory systems to obtain accurate
data on kinetics and mechanics. HAPs will also be
investigated in photochemical smog chambers, which
provide a better basis for extrapolation to the atmosphere.
New studies will be undertaken to determine the extent to
which HAPs are formed in the atmosphere from innocuous
compounds.
Integrated Air Cancer Program: There is a great deal of
uncertainty regarding the relationship between air pollution
and human cancer. Determining the extent to which air
pollution is responsible for or related to human cancers
could have a major impact on EPA's regulatory program
Thus, a long-term, interdisciplinary research program has
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been developed to address the major scientific questions
regarding the relationship between air pollution and the
development of human cancer.
The three basic goals of this program are to: (1) identify the
principal airborne carcinogens, (2) determine which
emission sources are major contributors of carcinogens to
ambient air; and (3) improve the estimate of comparative
human cancer risk from specific air pollutant emission
sources. Field tests of relatively isolated single-source
categories are essential for developing methods to evaluate
the more typical multiple-source environments to which
the general population is exposed. Therefore, a field test is
being conducted in Boise, Idaho, an area with a simple
airshed and a severe wood smoke problem during the
winter months. The study focuses on quantifying
carcinogens emitted from residential wood-fired
combustion systems and motor vehicles. The results of this
study will be immediately useful, particularly as surrogates
for similar environments, while the study design can be
adapted for use in more complex environments.
In the monitoring and modeling component of the project,
samples of ambient air in the "breathing zone" of persons
in an urban/industrial area and a suburban area are being
collected and analyzed for carcinogens and mutagens.
Comparisons between the ambient and personal samples
and between the urban and suburban concentrations will be
made, and relationships between exposure and dose will be
studied. The relative importance and contribution of
gaseous and volatile organic compounds, semivolatile and
particulate organic compounds to total airborne carcinogens
will be determined. In addition, laboratory studies will be
conducted to determine the atmospheric formation and fate
of bioactive compounds.
Health research focuses on development of methods and
data gathering to evaluate the human cancer risk from
individual and, ultimately, complex source emissions. A
comparative methodology to predict risk will be adapted to
evaluate and utilize short-term mutagenesis and animal
carcinogenesis data on emissions. Research to identify the
major sources of hazardous air pollutants and to
characterize these emissions from industries and
combustion sources of primary concern will serve as the
basis of the engineering component of the project.
Scientific Assessment: A three-tiered process is
employed in assessing scientific data-bases for
substances considered to be HAP listing/regulation
candidates. Tier I reports are an initial review of literature on
health effects associated with a given chemical or class of
chemical substances. If no adverse health effects are found
likely to be associated with exposures and the Office of Air
and Radiation (OAR) decides not to list the substance as a
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HAP, then the Tier I report is published. However, if
significant effects appear likely, then a draft Health
Assessment Document (HAD) is prepared for review by a
scientific workshop (Tier II). The final tier (Tier III) would
include public review and comment, SAB review and
publication of the HAD. In the coming year, final
comprehensive HADs will be completed on four chemicals
and External Review Drafts (ERDs) will be prepared for
three to six chemicals Tier I screening documents for six to
eight chemicals will be completed and another three to six
will be initiated. Increased emphasis will be placed on toxic
mobile source pollutants and non-cancer endpoints.
Technical assistance will be provided to the regions and
states on issues related to air toxics. Risk assessment
methods will be developed on specific non-cancer health
effects. As part of this new effort, techniques for using
pharmacokmetic information in risk assessments will be
developed. Future emphasis will be on toxic effects rather
than on cancer issues, since the majority of the cancer-
causing high priority pollutants (list of 25) have been
scientifically evaluated and now are entering their regulatory
pathways.
Mobile Sources
What scientific support is needed to develop mobile source
regulations?
Atmospheric Research: As the driving feet ages and
changes occur in engine design, models to assess the
impacts of mobile source emissions on ambient air quality
need to be refined and studies must be conducted to
evaluate the impact of new emissions Greater emphasis
will be placed on evaluating promising alternative fuels,
particularly methanol The two primary pollutants of
importance from methanol-fueled vehicles are methanol
and formaldehyde Analytical procedures to measure
methanol and formaldehyde will be developed and emission
characterizations performed Research to determine the
photochemistry of emissions from methanol-fueled
vehicles will also be conducted Emissions from future
gasoline-fueled vehicles and diesel-fueled vehicles
equipped with advanced control technologies will be
characterized. Also, evaporative emissions from motor
vehicles will be characterized under a number of simulated
driving conditions
Monitoring: Improved exposure-activity pattern models
will be developed from exposure data from past field
studies. Further refinements of the Simulation of Human
Activities and Pollutant Exposures (SHAPE) model will be
conducted, and the basic modeling approach will be
adapted to additional mobile source air pollutants. Validation
of the SHAPE model and other exposure models will
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continue using existing human exposure data bases Such
tools are required for making adequate estimates of risks
from mobile source air pollutants.
Health Effects: Studies of the cardiovascular and
neurotoxic effects of CO will continue. A new research effort
on the health effects of fuel and fuel additives will begin.
The Health Effects Institute is expected to continue its
program on CO, NO2, 03 and diesel exhaust, and aldehyde
research, and new emphasis will be placed on studies to
support risk assessment for diesel exhaust and the possible
oncogenicity of ozone.
Global and Microenvironmental
What scientific data are needed to determine the impact of
the quality of global and micro-environments on public
health and the environment?
Stratospheric Modification: By preventing most harmful
ultraviolet (UV-B) radiation from reaching the earth's
surface, the stratospheric ozone layer serves as an
important shield protecting human health and welfare.
Evidence is mounting that chlorofiuorocarbons (CFCs) can
cause depletion of stratospheric ozone if used in sufficient
quantities. Several serious consequences are possible,
including (1) increases in melanoma and other skin cancers,
(2) suppression of the human immune system, (3)
decreased productivity of commercial crops and aquatic
organisms, and (4) accelerated degradation of polymeric
materials. In addition, there has been substantial interest
recently in the possible climate change effects brought
about by the increase in carbon dioxide and trace gases
and the "Greenhouse" effect.
Substantial evidence exists that the composition of the
global atmosphere is changing, particularly with respect to
carbon dioxide and trace "Greenhouse" gases that impact
the energy balance of radiation to and from the earth's
surface and atmosphere. There are uncertainties associated
with the precise timing, magnitude, and spatial patterns of
the atmospheric effects, but there are indications that
changes may occur leading to long-term increases in
surface temperatures and sea-level elevations, and to
shifts in global weather, climate, and hydrology patterns.
The research program under development provides for a
coordinated effort focusing on ecological effects research,
development of control technology, and determinations of
the factors influencing the formation, transport, and fate of
pollutants affecting global weather.
With regard to UV-B light, research is planned to:
(1) evaluate potential future rates of growth in CFC
emissions; (2) model changes in the ozone layer which may
result from changes in atmospheric composition; (3) analyze
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predictive models in light of new atmospheric monitoring
data; (4) determine potential health effects, particularly the
contribution of increased UV-B radiation to the
development of malignant melanoma; and (5) determine the
effects of UV-B on crop productivity
In conjunction with other agencies, research will be
accelerated on the development, validation and use of
global tropospheric/stratosphenc chemistry models to
predict the impacts of changes in trace gases, temperature
and humidity on global climate and the resulting effects on
health and welfare. Results will be incorporated into an
international strategy for dealing with trace gases which
affect climate. Effects of global warming on crops, marine
and terrestrial systems, and other biota will be estimated.
Indoor Air: In the 1970's, indoor air pollution began to
attract increasing public attention when the Federal
Government encouraged energy conservation measures for
buildings.
As Congressional interest in indoor air quality began to
surface, EPA and other federal agencies were directed to
begin exploring the dimensions of the potential indoor air
quality problem. As a result, in 1982 and 1983,
approximately $500 thousand were appropriated to EPA
each year for research on indoor air. For fiscal years I984,
1985 and 1986, resources totalling approximately $7 million
were appropriated for research on indoor air and radon gas
mitigation technologies. EPA has coordinated its research
on indoor air quality with its federal agency partners on the
Integrated Committee on Indoor Air Quality, formed in 1983
In September 1986, EPA's SAB reviewed both ongoing
research projects in indoor air quality and the Office of
Research and Development's plan to conduct a Research
Needs Assessment during the ensuing six months to
determine what is currently known about indoor air
problems and what critical research still needs to be done.
The SAB was positive about the quality of research now
underway, and endorsed ORD's plan to conduct a Research
Needs Assessment prior to designing and implementing
any new research strategy. While the needs assessment is
underway, ORD is continuing certain basic efforts
uninterrupted as recommended by the SAB These include
some methods development, health effects, combustion
characterization, and exposure testing activities
NHANES-III: EPA is participating in an mteragency
consortium that will conduct the next National Health and
Nutrition examination Survey (NHANES-III). EPA's chief
goal in this endeavor is to obtain national baseline data on a
variety of factors that affect pollutant exposures and that
influence health outcomes associated with those exposures.
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Radiation Research
What technical support is necessary to ensure that the
public is adequately protected from exposure to radioactive
materials in the environment?
Monitoring: On a continuing basis, EPA supplies
comprehensive radiological monitoring and surveillance
services to the Department of Energy (DOE) to meet that
Agency's nuclear test monitoring requirements, especially
at the Nevada Test Site. Other locations at which such
support is regularly provided include Mississippi, Colorado,
and New Mexico. Advanced monitoring systems are
employed, primarily offsite, to measure the amount of
radiation escaping the site following test blasts. A report is
generated yearly which details the locations monitored and
test results. This work is expected to continue at the same
level of effort during the next five years.
EPA conducts a radiochemical analytical quality assurance
program which supports federal, regional, state, and local
laboratories making radioactivity measurements to assess
the impact of local nuclear facilities. The purpose of this
program is to ensure that scientifically credible data,
methodologies, and assessments are used when
determining public exposure to radioactive materials. Each
year, EPA reports on laboratory radionuclide studies
conducted during the previous year. This is a continuing
effort and is expected to remain at its current level.
Radon: In support of EPA's Radon Action Plan, ORD will
continue developing and demonstrating cost-effective
methods of mitigating and preventing radon entry into
homes. Publications directed to states, builders,
homeowners, and business on protecting against elevated
indoor radon levels will be updated, based on the results
obtained from additional field demonstrations and other
newly available information. Our radon activities will be
coordinated with DOE's enhanced radon research program.
Summary of Long-Term Trends
During the past 15 years, much progress has been made in
cleaning up the nation's air. Increased use of lead-free
gasoline has sharply decreased ambient lead levels and the
recent move to speed up the lead phase-down program
promises to cut these levels even further. Urban areas are
experiencing fewer severe pollution episodes. Catalytic
converter use has greatly diminished carbon monoxide and
hydrocarbon emissions from automobiles. Although some
areas still exceed allowable levels of ozone, most locations
across the country are generally in compliance with
NAAQS.
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Given these trends, priorities are shifting in the air research
program. New questions include: What are the hazards
posed by unregulated toxic pollutants? What are the
sources of these pollutants? Do the complex mixtures of
urban air pollutants pose particular dangers? What are the
long-term health consequences of continued exposure to
low levels of criteria pollutants? What physical and chemical
interactions in the atmosphere can create or increase toxic
pollutants? What are the actual pollutant exposures
encountered by people throughout the day? To what extent
do conditions or materials in the home contribute to those
exposures? What effect do man-made pollutants have on
global climate? Does ozone have a negative effect on
commercial species of trees? What can be done to
minimize health threats from accidental releases of toxic air
pollutants? What technology is available to control
emissions from incineration of municipal wastes? What
health effects are associated with these pollutants?
Within the area of toxic air pollution research, EPA will focus
on several objectives. Monitoring methods will be improved
and attempts will be made to characterize urban
atmospheres and determine national pollution trends. TEAM
studies will be undertaken, with the goal of developing a
profile of HAP exposures across the nation. Efforts will be
made to identify the most toxic pollutants, by source, and to
determine their healtn effects. The formation, transport, and
fate of HAPs will also be investigated The Integrated Air
Cancer Program (IACP) will be expanded, drawing on the
resources of several EPA laboratories to discover the extent
to which toxic pollutants contribute to this country's rising
cancer rates. The health effects of pollutants associated
with the burning of municipal wastes and with new motor
vehicle fuels will be studied Research on control
technology for municipal waste incineration will be
performed. Studies will be done to characterize transport
patterns following accidental releases of toxic air pollutants
With the cooperation of other federal agencies interested in
the hazards of indoor air pollution, EPA will be applying
modern methods to monitor indoor exposures to radon,
VOCs, NC>2 particulates, and other contaminants. Indoor
emissions will be characterized and exposure models will
be constructed to predict indoor exposures to specified
pollutants. Ultimately this information will be of use in
determining the total exposure - indoor and outdoor --
that humans receive to these pollutants.
Within the criteria pollutant program, an important new issue
is the need to determine the extent to which ozone is
responsible for damage to forests, low growth rates, and
susceptibility to disease. Additional concerns remaining
include ozone non-attainment, health effects exposures to
and particulates. Ozone control research will focus on
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small stationary sources of VOCs, such as dry cleaners and
gas stations, to develop applicable, low-cost methods of
cutting VOC emissions. Health research on NO2 will
concentrate on clinical, epidemiological, and toxicological
evaluations of exposure, particularly in susceptible
populations, such as children and persons with impaired
respiratory systems.
Resource Options
1987 Revised Current Estimate: $ 63.0M
1988 President's Budget: $ 65.5M
Projections
Growth FY 1989 FY 1990 FY 1991 FY 1992
None
Moderate
High
65.5
67.5
69.4
65.5
69.4
71.5
65.5
71 5
73.7
65.5
73.7
759
No Growth: The program would proceed as described in
this Agenda.
Moderate: Additional efforts would be devoted to
augmented research in risk assessment, formation and
control of ozone, long-term health effects of pollutants and
mitigation of risk. Specifically, emphasis would be placed on
determination of risk. Reduction in the criteria air pollution
program would be restored.
High: Additional emphasis would be placed on determining
subtle but major health risks from both criteria and non-
criteria pollutants. Additional support would be given to
control technology research and efforts to characterize
dispersion patterns and atmospheric reactions of pollutants.
Research outreach activities would increase, including
technical assistance, technology transfer, and regulatory
support.
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WATER
EPA's water research program provides the technical and
scientific support necessary to implement the Agency's
regulatory responsibilities under the Clean Water Act
(CWA), the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Marine Protection,
Research and Sanctuaries Act, and a number of Executive
Orders and omnibus statutes. Most of the research on water
issues is conducted by the ORD laboratories, although a
valuable contribution is made by universities and private
research institutions supported in part by EPA grants and
cooperative agreements. EPA's water research is important
to the development of both drinking water and ambient
water quality regulations. In addition, the program is heavily
involved in the evaluation of innovative and cost-effective
treatment technologies and the provision of technical
assistance to municipalities, industry and private
landowners, and is accelerating its research into the
environmental impacts of pollution upon aquatic biota and
their ecosystems.
The water research program will continue to provide support
in the following areas: developing new and revised drinking
water Maximum Contaminant Levels and Health Advisories;
developing Criteria Documents and the scientific
underpinnings of ambient water quality regulatory policies;
assisting the Regions and states in meeting the growing
demand for toxicity based NPDES permits; and providing
technical support to the municipal waste-water
construction program in pretreatment, sludge, operation
inflow and other areas.
The six research areas described in this report-Water
Quality Based Approach; Marine, Estuarme and Great
Lakes; Wastewater Treatment Technology; Drinking Water
Technology, Drinking Water Health, and Ground Water--
represent the principal concerns in the water research area
and correspond both to the organizational structure of the
Water Research Committee and the Agency's water
research budget. Although this is a comprehensive
program, it does not include all ongoing research which
contributes to EPA's water protection mission.
Major Research Issues
Water Quality Based Approach Permitting
What information and methods are needed to support a
water quality based approach to pollution control?
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The CWA recognizes two types of regulatory requirements
needed to restore and maintain the quality of the nation's
waters: (1) technology-based guidelines set uniform
national requirements for discharges by industries and
sewage treatment facilities; and (2) water quality based
standards define the uses to be made of water, such as
drinking water supply or recreation, and subsequently
establish site-specific criteria protective of that use.
Despite significant reductions in point-source pollutant
levels as a result of the implementation of technology-
based discharge limits, some water bodies still do not meet
water quality standards. Moreover, there are increasingly
important water quality problems caused by toxic
substances, diffuse (non-point) sources, and reduced flow.
Ecological Hazard Assessment for Water Quality: This
research will develop data bases that support the Agency m
implementing the regulations under development for the
disposal of sewage sludge under Section 405 of the CWA. It
will provide needed data on plant uptake and effects on
plant and wildlife populations due to land application and
incineration of sludges. Bioaccumulation, toxicity, and
sediment sorption/desorption data bases will also be
developed. Ecological criteria will be developed by
integrating terrestrial and aquatic characteristics into an
assessment protocol.
Microbiological Contamination of Shellfish: EPA will
continue to support a cooperative research effort with the
U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
to determine if a quantitative relationship exists between
microbial indicators of water quality and disease incidence
in consumers of shellfish (oysters and clams). Two field
sites have been selected to study the occurrence of
microbial water quality indicators and to harvest oysters and
clams. Shellfish harvested from these sites (both are
currently acceptable) will be fed to human volunteers to
determine the incidence of gastrointestinal disease. The
microbial water quality indicator that best correlates to the
disease incidence in consumers will be proposed as the
revised shellfish growing water quality indicator.
The microbial water quality health research program will
emphasize resolution of the question of how non-point
sources of pollution from both humans and animals affect
the relationship between microbial water quality indicators
and disease incidence in both recreational and shellfish
growing waters. This is an important research issue
because water quality standards based on upstream
wastewater effluents (point sources) may be overly
restrictive when applied to waters impacted by non-point
sources. The relationship between the pathogen and
indicator organisms and observed disease may be
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drastically different (preliminary data support this) and
thereby affect the dose-response curve on which the
standard is based. This could lead to unnecessary closure
of recreational or shellfish growing waters or to requiring
costly non-point source pollution control technology for
minimal reduction of risks. Research studies, using
molecular biology techniques, will be undertaken to
differentiate human from animal pathogens and to
determine the differences in the dose-response curves
from exposure to these organisms.
Waste Load Allocation: Environmental processes
characterizations will increase available data bases, and
waste load allocation models will be developed, improved,
simplified and tested to implement the water quality based
approach. The Center for Water Quality Modeling in Athens,
Georgia will catalogue, maintain and provide models, user
manuals and associated training and technical assistance to
EPA Regions and states
Monitoring and Qualify Assurance: EPA will continue to
identify, evaluate, standardize and validate analytical
procedures for characterization/monitoring of waterborne
pollutants. Emphasis will be given to the establishment of
protocols which screen water quality through biochemical
and/or biological testing. In the area of chemical methods
development, generic instrumentation approaches to
monitoring (rather than a chemical-by-chemical
approach) will be evaluated. Contamination of the water
column, underlying sediment or introduced sludge will be
individually addressed in an attempt to maximize the
economy of each class of measurement Additionally, the
proposed externalization of quality assurance costs
(charging user fees for QA services) will require the private
sector to reimburse EPA for services rendered.
Water Quality Criteria Aquatic Life: Toxicity testing
methods for aquatic life will be developed, validated and
provided to Regions and states for predicting m-stream
water and biological impacts in fresh and brackish water
and marine systems. Research will continue to support the
integration of pollutant specific controls with whole-
effluent-toxicity testing procedures and Best Available
Technology. The significance of toxicity and persistence
factors to biota will be determined and methods developed
for integration into the permitting process. Field tests will
compare site-specific criteria modification techniques with
the whole-effluent-toxicity approach. Freshwater and
marine water quality criteria and advisories for protection of
aquatic life based on specific chemicals will be developed
as needed and experimental "expert" systems for
environmental assessment will be developed and tested.
Water Quality Criteria Health Effects. Health effects
bioassays developed in previous years to determine toxicity
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of municipal and industrial waste discharges will be field
tested at several different locations. The results of these
field evaluations will be combined and produced as a
methods manual to support the NPDE5 program.
Wetlands In Water Quality Protection: The Agency will
initiate an effort on wetlands research to establish a
scientifically-valid framework for categorizing wetlands and
measuring the impact of change so that regulatory actions
can be effectively tailored to specific problems.
This research will define wetlands values and functions. A
protocol that incorporates scarcity, ecological functions,
ecosystem coupling, replaceability, and cumulative impact
will be developed. This research will also identify water
quality impacts and interactions of wetlands decisions,
assess the effectiveness of wetlands mitigation and
determine the role in water quality protection.
In other areas, guidance for assessing the risk of human
exposure to mixtures of toxic chemicals, the evaluation of
site-specific health hazards and evaluations for CWA
Section 301 (g) permit modification requests will continue
under the scientific assessment program. The cooperative
ecological research with the People's Republic of China will
address the impact of contaminants on freshwater
organisms, emphasizing field verification of methodologies.
Marine, Estuaries and Great Lakes
What information and methods are needed to support
environmentally sound ocean disposal, estuarine and Great
Lakes programs?
Ocean Disposal: EPA is charged with regulating waste
disposal activities in the marine environment. Among these
activities are the dumping of wastes such as dredged
material, sewage sludge and industrial wastes, the disposal
of municipal and industrial wastewater through ocean
outfalls, the incineration-at-sea of industrial wastes and
the permitting of discharges through the NPDES program.
An improved understanding of the ecological consequences
of these ocean disposal actions is needed to guide future
public policy, satisfy international marine treaties and,
where possible, protect and enhance coastal fisheries
resources. Key questions concerning ocean disposal
actions involve procedures to be used in assessing the
impacts of ocean disposal and procedures necessary to
monitor dumpsites for long-term impacts and validate
predictions made about potential impacts. The CWA
requires secondary treatment for ocean outfall discharges
from publicly owned facilities, although waivers are allowed
in selected cases. Therefore, EPA must have a scientific
basis for determining when secondary treatment
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requirements may be modified and what effluent limitations
should be imposed.
To support the ocean dumping and outfall regulatory
programs, EPA's research will focus on the development
and validation of protocols needed for prediction of impacts
from these activities. This program will continue the
development and testing of ocean disposal impact
assessment procedures, coastal and deepwater monitoring
methods, and procedures for characterizing the
bioaccumulation potential and effects of ocean disposed
contaminants. Technology research related to ocean
disposal will provide information used in correlating the
types of treatment with subsequent environmental impacts
in order to assess appropriate levels of treatment for ocean
disposed wastes. This research will focus on the desorption
of toxic organics from sludges to marine waters and on the
fate of toxic organics and metals during treatment.
Estuaries: Estuaries are valuable ecological systems that
are directly important to man as fisheries and recreation
resources and indirectly as nursery areas for estuarine and
coastal fisheries. Estuaries are subject to impacts by the
production, transportation, consumption and release of toxic
chemicals. Basic scientific uncertainties exist regarding
these assessments which involve the quantification of loads,
their transport and fate, and their cumulative effects on the
resources. EPA's estuarine research program will
concentrate on the development and validation of hazard-
assessment protocols for improved source-control
decisions in the NPDES and Construction Grants Programs.
The estuarine research program will develop generic
procedures for conducting wasteload allocations in
estuaries.
Great Lakes: Increased use of industrial chemicals and
their presence in the Great Lakes have raised public
concerns about toxic pollutants, particularly persistent
synthetic organic compounds Because of the complexity of
many of these compounds, it is difficult to predict the
potential adverse impact of these chemicals on organisms
in the food chain, including humans. Analytical methods
needed to detect environmental concentrations of organic
compounds at trace levels are often inadequate Also,
existing methods have limited ability to relate pollutant
exposure levels to the sources, determine the biological
availability and environmental effects of toxic organics EPA
will continue to study transport, fate and effects of toxic
materials in selected areas of the Great Lakes ecosystem,
with emphasis on contaminated sediments This information
will be used by the Great Lakes National Program Office,
EPA Regions, states and the International Joint Commission
under the U S /Canada Water Quality Agreement.
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Wastewater Treatment Technology
What information is needed to develop and assist the
states in implementing sludge disposal regulations and to
improve the reliability and cost-effectiveness of
wastewater treatment facilities?
Sludge Management The processing and disposal of
sludge accounts for about half the total operating costs of a
typical sewage treatment plant. Municipalities are facing
increased economic and public problems with current land
and ocean sludge disposal practices. Approaches to
disposal are needed that will significantly reduce the volume
of sludge, destroy pathogens, ensure that toxic metals are
not a problem, reduce toxic organic compounds, and ensure
that sludge disposal does not present a threat to ground
water, the environment and public health. To support EPA's
regulations, research will focus on sludge use criteria,
procedures and requirements applicable to the regulatory
process. EPA will refine methods to assess sludge-
disposal options including research into ecosystem
resiliency or stress resulting from disposal and methods to
predict human health effects from exposures to sludge.
Research on potential human health effects from sludge
disposal involves collecting data on various chemical and
bacteriological contaminants in sludges and sludge
products and developing hazard indices for effects
associated with different exposure pathways. Studies have
been initiated to evaluate health hazards from exposures to
sludge where composted sludge is sold as fertilizer. Results
from these and other studies will provide data for
determining the effects of various sludge treatment
processes on mitigating disease.
Health assessment profiles will support regulatory decision
making on the effective treatment, conversion, use and
disposal of municipal sludge. EPA will develop information
on mitigating risk through sludge treatment, on disposal
options, and will produce guidelines for conducting health
risk assessments of sludge disposal. Research results will
be used to calculate indices for cancer and oral chronic
toxicity related to hazards in the food web and inhalation
and aquatic toxicity associated with the incineration and
ocean disposal of sludge.
The Agency will continue to maintain and update the
existing gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS)
tape library and will develop new analytical data bases of
toxic pollutants found in industrial wastewaters.
Research on sludge stabilization, pathogen reduction and
dewatering offers a major opportunity to reduce
substantially costs associated with sludge processing while
causing minimal environmental impact. Pilot- and large-
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scale combinations of activated sludge, and anaerobic
digestion to determine the mass and volume reducing
capabilities of the system will be evaluated, along with
promising methods such as mechanical composting and
conversion of sludge to fuel. Engineering research
addressing sludge applications in agriculture, forests,
landfills and land reclamation is needed to establish safe
application rates and management techniques and to
minimize surface and groundwater impacts.
Innovative/Alternative (I/A) Technology: EPA will provide
technical and program support to states, municipalities,
consultants and equipment manufacturers in the areas of
facility plan reviews, emerging technology assessments,
technology evaluations, small wastewater flow technology
and technology transfer. Also, assessments of promising
wastewater treatment processes that have had limited full-
scale application will be made.
Upgrading and Correcting Designs: The Agency will
provide information to municipalities to upgrade existing
plant capabilities and achieve compliance with minimal
capital costs. Research in this area encompasses evaluation
of high biomass systems, enhanced oxygen transfer,
second generation nutrient control schemes, and a variety
of innovative long-range approaches to biological
treatment such as genetic engineering
Toxics Treatability and Toxicity Reduction: EPA will
evaluate the fate and effects of toxic pollutants in municipal
wastewater treatment systems as a component of effects to
develop enhanced control of toxics in such systems. The
Agency will also develop toxicity reduction evaluation
procedures for municipal and industrial wastewater
treatment plants in support of water quality based permit
limitations.
Water Quality Planning and Regulation Support EPA
will provide engineering data and managerial techniques
necessary for states to apply a cost-effective systems
engineering approach to implement wasteload allocations
within their water quality control programs. This will provide
more reasonable margins of safety in determining allowable
stream loadings and reduce over-design of advanced
treatment plants.
Quality Assurance: EPA will continue the quality assurance
and repository samples program. The performance of major
NPDES dischargers' laboratories will be evaluated, and
actions on NPDES alternate test candidate procedure
applications will be recommended
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Drinking Water Technology
What new technologies are needed to continue to assure
the safety of drinking water?
EPA's drinking water technology research program provides
engineering data to support the development and revision of
drinking water regulations as well as engineering
information and technological support to states,
municipalities, EPA Regions and utilities concerned with
drinking water regulations and compliance. Major
technological problems include the relationship between
treatment strategies and deterioration of water quality within
the distribution systems, other factors causing deterioration
within distribution systems, and bringing small systems into
cost-effective compliance A related concern is the impact
of distribution system corrosion on drinking water quality
and the need for low-cost techniques to solve this
problem.
Disinfection By-Products: Research will continue on
improving the knowledge of a number of unidentified by-
products produced by chlorination as well as by-products
of alternate disinfectants to chlorine Evaluations of
trihalomethane (THM) control using alternative disinfectants
and treatment modifications will continue.
Overall System Integrity: The persistence and regrowth of
organisms in distribution systems are influenced by the
physical and chemical characteristics of the water, system
age, pipe materials and the availability of suitable sites for
bacterial colonization. Investigations will also be carried out
on other key factors that influence microbial regrowth, such
as nutrients, temperature and sediment accumulations.
Theoretical, laboratory and field studies will define factors
associated with distribution system repair and replacement
criteria. Laboratory and field studies will evaluate the impact
of changes in treatment and disinfection practices brought
about by existing and new regulations.
Small-System Compliance: EPA is directing special
attention to small drinking-water systems and their
compliance with regulations. Research is evaluating the cost
and engineering feasibility of specific treatment techniques
to remove or control chemical, paniculate and
microbiological contaminants. Several evaluations will be at
pilot- or full-scale. Laboratory studies are defining
variables that govern the effectiveness and efficiencies of
treatment processes prior to large-scale evaluations.
Monitoring and Quality Assurance: The Drinking Water
Technology Research Program oversees the Agency-wide
mandatory quality assurance program for drinking water.
Ten regional laboratories are involved in the National Interim
Primary Drinking Water Regulations laboratory certification
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program. Monitoring activities will also develop methods
and total measurement systems for precise chemical,
microbiological and radiochemical analysis. This will provide
accurate and cost-effective analytical procedures to
monitor contaminants for use by the Agency, states,
municipalities, and operators of public drinking water
systems.
Drinking Water Health
What are the health effects from exposure to chemical and
microbiological contaminants found in drinking water?
EPA is required to develop national drinking water
standards for contaminants that may cause an adverse
health effect. Research to determine the effects and risks
from exposure to drinking water contaminants is an
essential step and has been explicitly recognized by a
provision of the Safe Drinking Water Act. Such research will
be continued
Health Effects Data and Risk Assessment: lexicological
research to develop dose/response data will support
development of Maximum Contaminant Levels and Health
Advisories for disinfectants and disinfectant byproducts,
synthetic organic chemicals, inorganic chemicals,
radionuclides and microbes as required under the Safe
Drinking Water Act Amendments of 1986. Risk assessments
and criteria documents will be developed for drinking water
contaminants. Epidemiological studies will determine the
associations between drinking water disinfection and
cardiovascular disease, and drinking water quality and
bladder, kidney, liver and colon cancer.
Methods Development: Research will be done to improve
extrapolation of toxicological data from high to low doses
and from laboratory animals 10 humans. The effects of
different exposure pathways are being evaluated to improve
the accuracy of risk assessments Microbiological methods
are being developed to identify infectious disease agents in
water and determine the significance of the occurrence of
these agents in water supplies. Methods to determine
exposure and risks from chemical mixtures are also being
developed.
Ground Water
What is needed to improve the scientific capability to
monitor, predict, and clean up ground water contamination
problems?
EPA and the states have a number of mandates for
protecting ground water, and almost every regulatory and
enforcement program in the Agency has some interest in
ground water protection. In response to these needs, EPA's
ground water research programs cover source control,
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monitoring methods, analytical methods and quality
assurance, prediction and resultant assessment of risks,
drinking water treatment and health effects, and cleanup
methods for contaminated soils and ground water This
section focuses on: wellhead protection, monitoring
technology; prediction and assessment tools, underground
injection control; aquifer cleanup, and technology transfer.
These areas are not covered within the Hazardous
Waste/Superfund or the Pesticides and Toxics chapters in
this Research Outlook
The research will be used to evaluate the ground-water
flow, and fate and transport models available for wellhead
protection and delineation. Methods and information will be
developed on critical wellhead protection factors such as
radius of influence around a well or well field, depth of
drawdown of water table by well or well field, and the time
and rate of travel of various contaminants m various
hydrogeologic settings. In addition, the research would
provide analysis of the impact on well head protection areas
from sources of contamination and evaluate the
effectiveness of control methods both technical and
institutional on the prevention of ground-water
contamination in the wellhead protection area.
Predictive Methods: Predictive research provides the basis
for assessing the risk of ground water contamination upon
drinking water supplies and for understanding subsurface
processes that eventually may lead to cleanup
methodology. Sorption, biotransformation, transport, mixed
solvent interactions, oxidation reduction, hydrolysis,
dechlorination, dispersion, fractured flow, and immiscible
flow will be investigated for organic chemicals that could
pose significant risk. Research will continue on virus
survival and transport, and metals mobility. Contaminant-
transport models will be adapted and modified to include
the improved process descriptions, field evaluations will
determine the degree of confidence that can be expected
from predictive models in various hydrogeologic
environments.
Monitoring Technology: EPA's research will improve
cost-effectiveness and accuracies of monitoring in three
areas: methods, geophysical techniques and interpretive
analysis. Sampling and well-construction methods will be
evaluated to determine their effects on the accuracy of
results. Fiber-optics technology will be used for
inexpensive and reliable ground water monitoring. Current
methods will be adapted for use on underground storage
tanks and non-hazardous landfills. Vadose zone
(unsaturated) techniques will be evaluated for their
applicability to various situations and soil-gas monitoring
will be developed into an inexpensive and reliable method
for plume delineation.
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Geophysical methods adapted from the energy and
minerals resource industry will be evaluated for their
applicability to such ground water contamination problems
as detecting leakage from underground injection wells,
location of abandoned wells, and contaminant plume
detection. Quality assurance methods will be developed and
standardized to improve confidence in these techniques
Interpretive analysis will be used to obtain more information
from monitoring data and to improve reliability. Efforts will
continue to determine the completeness of coverage for
methods to locate abandoned wells. "Variance analysis" will
be applied to determine the frequency of sampling required
in monitoring wells to gam the appropriate confidence under
different circumstances. Finally, geographically based
information systems will be used to make ground water
monitoring data more useful to decision makers
Underground Injection Control: This research will be
extremely important over the next few years due to the
regulatory requirements of the Hazardous and Solid Waste
Amendments of 1984. EPA is required to reconsider the
safety of underground injection as a hazardous waste
disposal method and to ban such injection should there be
migration out of the injection zone. EPA has a number of
research activities underway to aid the Office of Drinking
Water in making these determinations, including
determining the fluid movement from wells, describing the
interaction of injected fluids with the geological strata, and
characterizing saline formations in the Texas Gulf Coast as
receptors of hazardous wastes. Research will determine the
mechanical integrity of injection wells, the location of
abandoned wells and the practices associated with
nonhazardous injection.
Aquifer Restoration: Aquifer cleanup research will provide
cost-effective methods for cleanup of contaminated soils
and ground water. Alternatives are needed to current
approaches such as withdrawal and treatment or
containment. Promising laboratory methods for enhancing
subsurface biotransformation will be field tested, the safety
of using genetically-engineered organisms for
biodegradation will be determined, and the application of
these methods to leaks from underground storage tanks will
be evaluated
Technology Transfer: Information transfer will continue to
be an important part of ground water research. Specific
training materials are under development in addition to
technical assistance to the EPA regions and the states.
Support will continue to the National Ground Water
Information Center, a computerized bibliographic retrieval
database, and the International Ground Water Modeling
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Center, a clearinghouse for ground water models and
training.
Summary of Long-Term Trends
Most of the water research issues described in this chapter
will continue into the next decade, with gradually changing
degrees of activity and emphasis. Better analytical
capabilities will continue to improve the capability to
measure trace constituents in water, resulting in better
identification of greater numbers of potentially deleterious
chemical contaminants. With more lexicological and
epidemiological information, water quality managers will
face increasingly difficult decisions involving the
environmental significance of complex mixtures of
pollutants.
A significant near-term issue includes the development of
toxicant information for complex mixtures. The growing
inventory of chlorinated organic contaminants in
complicated combinations requires significant changes in
the research strategies and technological methods used to
assess them. Whole-sample evaluations such as matrix
bioassays, biological indicators and chemical surrogates will
play a larger role in the future. To remain responsive, EPA's
water research program must simultaneously develop and
validate new methods for evaluating complex mixtures and
their impacts while applying them in regulatory situations.
The environmental water quality issues, including estuary
protection, ocean disposal and the water quality based
approach, all reflect the emerging need to develop new
tools to test and monitor ecological impacts, including
effects on the community at a system level. Over the next
decade, major strides will be made in identifying safe or
"no-effect" levels of toxic organic contaminants in
sediments and water and in methods to establish biological
availability and bioaccumulation in tissues of aquatic life.
Many communities and landowners rely upon ground water
sources for drinking and irrigation. Questions regarding the
quality of ground water have been increasing in recent
years. Consequently, the dynamics of ground water and the
residence times and fates of leached contaminants in
aquifers will be a major water resource issue for the
remainder of the century. The coming decade will see the
refinement of the capability to simulate and predict the
impacts of contaminants on underground sources
In the wastewater treatment areas, emphasis will be on
control of toxics in wastewaters and sludges. Improved
engineering and the periodic emergence of innovative and
alternative technologies may reduce costs. A major
breakthrough in wastewater treatment may come from
biological engineering, possibly through the development of
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organisms which could be more effective in treating
wastewater and sludges.
Resource Options
1987 Current Estimate. $ 48.4M
1988 President's Budget: $ 48.6M
Projections
Growth
None
Moderate
High
FY1989
48.6
50.0
51.5
FY 1990
48.6
51.5
53.0
FY 1991
48.6
53.0
545
FY 1992
48.6
54.5
57.3
No Growth: The program would proceed as described in
this Agenda.
Moderate: Additional emphasis would be given to research
on wetlands, pollutant fate and effects in ground water,
sludge, estuaries, and near coastal studies. In addition,
efforts would be directed towards developing techniques to
quantify health risks from exposure to complex mixtures
and to augment the drinking water repository samples and
quality assurance programs
High: The research cited under the moderate growth option
would be augmented and accelerated, and additional
research on water quality criteria would be conducted
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Pesticides and Toxics
Pesticides and toxic substances research provides support
to meet the current and future needs of the Toxic
Substances Control Act (TSCA), the Federal Insecticide,
Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and, to a limited
extent, the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA).
Research efforts are geared toward providing scientifically
valid yet cost-effective methods for evaluating the risks
associated with pesticides uses and the manufacture and
use of new and existing chemicals.
The research program in support of TSCA and FIFRA will
continue to develop, evaluate, and validate health and
environmental test methodologies and procedures to
improve the predictability of human risk estimates, develop
exposure monitoring systems, environmental fate and
effects methods, and develop guidelines to perform
environmental risk assessments. Additional research will
develop and evaluate release and control methods for new
and existing chemicals, structure activity relationships as
predictors of chemical fate and biological effects, and
procedures for ensuring the human and environmental
safety of the products of biotechnology. The contamination
of ground water from pesticides will be another area of
interest in the ongoing research program.
Major Research Issues
Test Method Development
What new procedures or tests are needed to ensure that
industry's data on environmental or health effects are
accurate, reproducible and consistent?
Under TSCA and FIFRA, manufacturers must test chemicals
and pesticides for potential hazards to the public health and
environment. Consequently, research is conducted to
provide guidance for performing such tests. Regulatory
decisions on a chemical depend on qualitative and
quantitative scientific data from industry regarding potential
adverse environmental and human health effects of
exposure to the chemical. Since the sensitivity, reliability,
cost and time constraints of these tests vary widely,
carefully screened methods are being developed and
approved by the Agency. When completed, such methods
will be incorporated into testing guidelines for use by
industry and others who must evaluate the safety of
chemicals.
Scientific assessment efforts in the test method
development area will focus on research activities to
improve the Agency's ability to assess exposure to and the
potential health effects associated with the use of pesticides
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or the manufacture, production, distribution, use or disposal
of chemical substances or mixtures. This research is largely
targeted on data inadequacies identified in the course of
scientific assessment of chemicals during regulatory
analyses. These research activities involve issues critical to
the assessment of exposure and various adverse effects
(carcinogenicity, developmental toxicity, reproductive
effects, other chronic effects, and the estimation of heritable
risk at low doses).
The monitoring program will focus on chemical and
biological test methods needed to assess chemical hazards
to humans and the environment. Real-time and rapid
screening tests are needed for environmental monitoring to
rapidly determine the existence of an environmental
problem. In this area, research will be conducted with
enhanced laser Raman spectroscopy to develop a real-
time method for identifying chemical hazards. Bioassays
using in vitro tissue culture responses and monoclonal
antibody techniques will also be evaluated as potential
screening tools for field evaluations. Finally, human
exposure methods research will focus on advances in
GC/MS analyses and the development of biochemical and
immunochemical markers to detect exposure to particular
pollutants. In the pesticides areas, new and/or improved
cost-effective methods will be developed for detecting and
analyzing pesticide chemicals. There is a continuing need
for research into new and more sensitive analysis methods
for various classes of compounds evaluated under both
FIFRA and TSCA programs.
Environmental effects research will evaluate existing
methods and perform field studies to determine the
sensitivity of available tests and identify species for
potential future test methods development. In this area,
major advances will be required to relate single-species
and microcosm data to actual ecosystem effects and to
adequately relate observed effects on one species to
probable effects on other species (comparative toxicology).
Health effects research efforts are directed toward
developing predictive, reliable and cost-effective
bioassays.
Test methods development will focus on prediction of toxic
hazards in the following areas: reproduction/teratology,
neurotoxicity, immunotoxicity, mutagenic or carcinogenic
effects, and genetically inheritable disorders.
Structure Activity Relationships (SARs)
What information is needed on substances and their
similarity of chemical structure to determine what additional
testing is needed to assure the safety of humans and the
environment?
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To enhance the efficiency of the regulatory process for toxic
substances, it is convenient to group various chemicals
which share common or similar chemical characteristics
rather than to deal with each individual chemical. If it can be
demonstrated that chemical relationships, such as similar
molecular structures and similar modes of toxic activity,
form a firm scientific basis for estimating probable
environmental risks, then better guidelines and techniques
can be applied and regulatory actions can be completed
more quickly using less resources. This approach will
provide both the regulator and the regulated a standard
basis for determining if a substance might be toxic and
detrimental to living organisms or their environment.
SAR is vital for reviewing and screening PMN chemicals
under Section 5 of TSCA. The findings and techniques
established in this research will be used to select
appropriate toxicity tests, to document test results, to
develop fate and effects data bases where necessary and to
provide the modeling means to predict toxicity.
Environmental effects research will include data base
compilation and improvement in the precision and validation
of SAR for predicting toxicity and such parameters as
photolysis, biodegradation and likely metabolites in
multimedia matrices.
Health research will focus on development of methods
using a combination of descriptors based on molecular
structure to predict genetic, carcinogenic, and other toxic
activities using pattern recognition, statistical and
thermodynamic techniques. Data bases containing bioassay
data for use in predicting the mutagenic and carcinogenic
potential of new chemicals in the environment will also be
developed. These data bases will relate genetic and
carcinogenic effects to toxicological response.
Special Human Data Needs
What effects do specific chemicals have on actual
populations occupationally or environmentally exposed to
the chemicals?
To improve the Agency's ability to estimate human health
risk, these activities will examine population groups exposed
to environmental contaminants which are suspect toxicants.
Research is continuing to determine whether biological
indicators of dose and/or effects are related to
environmental levels of exposure and if they are correlated
with adverse effects measured by traditional methods.
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Ecology: TransportlFate/Field Validation
What methodologies (including mathematical models) are
needed to assess the fate and effects of toxic chemicals
and pesticides in the environment?
To adequately evaluate the likely perturbations a pesticide
or toxic chemical may cause in the environment, it is
necessary to understand probable exposure
concentrations/durations, movements through ecosystems,
degradation rates, reservoirs, effects and residues. The
Agency must have available techniques which may be
applied to attain this information, must be capable of
interpreting findings and must have a predictive capacity to
anticipate problems. Activities in this area are designed to
meet these needs, to improve the criteria and standards
against which industry, the users or the Agency must
comply. The intent is to provide new or improved state-
of-the-art techniques to fill data gaps in order to have
scientifically credible and legally defensible regulatory
actions.
Research will be conducted to evaluate microcosms at
freshwater, estuarine/marine and terrestrial semi-natural
and natural field sites. Multi-species laboratory bioassays
will also be validated to allow data bases to be documented
and published that will predict the effects of toxic chemicals
on aquatic and terrestrial vertebrates and invertebrates.
System level investigations will validate multi-species and
community level toxicology methods. Field tests will be
conducted to assess the influence of colloidal organic
matter on the uptake of chlorinated toxic chemicals by
benthic organisms. Finally, field evaluations will be carried
out to verify select organisms responses to sediment bound
toxics found in freshwater ecosystems.
Efforts in this area will also determine the specific species
and testing methods to assess the effects of toxic chemicals
on terrestrial, freshwater and estuarine/marine species to
provide data which can be used as surrogate information for
other organisms. Evaluations will focus on comparative
toxicology correlations and on validating promising
correlations. Wild species testing will be emphasized to
compare with previously conducted laboratory tests
especially with finfish which will be used as surrogates tor
mammals. Terrestrial toxicology research will also be
conducted to validate tests which determine the toxicity of
chemicals to different strains and sources of birds.
Pesticide oriented investigations will focus on representative
estuarine, freshwater and terrestrial field sites and will
consider pesticide dose, exposure, effects and functional
alterations at the species/population level. Non-target
organisms (e.g., fishes, invertebrates, crustaceans, birds)
effects will be quantified in terms of mortality, reproduction
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rates and resiliency. This includes residue analysis and
population censusing (pre- and post-treatment)
information. Through extensive field sampling, data
collection and analysis and simulated exposures, field
findings will be compared to lab findings. Final evaluations
will be published if lab results are comparable to field
results and if hazard assessment criteria are adequate.
Additionally, laboratory and field studies will commence to
determine the relationships among the use of pesticides
and other agricultural practices, pesticide characteristics
and field conditions to mitigate ground water contamination
problems.
Transport and fate processes and exposure information is
highly critical to the Office of Pesticides and Toxic
Substances (OPTS) operations. Various laboratory tasks will
contribute exposure information on such parameters as
sorption kinetics in sediments, pesticide transformation,
biodegradation and movement. Methodologies applied will
derive rate constants and determine the extent of the
reactions observed resulting in descriptive mathematical
expressions and exposure concentration estimates.
Mechanisms and rates of degradation by natural microbial
communities will be studied. Controlling environmental
conditions and processes effecting degradation will be
determined and quantitative relationships between the
pesticide chemical characteristics and the environmental
parameters will be factored in.
Field evaluation of methods and exposure models (with
emphasis on leaching models) will be conducted via
laboratory and field studies including analysis of residues in
soils. This includes information generation on variability of
soil water releases and ground water contamination and
includes model calibration and improvements to predict
exposure concentrations and toxicant movement.
Appropriate workshops and symposia may be convened to
transfer results to users. When developed and evaluated,
these models will predict the environmental impact of
pesticides and toxic substances.
Health: Markers, Dosimetry, and Extrapolation
How do we relate external dose to internal dose and to
early indicators of disease states and how can we better
extrapolate (from high dose to low from differing routes of
exposure and from laboratory animal to man) to support
risk assessments?
For both the pesticides and toxic substances programs,
health effects research will be focused on development of
methodologies for extrapolation of animal data from high to
low doses and between mammalian species to enhance
human health risk assessment predictability. Additional
studies in the toxic substances research program involve
36
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defining the relationship between biochemical indicators of
exposure to neurotoxicants and behavioral dysfunction as
well as studies in dosimetry and extrapolation related to
genetically mediated health effects. Additional pesticides
research includes evaluating the relationship(s) of age and
dermal absorption using in vivo animal models as well as
research on compound-induced reproductive alterations
following exposure during developmental periods Data
generated in the toxics and pesticides areas will be used to
extrapolate toxicant risks to humans.
Exposure Monitoring
What improvements are needed for the monitoring
methods, systems and analysis used to provide the data
bases for estimating human exposure?
TSCA related monitoring efforts will be directed toward
improvement in monitoring systems to estimate human
exposure through use of the Environmental Methods Test
Site (EMTS) at Chattanooga, TN Research will also be
continued to develop approaches for multi-media/multi-
pathway monitoring systems which generate data that will
provide an estimate of total human exposure. Studies will
also be conducted to incorporate environmental dose into
personal exposure monitors and to provide a better
understanding of the contribution of the different exposure
routes on pollutant intake. The relationship of network
monitoring to personal exposure monitoring will be
evaluated at EMTS in a WHO/UNEP Human Exposure
Assessment Location (HEAL) Project.
Biotechnology I Microbial and Biochemical Pest Control
Agents
What methods and technologies are needed to assure
safety to public health and the environment from microbial
agents and products of biotechnology?
Many of the techniques required to adequately control or
regulate microbial organisms or "biochemical" products
(e.g., pheromones) apply to both TSCA and FIFRA
mandates. Beyond these basic techniques, however, there
is a divergence -- microbial applications under TSCA are
usually industrially oriented and relate to workplace
exposure or accidental releases; the microbial applications
under FIFRA are an intentional dispersion to control
undesirable flora or fauna. Such microbial pest control
agents (MPCA's) may be "natural" selected stock or may
be genetically-altered.
Users of biotechnological products must follow
recommended Agency guidelines in a testing regime
designed to help prevent adverse environmental impacts.
ORD helps establish these techniques, determines if
37
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environmental effects are exhibited by previously untested
non-target organisms and conducts field-oriented
validation studies as necessary to insure that testing criteria
and guidelines are appropriate and functional. Engineering
research will also be conducted to develop and/or improve
methods to contain or destroy genetically engineered
organisms.
Under FIFRA, research will develop or improve bioassay
methodologies for determining the effects of biological
control agents (BCA's) on non-target receptors or hosts.
This includes providing testing protocols and effects
information for unaltered and genetically altered microbial
BCA's. Investigations will focus on routes of exposure,
methods to detect and identify agents, toxicity, infectivity,
persistence and effects. The information will be used for
revising subpart M guidelines and for regulatory decisions
in pre- and post-registration actions.
Pesticides health research in biotechnology involves
development of data on the immunologic effects of
microbial pesticides (both microbial and biochemical pest
control agents and bioengmeered organisms) on
mammalian cells. Methods are also being developed using
monoclonal antibodies and biotinated DMA probes to enable
the identification of genetic material from biological
pesticides in non-target sites such as mammalian cells.
These methods will provide the basis for validation of
subpart M guidelines for testing microbial pesticides.
Under TSCA, efforts will be continued to develop scientific
rationales, procedures and monitoring methods for
evaluating the environmental survivability, reproduction,
distribution, effects and risk associated with the escape of
genetically manipulated organisms. The results will be used
to prepare protocols for use in evaluating TSCA products
involving environmental application of microbes. This
research will also support regulatory rulemaking specifying
which products are to be considered under TSCA.
In the toxic substances health research area, studies will be
conducted to determine the genetic stability and function of
a baculovirus expression vector in vertebrate cells. The
ability of genetically engineered organisms to genetically
transfer novel metabolic capabilities to normal gut flora will
be studied to determine the potential for adverse health
effects.
Engineering Release and Controls
What engineering and technological information is needed
to identify the release of and exposure to toxic substances
and to determine alternatives for control of these
substances?
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Under the premanufacture notification (PMN) process,
manufacturers are required to submit information to EPA on
the release and control of new chemicals and significant
new uses of existing chemicals. EPA uses existing data to
predict the risks of and from the release of new substances,
and under the existing chemicals control program, evaluates
technological alternatives to reduce the release of and
exposure to chemicals that are already in use.
Models will be developed which predict release of and
exposure to classes of new chemicals in order to assess
chemical-unit operations and processes, and the physical
and chemical properties of chemical substances.
Additionally, models to predict potential exposure and
release levels, and the best control measures to control
release of and exposure to new chemicals will be
developed. TreatabDity testing of potentially toxic chemicals
will also be conducted.
Alternatives to mitigate the release of and exposure to
specific existing and new toxic substances will be defined
through the evaluation and adaptation of control measures
related to the release of chemicals in the workplace and into
the environment. Technologies, management practices, and
personal protective equipment to limit the release into the
environment and exposure to those toxic substances will be
evaluated.
Under FIFRA, EPA is responsible for pesticide exposure
studies, for reviewing and approving pesticide labels, for
administration of the pesticide Farm Safety Program, and
for supporting training and education programs for pesticide
users through state extension services. The Agency is
concerned that protective clothing currently recommended
for use by pesticide users is not providing acceptable
protection. This situation is aggravated by a lack of
appropriate data In order to improve the situation, EPA
requires greatly improved documentation regarding the
effectiveness of protective clothing. This program will focus
on generating breakthrough time and steady-state
permeation rate data for concentrated formulations of high
toxicity pesticides through a range of commonly available
polymer gloves that may be suitable for use by mixers and
loaders of pesticides. Evaluations of the job compatibility
and degree of protection provided by clothing items other
than gloves will also be conducted via laboratory and field
testing.
Ecology: Ecotoxicity and Risk Assessment
What methods are needed to evaluate ecosystem risk as a
result of exposure to existing and new chemicals?
In the past, the emphasis of ORD's scientific assessment
program has been placed on the assessment of risk to
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Support
human populations. However, there is also a need to assess
the risk to non-human populations and the environment.
The development of ecological risk assessment protocols
and guidance for terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems
(primarily endangered species and commercial fisheries) is
necessary to quantify the probability that adverse effects
may occur as a result of exposure to a toxic substance and
to estimate the significance of such effects m the
environment. Since environmental data developed by
industry may vary greatly from chemical to chemical,
procedures need to be developed which provide guidance
and consistency for the various environmental exposure
activities. This work will provide risk assessment protocols
and guidelines for the assessment of effects to terrestrial
and aquatic ecosystems.
Ecosystem risk research will provide a scientifically based
system to assess ecological risks from exposure to
environmental toxicants. This system will provide the
capability to assess risks associated with different uses of
chemicals resulting from various options for regulating
pesticides and toxic chemicals to protect organisms in their
natural environment. This research will provide for
prognostic assessment, extrapolations to any patterns and
levels of environmental release, inferences of types of
responses to be expected in natural systems, and estimates
of uncertainties in the assessments.
Finally, it will integrate chemical fate, exposure, and effects
to provide the capability to conduct risk assessment for
terrestrial and aquatic systems.
Major program components will include development of a
computerized framework linking all components to provide
the capability to carry out appropriate analyses and obtain
results in any desired form. It also will include data bases of
scenarios such as river reaches, endangered species
habitats, chemical properties, and properties of organisms
including geographical range and habitat preferences. Such
activities will utilize and develop traditional analysis
techniques and models that calculate bioconcentration and
effects for populations, communities and ecosystems and
provide quantitative and qualitative probability statements of
uncertainties involved in the assessments.
What support is required for preparation and review of
scientific assessments and for quality assurance?
For certain assessments the technical expertise of the ORD
staff is required to conduct literature searches, interpret
data or render technical and scientific (udgments because
of the lack of data. In cases where program office
evaluations are complicated and/or controversial,
40
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independent peer review of assessments are required to
ensure consistency. There is a continuing need for ORD
participation in and review of major exposure and hazard
assessments conducted by OPTS for supplying Agency
policy makers with technical assistance from qualified
scientists and for improving the scientific basis of Agency
decisions in regulatory matters.
When requested, ORD will provide critical review of test rule
documents for existing chemicals and screening of selected
new chemicals under Section 5 PMN notifications. Such
activities will support validation of toxicity tests, assist with
exposure and risk assessments, and preparation and update
of TSCA testing guidelines. This support will also
encompass evaluation of complex problems associated with
environmental fate, hazards and risks of toxic chemicals and
bioengineered organisms as necessary for implementing
TSCA.
Finally, in both the pesticides and toxics areas, support will
continue for quality assurance and maintenance and
dissemination of standard reference materials.
Summary of Long-Term Trends
Pesticides and toxic substances research efforts focus on
both intentional and unintentional releases of chemical
substances into the environment. Each of the issues
covered in this chapter will continue into the next decade.
Various degrees of emphasis are addressed below:
Test method development efforts will continue in support of
both TSCA and FIFRA guidelines. As current methodologies
are standardized, new techniques will be developed to fill
gaps in existing methods. These new methods will focus
mainly on endpomts other than carcinogenicity, and will
provide more effective means to conduct quantitative risk
assessments. To this end, efforts will increase for
developing extrapolation techniques (from high to low doses
and from animals to humans) for reducing the uncertainty of
laboratory data used in predicting human risk. The
development of biological markers will also assist in this
area by providing more accurate measures of human
exposure levels as well as serving as tools for
epidemiological studies. Concurrently, the development of
exposure monitoring systems will increase to provide new
monitoring methods, systems and analyses.
Ecological risk assessment research will continue to
develop methods for determining the fate and effects of
chemicals. These effects and exposure methods will
provide the means to evaluate risks. The integration of such
methods and data will provide the means to develop
protocols for environmental risk assessments.
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Research to provide information on the release and control
of new and existing chemicals from manufacturing
processes will allow the rapid and accurate prediction of
how much and where chemicals will be released into the
environment, and with increasing accuracy, an estimation of
their environmental effects. Such information is vital to the
PMN review process and it is anticipated that the need for
such data will continue to increase as the manufacture of
new chemicals continues to grow.
EPA will provide methods to protect public health and the
environment from the potential adverse impacts of microbial
agents and the products of biotechnology. This research will
help to determine containment facilities for bioengineered
organisms and means of monitoring the survival and
distribution of those intended for release.
The structure-activity research program will continue as
the methods for predicting fate and effects of parents and
degradation compounds become available, and the need for
field validation efforts will increase to ensure the reliability of
methods used to test chemicals.
Resource Options
1987 Current Estimate: $ 43.6M
1988 President's Budget: $ 42.2M
Projections
Growth FY 1989 FY 1990 FY 1991 FY 1992
None
Moderate
High
42.2
43.5
44.8
42.2
44.8
46.1
42.2
46.1
47.5
42.2
47.5
488
No Growth: The base program would proceed as described
above. Established priorities would continue to guide the
research. In general these priorities are: biotechnology
research, SAR, risk assessment and field validation studies
including transport and fate.
Moderate: The same level of effort would be maintained for
TSCA research; increased resources would enhance and
expand field validation studies.
High: With a high level of resources, the studies on ground
water contamination would be increased.
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Hazardous Waste and Superfund
The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)
authorizes a regulatory program to identify wastes which
pose a substantial hazard to human health or the
environment, and develop waste management standards
which protect human health and the environment. Research
support for this program provides the scientific and
engineering basis for characterizing wastes, determining the
hazards they pose and formulating controls. In addition,
Section 311 of the Clean Water Act authorizes research to
support prevention and control of hazardous materials
releases.
The Office of Emergency and Remedial Response (OERR)
requires scientific research and technical support from the
Office of Research and Development to investigate and
mitigate health and environmental problems at the priority
sites listed under authority of the Comprehensive
Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act
(CERCLA), as amended by the Superfund Amendments and
Reauthorization Act of 1986 (SARA). ORD's research
program provides a core of scientific and technical
information to support the implementation requirements of
CERCLA and the enforcement actions undertaken to obtain
cleanup and recovery of costs. It concentrates on assessing
health and environmental risks posed by Superfund sites
and on evaluating equipment and techniques for
discovering, assessing, preventing, controlling, removing
and ultimately disposing of hazardous substances released
into the environment. Research and support activities
consist of programs to develop and evaluate validity of
methods for detection and evaluation of adverse human and
environmental effects, to evaluate alternative control and
removal technologies, and to develop effective monitoring
systems.
The ORD program for SARA is intended to, among other
things, respond to reauthorized CERCLA authorities to
enhance the Agency's internal research capabilities related
to Superfund activities and is also focused on responding to
more comprehensive site-specific evaluation needs for
Superfund sites. Plans provide for increased site-specific
assessments, quality assurance, and technical support for
the monitoring program; increased technology transfer
activity; initiation of innovative/alternative treatment and
detection technology research, development and
demonstration programs for both monitoring and
engineering; initiation of research on health effects, health
risk assessment, and increases in the support to Regional
Offices for risk assessment activities; increases in support
to the Regional Offices in the areas of groundwater
43
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sampling, analysis, and data interpretation by the
multidisciplinary groundwater support team.
Major Research Issues
Alternative Technologies
What information and data are needed to support and
permit the use of alternatives to land disposal?
The Agency is currently beginning to implement a program
which will ban land disposal of certain classes of untreated
hazardous wastes. Banning these wastes could require the
availability of proven alternatives for treating or recycling
waste materials. Although many of these technologies
currently exist, there are many questions regarding their
effectiveness on specific wastes and their capacity to
address the anticipated volumes that will require treatment.
This research will provide support for the Office of Solid
Waste (OSW) in implementing the portions of the RCRA
amendments which require banning certain hazardous
wastes from land disposal.
Research on alternative technologies assesses the
environmental impacts of the major alternatives now under
development, and in selected instances supports the
evaluation of processes found by the Agency to offer
substantial improvements over conventional hazardous
waste disposal methods. Such evaluations will be
conducted and used with existing data to form the basis for
treatment standards.
Assessments of alternative technologies will be conducted
at bench, pilot and field scales with emphasis on waste
streams assigned high priority by OSW. Included will be
aqueous waste streams from the chemical industry that are
likely to be banned from landfills and wastes with a high
potential for volatile air emissions.
What technologies are appropriate to clean up priority
sites?
The ORD program for SARA will be expanded from its
start-up level to provide an innovative/alternative treatment
technology demonstration program at the level authorized
by the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act.
Increased resources will allow the Agency to conduct 10
demonstrations to assist in evaluating the possibility of
privatizing developed technologies that will provide
permanent clean ups on priority sites.
Engineering evaluations of emerging technologies to
accelerate private development will be increased.
Technologies to be developed will continue to be selected
from applications submitted to the Agency in response to
solicitation in the Commerce Business Daily. The focus will
44
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continue to be in the areas of recycling, separation,
detoxification, destruction and stabilization that promise
significant new methods for cleaning up Superfund wastes.
This activity will also provide increased test and evaluation
of newly developed, but unproven, innovative monitoring
techniques for applicability to Superfund monitoring
situations. In addition, promising advanced/innovative
monitoring techniques and systems which are not yet ready
for demonstration will continue to be further developed so
that their utility for Superfund pollutant characterization can
be demonstrated.
Activity will also continue to identify, evaluate and promote
the technical improvement of commercially available or
prototypical protective clothing, equipment and procedures
for use in responses at Superfund sites. Reports on
personnel hazard detectors, personnel cooling devices, vital
signs monitors, intra-EPA and interagency workshops will
be provided.
Site Assessment and Support
What information and technical support is available for
site-specific risk analysis and risk reduction?
For SARA the new effort on review of regional risk
assessments will be substantially expanded. This will
include providing a central point for coordinating review of
regional risk assessments and establishment of a focal point
for regional offices to request risk assessment assistance.
This program will also continue to provide site-, situation-
and chemical specific exposure and risk assessments to
assist the program office and regions in evaluating the
degree of hazard at uncontrolled waste sites. Specific
activities will include preparation of site/situation-specific
risk assessments, rapid response health assessments and
Health Effects Assessments for use in Remedial
Investigation/ Feasibility Studies (RI/FS) and other remedial
planning efforts.
Increased resources will allow enhanced efforts to evaluate,
validate, standardize and field test monitoring techniques to
support program office monitoring at sites. Analytical
methods for hazardous substances at sites will continue to
be validated for Superfund waste matrices.
Engineering expertise will continue to be provided to assist
the program office in RI/FS of specific Superfund sites
during efforts to plan responses. Updated RI/FS treatability
and cost estimation information will continue to be provided.
With the acceleration of CERCLA activity, in general, a
significant increase in enforcement activity is expected. This
will increase the need for endangerment assessments.
Site- and chemical-specific health assessments will be
45
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prepared to respond to those needs to assess
endangerment at Superfund sites where Enforcement has
the lead for implementing remedial responses.
Assessments to be provided will range from brief hazard
summaries to many detailed, peerreviewed endangerment
assessments for use in negotiations or litigation with
potentially responsible parties.
Site-specific monitoring support will provide increased
amounts of aerial imagery and photographic interpretation
and other technical support to OWPE, OERR and the
regions for use in pre- and post-remedial site
assessment.
The engineering program will continue to provide technical
advice and consultation to the program office on issues that
arise during emergency and remedial responses at
Superund sites and to Enforcement for case support.
Technical support will continue to be provided in response
to specific requests from OWPE, OERR, and regions on
groundwater sampling, analyses, data interpretation, and
site assessment and remedial action issues. Increased
emphasis will be given to the application of bioassessment
techniques for determining acute toxicity and bioavailability
of Superfund wastes, extent of contamination, and remedial
action progress, and in transferring this technique to others
in the public and private sectors. Other activities will
include: the application of assessment methods to
determine the appropriate control technology for minimizing
the risks from contaminated marine sediments, which is
important for limiting the uptake of hazardous materials by
marine organisms and their impact on humans through the
food chain; the improvement of toxicity tests for oil
dispersants, making them more sensitive, reproducible, and
less expensive; the application of emerging biotechnology
techniques to Superfund sites for improving in-situ cleanup
through biodegradation processes; and the application of
multimedia exposure/risk assessment methods to
Superfund sites.
An increased level of technology transfer assistance in
issues relevant to Superfund cleanups will be provided to
the program office, regions and states.
Waste Characterization
What health and risk assessment information and
procedures are needed to characterize wastes and assess
the hazards they represent?
Assessing the risks associated with various methods of
waste disposal is a critical aspect of the Agency's RCRA
program, but is an area of major scientific uncertainty.
Developing the scientific and technical information needed
to establish the quantity and types of wastes that escape
46
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into the environment through different disposal methods the
effects they produce for both human health and the
environment and the methods for assessing their risks will
remain a significant area for research activity for some time.
Moreover, given that most existing information is based on
the properties of individual chemicals, rather than the
complex mixtures of chemicals typically found in wastes
streams, the state-of-knowledge in this area will require
several years to develop.
The information developed to support this research area will
be used by OSW in permitting and enforcement decision
making, regulatory policy making, and implementing the
land-banning program. Products will provide more
applicable, less expensive, and more accurate information
and risk assessment methodologies.
A program to develop more accurate methods for predicting
the quantity, composition and volatility of leachates from
land disposal of wastes is underway. These and other
methods for determining the escape of hazardous wastes
into the environment, as well as predictive models in air,
surface water and ground water, will have to be combined
into multimedia tools for exposure assessment. Products of
this research will be critical for the Agency's land-banning
and ground water programs.
Chemical-specific Health and Environmental Effects
Profiles (HEEPs) will be prepared to support RCRA 3001
listing decisions. Support will also be provided to the
Agency's effort to ban land disposal of certain wastes and
will include evaluation of existing Acceptable Daily Intake
(ADIs) and Unit Cancer Risks (UCRs) for hundreds of
chemicals to ensure that the information they contain is
accurate.
Short-term in vivo and in vitro bioassays will be developed
into a screening protocol for determining which wastes are
hazardous. Screens for determining effects on seven human
health endpoints (e.g., carcinogenicity and mutagenicity) will
be evaluated. When validated, these tests will constitute a
major advancement in the Agency's ability to assess the
toxicity of complex mixtures of wastes.
Environmental processes research will include development
of multimedia assessment models for land disposal sites;
quantitative structure activity predictions of waste toxicity;
and ground water models for predicting waste
concentrations and methods to define hazardous waste
processes in wetlands. Research addressing complex
mixtures will be expanded to allow better characterization of
their environmental toxicity for use in dehstmg, banning and
permitting decisions.
For SARA, this activity will continue to provide chemical-
specific carcinogenicity and chronic effects documentation
47
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Dioxin
to support the program office's regulatory process which
adjusts the Reportable Quantity for hazardous substances.
Support to be provided will allow the Agency to continue the
normal Reportable Quantity adjustment activity and
complete adjustments pursuant to the additional
requirements placed upon the Agency by the Superfund
Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986. Also, review
of previously calculated Reportable Quantities will be
performed on request from the program office or when
significant new data become available.
Increased research to support health risk assessment data
generation and methods development will be provided in
this program. Efforts will be expanded in research to
understand risks posed to reproductive health resulting from
exposure to chemical mixtures, on development of
methods, on development of field available exposure
information, on the development of pharmacokmetic
methods, on development of a field guide to permit field
personnel to apply risk assessment methods, and on
methods to better characterize the risks from chemical
mixtures. Work will begin on evaluating the role of
promoters found at waste sites in carcmogenesis and on the
provision of ad hoc research assistance as needed by the
regions.
Health effects research begun in FY 1987 will be continued
and expanded to a full level of effort. Emphasis will be in
the areas of neurotoxicity and reproductive effects New
research will be initiated on the health effects of toxicant
combinations and complex mixtures in ground water, on
development of statistical methods for dealing with complex
toxicological interactions, on the importance of using human
metabolism data in animal-to-human extrapolation of
toxicological data, and on identification and use of genetic
and dosimetric markers of human hazardous chemical
exposures.
Increased development and validation of promising field
screening techniques having potential to provide improved
Superfund pollutant characterization will be pursued. In
addition, increased efforts will be expended in development
of monitoring systems which are useful in integrated multi-
media health assessments.
What assessment and control information is needed to
identify and address the problems associated with dioxins?
Research supporting this objective is intended to help the
Agency assess and monitor the dioxin contamination
problem and begin developing procedures for addressing it.
Although much of the research is completed or nearmg
completion, health research and risk assessment activities
48
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will be continued, as will transport and fate research and a
quality assurance support program.
Waste Identification
What analytic methods are needed for identifying the
chemical constituents of wastes and thereby determining
which wastes are hazardous?
Additional analytical methods for implementing Section
3001 of RCRA must be standardized and tested to
determine their validity and reliability. New methods and
procedures for detecting the presence of hazardous wastes
under field conditions are also required to help implement
Section 3013 of RCRA, which authorizes EPA to establish
facility monitoring requirements.
New hardware and software developments offer
considerable promise for reducing the costs and time, while
improving the sensitivity, of laboratory analyses. Examples
of the emerging technologies are supercritical fluids,
quadrupole-mass-spectrometry, and thermospray
injection. Considerable effort will be directed to evaluating
and applying such technologies for hazardous waste
analyses. One particular thrust will be in the development of
technologies for rapid screening of large numbers of
samples, particularly ground water samples. A second effort
will be toward obtaining more comprehensive chemical
profiles of volatile and semi-volatile organic chemicals in
solids and other complex matrices. Concurrent with these
activities will be a continuing effort to upgrade the computer
programs supporting the analytical equipment, with special
attention to computer interpretations of measurements.
This program will support activities in the following areas:
development of bioassays into a screening protocol for
detecting hazardous waste; development of subsurface
monitoring and network design protocols for detecting
potential ground water contaminants; validation of published
SW-846 analytical methods and development of new,
more cost-effective analytical methods. These will include
inductively coupled plasma and high performance liquid
chromatography. Additional emphasis will be placed on
addressing RCRA subtitle D facilities and as part of this,
monitoring and quality assurance practices at these facilities
will be assessed.
Land Disposal
What technical information is needed to support permitting
of land disposal and land treatment facilities, as well as
improvements in design requirements?
Research in this area will provide guidance on design,
permitting, operation, maintenance, closure and regulation
of land treatment, storage and disposal facilities. It will also
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Incineration
Releases
address controlling air emissions from facilities and include
sampling and measurement procedures, evaluation of
emission models and evaluation of control technologies.
What technical information and data are needed to support
permitting of incinerators and improvements in design
requirements?
Results of this research will be used by EPA and other
permitting officials to evaluate the acceptability of
incinerating particular wastes and in monitoring operating
units for compliance with performance requirements.
As the Agency begins banning certain wastes from land
disposal, various disposal alternatives to land disposal will
become increasingly popular, including incineration.
However, in order to issue permits for incinerators, Regional
Offices and the states will require technical information and
assistance regarding their performance capabilities.
Ensuring the safety of their operation will require that
methods be developed to predict their performance, and
that their reliability be increased through control of
operational parameters which avoid formation of hazardous
by-products.
Research will continue to produce performance tests on
incineration of wastes burned at the Combustion Research
Facility. Real-time methods of determining incinerator
compliance with permits will be investigated, as will
improved sampling techniques for monitoring thermal
destruction operations. Guidance manuals for states,
regions and industry will be produced addressing best
practices for burning wastes in industrial boilers, and
assessing the impacts on emissions of incineration failures.
Bioassays will be applied to generate data for assessing the
risk from various burner methodologies. Bioassays for
cancer and for non-cancer effects will be applied.
What procedures and information are needed to prevent,
contain and cleanup accidental discharges of hazardous
materials? This research will support both the CWA's
releases section and RCRA's underground storage tank
(UST) provisions.
Accidental releases of oil and hazardous material to the land
and water occur frequently and constitute a significant
environmental hazard. Federal, state and local emergency
response personnel require improved technologies for the
prevention and control of hazardous material releases to
make cost-effective, environmentally sound cleanup
decisions.
50
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Development and evaluation of geophysical/geochemical
sensors and volatile organic emission sensors and sensor
placement networks for detecting leaks of hazardous
materials such as gasoline, toluene and benzene will also
be conducted. Test protocols for determining appropriate
performance criteria will be developed as well.
Engineering research will produce manuals on procedures
for on-site treatment of wastes and evaluations of
containment, removal and dispersant technologies for
controlling floating spills. Evaluations of leak detection and
monitoring methods will also be produced, as will guidance
manuals on nondestructive techniques for locating buried
tanks and on UST release prevention techniques. A
continuing effort throughout this period will be the evaluation
of new technologies for the prevention and cleanup of
releases. Innovative new systems will be sought, and if
shown to be feasible, field-evaluated.
Environmental processes research for the UST program will
develop alternatives for corrective actions including
hydrogeologic techniques for mobilizing immiscible waters
and techniques for in-situ treatment
For SARA, technology-specific evaluations will continue to
be provided in the major technical areas of m-situ and
on-site treatment.
The emphasis will be on providing engineering information
for the remediation process. In addition to activities on
extraction, detoxification and immobilization processes, new
efforts will include identification, at laboratory and pilotscale,
of processes most suitable for soil fractionation in the field,
as a function of the type and particle size distribution of
soils. Such techniques would help in minimizing on-site
treatment and disposal costs.
In microbial cleanup, technologies will continue to be
applied and evaluated for use in program office responses
to Superfund site cleanups. The emphasis will be on the
use of techniques to enhance the metabolism of hazardous
substances by indigenous microorganisms and the use of
specially engineered microorganisms at actual field sites.
Such techniques have the potential for being more effective
and less costly than currently applied cleanup methods.
These integrated laboratory and field studies will continue to
be closely coordinated with the engineering program
Quality Assurance
What measures are needed to assure the reliability and
consistency of monitoring and analytical techniques and
data used in support of the RCRA program?
The purpose of this program is to ensure that data of known
quality are used throughout the Hazardous Waste program.
51
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Analytical standards and reference materials will be
developed for and distributed to all participating
laboratories. Quality control and performance evaluation
samples are also being developed and distributed to
appropriate laboratories. Technical support will be provided
to all participating laboratories in the form of instrument
calibration assistance and provision of reference materials
For SARA, this program will provide increased quality
assurance support to the Agency's Contract Laboratory
Program, additional precontract assessment, calibration
materials, laboratory performance assessment and
evaluation/improvement of analytical methods.
Summary of Long-Term Trends
Research to characterize the potential exposure and effects
posed by hazardous wastes is likely to be an area of
significant importance. In order to effectively manage risk,
answer the questions and concerns of the public and make
the policy choices that will have to be made, more will have
to be learned regarding the behavior and health effects of
hazardous materials released into the environment.
Development and evaluation of alternatives to land disposal
of wastes will remain an Agency priority. Research remains
in its early stages and considerably more work is needed
before alternatives will be able to satisfy the disposal
requirements of large scale generators. Extensive testing
and performance evaluations are needed to make these
technologies available and years of effort will be required.
Research will also be accelerated to provide support for the
land-banning program and to support RCRA LIST
provisions.
Increasing emphasis will also be placed on research
supporting the Agency's ground water program and on
identifying the problems associated with municipal waste
combustors. Additional ground water research will respond
to program shortfalls identified by the SAB and the Ground
Water Task Force. It will focus on determining ground water
pollutant transport and fate and developing the monitoring
technology needed to identify problems and measure the
effectiveness of mitigation techniques. Research addressing
municipal waste combustors will begin identifying the
pollutants they produce, assessing the hazards they may
pose, and the monitoring and control technologies needed
to address the problems. Development of field methods for
in-situ analysis at waste sites is planned to continue.
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Resource Options
1987 Current Estimate: $89.1M
(Hazardous Waste: $ 50.2M; Super-fund: $ 38.9M)
1988 President's Budget: $104.3M
(Hazardous Waste: S45.2M; Superfund: $ 59.1 M)
Projections
Growth FY 1989 FY 1990 FY 1991 FY 1992
None
Moderate
High
104.3
107.4
110.5
104.3
110.5
113.8
104.3
113.8
117.0
104.3
117.0
120.2
No Growth: The program would proceed as described in
this agenda.
Moderate: Additional resources would further support waste
characterization activities in support of the land-banning
program and risk management decisions, ground water
research and municipal waste combustion research.
High: Research described under moderate growth would be
accelerated and augmented.
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Multimedia Energy
The multimedia energy research and development program
is designed to provide the scientific and technical
information necessary to support the Agency's permit-
issuing and standard-setting processes, and to allow for
the development and utilization of energy sources in an
environmentally acceptable manner. Research will be
conducted to expand our knowledge of the phenomenon of
acid deposition and provide information upon which
mitigation decisions may be made; provide data on the
performance, reliability, and cost of the LIMB control
technology.
Acid deposition research is coordinated through the
NAPAP, which is administered by the Interagency Task
Force on Acid Precipitation. EPA is one of three joint chairs
of the Interagency Task Force. The term "acid rain" is used
to refer to the atmospheric deposition of acidic or acid-
forming compounds in either their dry or wet form. These
compounds exist in the atmosphere as gases or aerosol
particles containing sulfur oxides (SOX), nitrogen oxides
(NOX), hydrogen chloride, sulfuric acid, nitric acid and
certain sulfate and nitrate compounds. The objectives of
acid deposition research are to develop the necessary data
to fully understand the sources and characteristics of acid
deposition; and to determine the extent of current damage
or potential damage. This information is essential to the
development of effective corrective strategies if such
strategies are deemed necessary.
The other major research area is the development of the
LIMB emission-reduction technology. The LIMB combines
SOX control with simultaneous NOX control by using a
mixture of pulverized coal and limestone in a low-NOx
burner. This technology may substantially lower the capital
cost of SOX control.
Major Research Issues
Emissions Inventories of Acid Precursors
How can emissions inventories be made more responsive
to acid rain modeling and assessment needs?
Estimates of current emission rates (aggregated at the
national level) are reasonably accurate for major categories
of man-made acid deposition precursors. However,
atmospheric transport models under development will
require improvements in spatial and temporal resolution of
emissions estimates.
Greater uncertainties exist in projecting future emissions,
the effect of possible emissions-control requirements, and
54
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their probable costs. The mix of emission sources in any
specific region may also change with time. Efforts to project
future emissions rates and to estimate the cost of alternative
emissions-control strategies are dependent upon the
development or improvement of models which replicate the
behavior of each important "emitting sector" of the
economy. These cost estimates must be consistent with
methods which have been fully reviewed by the engineering
and economic communities. Future estimates of emissions
will rely more on actual data and detailed emissions
models.
Atmospheric Processes Affecting Acid Deposition
How can the transport, chemical transformation, deposition
processes and the exposure of ecologically sensitive areas
and man-made materials be determined?
The transport, chemical transformation, and deposition
processes associated with acid deposition will be
investigated on both the regional and meso scales.
Our understanding of the atmospheric transport, physical
and chemical transformation, and deposition processes of
pollutants emitted into the atmosphere continues to
improve. The program continues to emphasize model
development, the collection of field data, and model
evaluation to better differentiate the contribution of local
versus distant sources of acid deposition. Results from this
research will enable policy makers to predict changes in
deposition levels resulting from reductions in nearby or
distant emissions.
The Regional Acid Deposition Model (RADM) is an
assembly of model components (modules or submodels)
designed to simulate transport, dispersion, chemical
transformation, precipitation scavenging and dry deposition.
These modules will be updated and revised as the
uncertainties in the processes become better understood
and characterized. Field study data will be generated to
improve our scientific confidence in RADM. RADM will be
used in a number of important areas (e.g., to calibrate
Lagrangian models, to assess engineering applicability and
cost control, to perform source-receptor analysis, and to
assess materials damage).
Dry-Acid Deposition Monitoring
What is the best method to obtain dry deposition
monitoring data comparable to that from the existing
National Trends Network (NTN) which concentrates on wet
deposition?
The acid rain research program has been compiling several
years of nationwide deposition data from wet precipitation It
is well known, however, that dry sources of acid deposition
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in the form of dust and humidity constitute a potentially
significant component of total deposition. Very little data
exist on this dry deposition due to the difficulty in
developing and deploying accurate monitoring instruments.
Also, dry deposition rates vary with surface cover and
topography, as well as with environmental variables such as
wind speed and humidity. As a result, the actual
contribution of dry deposition in most areas is only
estimated within an order of magnitude.
Prototype monitors do not measure dry deposition fluxes
directly. Instead, they measure ambient air concentrations
and use empirical factors to estimate the dry deposition
rate. These monitors are being deployed in a network, in
many cases co-located with wet deposition collectors.
Samples are to be collected and analyzed in a central
laboratory. The first several years will be dedicated to
installing the network and making it fully operational. Once
this is accomplished, the research emphasis will shift to
developing direct methods of measuring the dry deposition
rate.
Aquatic Effects of Acid Deposition
What future changes in surface water chemistry will occur
assuming current levels of acid deposition remain constant,
and what is the extent and rate-of-change to aquatic
resources stemming from acid deposition?
The most pronounced effects of acidification are in sensitive
aquatic systems. Acidic deposition is believed to be a major
contributing factor in episodic depressions of pH resulting,
in some cases, in fish kills and other biological
disturbances. Historical assessments have been uneven and
of limited utility due to variations in sampling and analytical
methodologies, potentially biased selection of samples,
variable effects among different aquatic systems and a
relatively inadequate data base. The scientific uncertainties
surrounding the aquatic effects of acidic deposition fall into
several major categories: the extent of sensitive or acidic
surface waters in the U.S.; the detection of long-term
trends in surface water chemistry; modeling and the
biological effects associated with surface water chemistry;
and the biological effects associated with surface water
acidification. These uncertainties can be expressed in terms
of extent, rate, and magnitude of change attributable to
acidic deposition.
To reduce the uncertainties related to the aquatic effects of
acidic deposition, the EPA, in cooperation with the NAPAP
Aquatic Effects Task Group, has undertaken a National
Surface Water Survey (NSWS). The NSWS is a field project
with three distinct phases to document the chemical and
biological status of lakes and streams in regions potentially
sensitive to acidic deposition. The Survey also will select
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regionally representative surface waters based on chemical,
physical, and biological parameters to quantify future
changes in aquatic resources through a long-term
monitoring program.
The first phase of the NSWS has quantified the chemistry of
lakes and streams in areas believed to contain the majority
of low-alkalinity waters. This phase of the survey was
designed to determine what percentage of lakes and
streams in the susceptible regions are acidic or have low
alkalinity. Phase II is quantifying the biological components
and the seasonal and spatial variability of a regionally
representative subset of lakes and streams. These data
should explain what percentage of lakes are devoid of fish,
what chemical characteristics of surface waters are
associated with the presence or absence of fish and what
temporal variability can be expected in representative
surface waters.
The third phase will define selected lakes and streams as
regionally representative sites for a long-term monitoring
program to quantify future changes in the chemistry and
biology of aquatic ecosystems. The primary objective of this
phase is to determine what chemical or biological changes
are occurring in regionally representative surface waters
and at what rate.
The detection of long-term trends in surface water
chemistry is essential in understanding the response rates
of natural systems to acidic inputs from the atmosphere and
how fast natural systems might acidify due to natural
causes. EPA's long-term monitoring program places sites
in areas in which there is little or no disturbance from
human activities and which are remote from point sources
of air pollution. However, their regional representativeness
has not been established. The NSWS will determine the
criteria for regional representativeness and, in coordination
with existing monitoring sites, will improve tracking of the
responses of surface waters to changes in acidic inputs in
various regions of the country.
One of the most important goals of the aquatic effects
program is the production of reliable models of the temporal
changes in surface water chemistry due to acidic inputs. A
major priority in the modeling of surface water chemistry
will be the estimation of the extent of direct response and
delayed response systems in the U.S. Response time
variations are expected on the basis of soil, bedrock and
hydrological differences among systems. Therefore, some
watersheds will be in dynamic equilibrium with acidic inputs
from the atmosphere and will respond quickly, while others
will exhibit significant sulfur retention or contain appreciable
buffering capacities and will respond only after long delays.
If direct response systems prevail in sensitive areas of the
country, then no additional changes in surface water
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chemistry would be expected, given no change in present
acidic loading rates. However, if delayed response systems
predominate, then more waters may become acidic even if
current loading rates do not change.
A principal issue driving the debate over acid ram has been
the biological effects of acidified surface waters. Preliminary
research is expected to establish correlations between
surface water chemistry and the status of fish populations.
In order to do that, EPA will continue work that has already
begun on the dose-response relationships between fish
populations and concentrations of toxic metals (such as
aluminum) that are thought to be elevated in acidic waters.
EPA will continue work on the response of fish populations
and other ecological endpoints in artificially acidified lakes
as part of several large-scale ongoing or planned studies.
These studies will increase the certainty of the actual extent
of declines of fish populations and other ecological effects
associated with acidic deposition.
A multiplicity of processes within watersheds affect the rate
and magnitude of the acidification of surface waters.
Watershed bedrock and geology, system hydrology and
biological processes are all important determinants of the
response of surface waters to acidic inputs from the
atmospheres. EPA's research strategy for the next five
years is two-fold. First, it will accelerate the process-level
research in the geochemical and physical characteristics of
soils that are important in the response of surface waters.
Second, EPA, in collaboration with other agencies
participating in NAPAP, is establishing a network of
carefully monitored watersheds in sensitive regions of the
country. Data will be collected and analyzed on all relevant
physical, chemical and biological parameters associated
with surface water quality.
Terrestrial Effects of Acid Deposition
What is the effect of acidic deposition, alone or in
combination with other pollutants, on forests?
Forest effects studies in acidic deposition have been
focused in the Forest Response Program, jointly funded and
managed by the EPA and Forest Service. This program was
initiated in 1983 in response to public concern over the role
of acidic deposition and air pollutants in forest decline.
The mission of the program is three-fold: (1) to determine
if acidic deposition, alone or in combination with other
pollutants, are causing or contributing to forest decline in
the U.S., (2) if so, to determine the mechanism of effect,
and (3) if so, to determine the dose-response relationship
of forest response to loadings of acidic deposition, alone or
in combination with other pollutants.
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To meet the goals of the Forest Response Research
Program, research has been organized to include historical
data analysis, controlled lab and field experiments, site
investigations and monitoring. Research will be undertaken
by Research Cooperatives organized by forest type. In
areas where phenomena have been reported field
investigations and historical review activities will concentrate
on examining forest condition in relation to atmospheric
deposition and natural factors. These Cooperatives will also
sponsor controlled lab and field studies to test hypotheses
of damage relevant to forest type and deposition scenario.
The Eastern Hardwoods Cooperative and the Western
Forest Cooperative will initially undergo exploratory
research to identify if further research is needed in these
forest types.
The Mountain Cloud Chemistry Program is investigating the
mechanisms of tree dieback and reduced growth rates at
higher elevations in the East These appear to increase in
severity with increasing elevation. To address this research
need, monitoring stations are to be established on the
slopes and summits of selected mountains and will be co-
located with forestry research stations Samples from the
network of forest research and monitoring stations will be
analyzed and archived by a central laboratory. Development
and standardization of monitoring instruments to perform
reliably under the physically demanding conditions at these
elevations will be required A quality assurance and control
program will be implemented to ensure long-term
usefulness of these data and their intercomparability among
sites.
Materials Damage from Acid Deposition
What is the quantitative relationship between acid
deposition and damage to structures, buildings, and other
materials?
Qualitative relationships between acid deposition and
resulting damage have been identified for a few materials
under various conditions of exposure. The issue now is to
quantify the rate of damage as a function of acid deposition,
and to extend the development of damage functions to
other materials. The assessment of the overall impact of
acid deposition on materials also requires knowledge of the
distribution of exposed building components and the
economic behavior of consumers so that an economic loss
may be associated with acid deposition materials
Damage functions will be derived from physical chemistry
theory, chamber studies and field exposure studies As we
improve our understanding of the basic mechanisms of
these damage functions, efforts will shift to predictive
models of materials damage that will allow accelerated
studies in controlled climate chambers. Studies will also be
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extended to more complex systems of materials, such as
reinforced concrete, brick and mortar, roofing systems, and
painted surfaces.
In addition to the development of physical damage
functions, it will be necessary to enhance the materials
inventory and make estimates of consumer responses to
acid deposition. This includes the way in which the end-
of-the-service life of the material is determined, as well
as the incremental costs of switching to more durable
materials.
Summary of Long-Term Trends
The long-term goals of the acid deposition program are to
develop a number of products for policy makers including:
inventories and maps showing the magnitude and extent
of receptors that have been affected or could be affected
by acid deposition;
estimates of the rate of change in the extent of effects;
"target loadings" of acid deposition for different
receptors in different regions of the country;
quantification of the contribution of local versus long-
range sources to acid deposition;
source-receptor models that can indicate which long-
range sources or source regions contribute to acid
deposition.
One of the major obstacles which has delayed the scientific
understanding of the acid deposition phenomenon and the
formulation of control or mitigation options for acid
deposition is the lack of high quality data from long-term
monitoring programs and from continuously-monitored
intensive research sites. Several years ago, the acid rain
program established a monitoring network for wet
deposition (the National Trends Network). This network is
just beginning to provide the multi-year data necessary for
trends analysis. Efforts are also underway to increase the
number of species monitored through the dry deposition
network, monitoring of lakes and streams, mountaintop
cloud and forest exposure monitoring, and watershed
monitoring.
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Resource Options
1987 Current Estimate: $ 59.5M
1988 President's Budget: $ 58.9M
Projections
Growth FY 1989 FY 1990 FY 1991 FY 1992
None
Moderate
High
58.5
60.7
62.5
58.5
62.5
64.4
58.5
64.4
66.3
58.5
66.3
68.3
No Growth: The program would proceed as described in
this Agenda.
Moderate: Additional efforts would be made to evaluate the
Regional Acid Deposition Model through field study data.
High: Additional efforts would be made to understand the
linkages between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems as they
relate to acid deposition impacts. The program would
accelerate acid deposition research to identify cause/effects
mechanisms of forest changes, and expand the number of
representative watersheds under study.
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Interdisciplinary
The interdisciplinary research program develops risk
assessment guidelines and ensures consistent application
of these guidelines throughout the Agency. Activities in this
area also support the dissemination of scientific and
technical data from ORD. Finally, the interdisciplinary
research program provides resources to conduct long-
range exploratory research through the grants, centers and
visiting scientists programs and provide central
management, audits and compliance monitoring for the
Agency-wide Quality Assurance program.
Major Research Issues
Scientific Assessments
What activities and methods are needed to ensure
scientific consistency and technical quality in Agency risk
assessments?
The scientific assessment function has three major
components: development of risk assessment guidelines,
activities of the Risk Assessment Forum, and development
of generic test methods which support the risk assessment
process The first guidelines were proposed in late 1984
and early 1985, and finalized in 1986. These include
guidelines for: carcinogenicity risk assessment,
mutagenicity risk assessment, health assessment of
suspect developmental toxicants, health risk assessments of
chemical mixtures and estimating exposures. In 1987 and
1988, the Agency expects to propose guidelines for
assessing risk to the male and female reproductive systems
and guidelines on the use of exposure measurements in
risk assessment; final guidelines should be issued about a
year later. The Agency is planning to develop guidelines for
the assessment of systemic toxicants and for the
assessment of ecological risk over the next several years.
The Agency recognizes that guidelines are living
documents, and therefore are subject to revisions and
expansions, an effort which will take place in future years as
appropriate.
The Risk Assessment Forum was established in 1984. It is a
body of senior scientists within the Agency who meet
regularly to resolve various scientific issues within the
Agency. Its functions include: analyses of significant
scientific and science policy issues, development of new
risk assessment procedures, recommendations of revisions
to the guidelines when appropriate, review of selected risk
assessments nominated by top Agency management, and
recommendations for risk assessment research.
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Development of the generic test methods is also under the
auspices of this research committee. These activities
identify generic information gaps which will be filled in
future risk assessments if the appropriate test methods are
developed.
Technical Information and Liaison
What activities facilitate technology transfer to regions,
states, and affected local governments?
ORD, as the primary research arm of EPA, provides
scientific information needed by the regulatory offices of
EPA to develop and enforce regulations. Appropriate and
timely dissemination of research results supports the
scientific basis for EPA regulations and increases
confidence in the decision making process.
The Center for Environmental Research Information (CERI)
provides centralized support for the production of
information products in a cost effective manner, insures
consistent uniform dissemination of research results, and
provides a technology transfer program to synthesize
information and develop presentations to more effectively
support specific high-priority program objectives at the
lowest cost to the government.
CERI will continue to provide support to ORD laboratories
by writing summaries of research projects conducted by or
for ORD, editing documents and summaries, assuring the
quality of material submitted for printing, typesetting and
producing documents, assuring the quality of and preparing
documents for submission to the National Technical
Information Service, controlling the distribution of
documents, and responding to requests for publications and
documents.
The technology transfer program will assess the status of
research and regulations, discuss with the Research
Committees their priorities for the dissemination of material,
develop innovative information transfer mechanisms, and
ensure that information on improved technology and
management practices is distributed to appropriate
audiences to comply with EPA regulations All information
on products is developed using a team of participants from
ORD, EPA program offices, and private industry.
Planned activities include:
development of methods manuals for comparing different
solid and hazardous waste treatment techniques and
implementing those which are appropriate;
dissemination of the results of research on the control of
hazardous air pollutants;
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description of technologies, costs and operating
effectiveness of the methods available to meet drinking
water regulations; for small drinking water systems; and,
dissemination of information on the effectiveness, cost,
and design of new municipal waste treatment
technology.
Exploratory Research Program
How will the Agency conduct longer-range mission-
oriented research which is not tied to specific regulatory
timetables or program office requirements?
Recognizing the need for a more fundamental
understanding of potential or emerging environmental
problems, ORD established the Office of Exploratory
Research (OER) in 1980. OER's basic function was to
establish and manage a program of investigator-initiated,
long-range research through grants to qualified
investigators and to establish and administer a program of
environmental research centers. In addition, OER was
responsible for operating a system of peer review for
competitively selecting and awarding research projects. To
date, through its Research Grants Program, OER has
supported over 400 research projects in various priority
areas as identified by the Agency's planning mechanisms
and ORD's Research Committee process. Through its
Research Centers Program, supports research conducted at
eight university-based research centers on various topics
of priority concern.
Research Grants Program: A primary function of the
Research Grants Program is to stimulate extramural
scientists to work on EPA's technical problems and to
provide a stronger creative base of mission-oriented
research needed for the Agency's regulatory and
enforcement efforts.
The Research Grants Program solicits investigator-initiated
proposals by issuing annually a solicitation document which
describes EPA's high priority long-term research needs.
The solicitation is broadly distributed and is intended to
stimulate scientists in the academic, research and industrial
communities to respond with fully developed proposals for
innovative research in areas of interest to EPA. Although all
valid proposals are considered, the solicitation has typically
emphasized research needs in five interdisciplinary
program areas: environmental health; environmental
biology; environmental engineering; chemistry and physics
in air; and chemistry and physics in soils and water. In the
future, the emphasis may change to include an emphasis
on ORD's major research initiatives.
The grants selection process uses a dual review system of
evaluating research proposals. Ad hoc panels, chaired by
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scientists or engineers from outside EPA, meet at least
twice annually to discuss reviews of each proposal
conducted by at least three experts in the relevant field.
Applications that pass the scientific panel review are then
reviewed by Agency personnel for their relevancy to the
Agency's mission. The combined recommendations are
rank-ordered and the grants are awarded based upon the
availability of funds.
Grant support is typically awarded for two to three years
and an EPA staff member is assigned as a project officer.
Project monitoring is accomplished by the submission of
technical progress reports and/or the publication of scientific
papers in peer reviewed journals. Staff and formal site visits
are conducted when appropriate.
The five interdisciplinary areas of the Research Grants
Program are described below.
Environmenta/ Health Research: The major objective of
the Environmental Health Research Program is to obtain
and provide a scientific basis upon which the Agency can
make regulatory decisions concerning the protection of
human health from environmental pollutants. The principle
concern is to determine whether, and to what extent,
exposure to various pollutants contributes to
environmentally related health problems. Particular attention
in the annual solicitation is on epidemiological studies,
animal toxicology, bioassay development and mechanisms
of action. Major areas of new emphasis will deal with
understanding the mechanisms of inducement of disease
and pathology, improving the validity of assays as
predictors of potential human risks, and developing better
model systems to determine the long-term effects of
multi-media pollutant exposure.
Environmental Biology Research: The Environmental
Biology Research Program supports a broad range of
projects in the areas of ecosystem effects, aquatic
ecosystem modeling, biotechnology monitoring,
environmental assessment, marine studies and
biodegradation in water and soil environments. The aim of,
the program is to provide a base of scientific knowledge
which can be used to identify new and emerging problems
and to develop appropriate remedies for their solution. One
objective of this program is to provide information that, in
combination with exposure data, allows the prediction of the
environmental risk of pollution on individual organisms and
on ecosystems. The risks include the reduction of
productivity in agricultural areas, wetlands, and freshwater
and coastal marine ecosystems as well as human exposure
to toxic substances through accumulation in the food chain.
During the next five years, emphasis will focus on wetland
problems and the development of modeling methods for
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predicting the ecosystem effects on wetlands. Another area
of focus will be the development of methods for monitoring
genetically modified organisms in the natural environment.
Environmental Chemistry and Physics/Water: The
Environmental Chemistry and Physics of Water Program
supports research leading to basic scientific tools for
establishing the levels at which pollutants occur or might
occur in the environment under different conditions.
The program includes projects in analytical chemistry,
studies on chemical reactions and their rates and on the
physics of the movement of pollutants in the water and soil.
The resulting tools and information allow the estimation of
exposure levels needed for risk assessment. The research
also provides possible approaches to the treatment of waste
sources. It includes small-scale laboratory studies and
large-scale field projects relating to the transport and
transformation of pollutants.
This program will emphasize problems related to ground
water, sediments and measurement methods. For ground
water the emphasis will be on developing the techniqi-3s for
estimating the parameters used in transport models and in
validating the models. In the case of sediments, focus will
be on the physics of movement and the capability of
sediments to transport pollutants, particularly, heavy metals.
Research on measurement methods will continue with some
emphasis on methods applicable to sediments and
associated substances such as humic materials.
Environmental Chemistry and Physics/Air: The
Environmental Chemistry and Physics of Air Program is
concerned with the study of the sources, transport,
transformation and fate of air pollutants. The program
reviews applications dealing with studies on time-space
patterns of pollutant concentrations, detailed chemical and
physical descriptions of pollutants, mathematical models
connecting air pollutants with probable sources, and
procedures for investigating the impact of pollutants on
human health. The program draws upon the concepts and
procedures of physics, chemistry and meteorology using
models and measurement methods to develop quantitative
description of these phenomena.
This program will emphasize models or other means of
connecting air pollutants at a location with the contributing
sources, the atmospheric chemistry of polyaromatic
hydrocarbons (important toxic compounds) and reliable
measurement techniques for detecting the particulates of
health significance.
Environmental Engineering Research: The Environmental
Engineering Research Program supports more basic
fundamental research needed to provide solutions to multi-
media pollution control problems outside the scope of the
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Agency's response-directed research program. Therefore
new, innovative pollution control and waste management
techniques are sought to provide cost-effective solutions to
complex problems involving air, water, and soils. Areas
emphasized include water disinfection, wastewater
treatment, water-related process biomonitoring methods,
residuals control, and air pollution concerning volatile
organic compounds, fine particles, SOX, and NOX-
Hazardous wastes continue to receive particular attention,
especially incineration processes and improved cleanup
techniques.
Environmental Research Centers Program: As part of
EPA's strategy for approaching long-term research needs,
ORD has created the Environmental Research Centers
Program to support environmental research in science and
engineering. The objective of the program is to support
high-quality exploratory research in areas of importance to
EPA. It is achieved by providing stable funding to
institutions with a demonstrated capability and interest in a
major area of research of concern to EPA. The program,
which was established in 1980, consists of eight
university-based environmental research centers, working
in four general areas: (1) industrial and municipal waste
abatement and control, (2) pollutant transport and
transformation, (3) ecological and biological effects of
pollutants, and (4) environmental epidemiology. Each broad
area of research is discussed below.
Industrial and Municipal Waste Abatement and Control:
Three centers conduct research in this area The Industrial
Waste Elimination Research Center (IWERC) focuses its
attention on reducing or eliminating the creation of
pollutants. Two centers, the Advanced Environmental
Control Technology Research Center (AECTRC) and the
Hazardous Waste Research Center (HWRC), study the
removal of wastes once they are formed. The AECTRC
works primarily on the removal of contaminants from dilute
waste streams, such as sewage discharges and stack
effluents, while the HWRC studies methods to stabilize,
detoxify or destroy waste products containing high
concentrations of hazardous pollutants.
The principal areas of research at IWERC, listed in order of
current priority, are: (1) metals speciation and separation,
(2) sorption/ desorption phenomena, (3) particle size and
shape control, and (4) process catalysis and control. This
priority list is not expected to change significantly, though
more emphasis will be placed in the future on process and
catalysis control, and on particle size and shape control.
AECTRC has investigated the degradation of low
concentrations of organic contaminants in drinking water
sources using biofilm systems This work is expected to
expand in the future, as is work on the supercritical
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extraction of pollutants. Current work on wet air regeneration
of powdered activated carbon will be deemphasized. In the
area of air pollution, AECTRC will increase efforts on
studying the simultaneous collection of submicron aerosol
particles, sulfur dioxide and oxides of nitrogen. With respect
to the indoor radon activities, a systematic study will be
made of the adsorption of radon on charcoal as a function of
charcoal type, design parameters of the collection system,
and interference from other gaseous species.
The HWRC will continue to emphasize the destruction,
separation, and stabilization of hazardous waste
constituents, particularly the development of optimal design
parameters for complete or nearly complete incineration of
combustible organic hazardous wastes. Future research will
focus on: (1) the operation and modeling of a full-scale
industrial incinerator, (2) m-situ biodegradation of targeted
environmental toxins in soil, (3) investigations of the
feasibility of rotary kilns as low energy thermal desorbers
for soil and solid waste contaminated with organics, and (4)
the transport mechanisms involving pure organic phases in
the unsaturated and saturated zones below spill and dump
sites.
Pollutant Transport: Two centers study the movement and
alteration of pollutants in the environment.
The National Center for Ground Water Research (NCGWR),
devotes itself to understanding the movement and alteration
of pollutants through the subsurface environment. Directly
or indirectly, ground water is the major source of the
nation's drinking water, but it may be contaminated with
pollutants from a wide variety of sources. Efforts to mitigate
this contamination are complicated by the extremely slow
movement of pollutants underground.
In the next five years, the NCGWR will emphasize studies
on subsurface biodegradation and on facilitated transport of
trace organic compounds in saturated aquifers. Future
studies will deal with microbial metabolism as a process
involved in the fate of contaminants The comparative
ecology of aerobic microbes as influenced by subsurface
parameters such as soil type and electron acceptors will be
studied in order to predict and control microbial involvement
in the fate of contaminants at hazardous waste disposal
sites. Current work on subsurface anaerobic environments
will be expanded to include isolation of chemical
intermediates and end products. Another new project will be
initiated, using state-of-the-art optical techniques, to
determine whether sorption of contaminants is dominated
by organic carbon or mineral surfaces
The other center, the National Center for Intermedia
Transport Research (NCITR), studies the important physical
and chemical processes associated with the transport of
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particulate or gaseous environmental pollutants from one
medium to another. Current and future studies at NCITR will
emphasize the movement of hazardous wastes through air,
land, or water.
Specific projects at the NCITR will concentrate on five
topics: wet and dry deposition, soil and water processes,
multimedia transport, ecosystem modeling and structural
characterization, and source allocation Plans for research
include development of an improved correlation between
dry deposition velocity and the roughness layer,
determination of the ambient compositions and
concentrations of organic pollutants in ram, fog and dew,
studies on the chemisorption of halocarbons by clay, and
the mitigation of organic pollutants in the unsaturated soil
zone. In addition, NCITR will maintain current levels of
research on studies to determine the significance of
nitrogen-bearing trace compounds in air to nitrogen levels
in desert ecosystems, the transfer rate of submicron
aerosols to vegetation, and the effects of vegetation on the
transfer of atmospheric pollutants.
Ecological and Biological Effects: Research on ecological
and biological effects is conducted at two centers: the
Ecosystems Research Center (ERC) and the Marine
Sciences Research Center (MSRC) The mission of the
ERC is to evaluate the state of knowledge on whole
biological communities and ecosystems and to investigate
its applicability to environmental regulation and
management. Research conducted at ERC has been in the
areas of ecotoxicity, biotechnology, air pollution effects on
forests, plant-pest interactions, and impact assessment for
the Hudson River system. The ERC plans to continue its
research in all of these areas except research on the
Hudson River system which will be phased down ERC
plans to develop projects in two additional areas. The first of
these, functional classification of ecosystems, has as its
eventual goal to classify ecosystems into functional types,
both in terms of the natural rates at which processes occur
and in terms of their responses to anthropogenic
disturbances The other new area of research will be
freshwater wetland ecosystems. The purpose of this project
is to develop concepts and methods for simplifying
assessment of the effects of human-induced changes in
hydrology on northern freshwater wetlands.
The objective of research at the MSRC is to increase
understanding of processes in coastal marine ecosystems
that are of importance in evaluating the effects of pollutant
discharges. The primary approach to research at MSRC is
experimental, specifically, the use of mesocosms as models
for predicting the responses of biological communities in
coastal systems to pollutant loadings, and to determine the
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fates of pollutants. Such mesocosms fill a gap between
laboratory experiments and field observations.
A major shift in research emphasis at MSRC is occurring.
Previous studies emphasized the determination of the fates
and biological effects of sewage sludge, fuel oil and specific
hydrocarbons. These studies were "passive" in the sense
that they described impacts of pollutants on coastal
systems. In the future, more emphasis will be placed on
studies whose objective is to recommend methods for
control of unsightly, odorous coastal waters, rather than
simply predict the occurrences of such events. As a start,
MSRC has initiated a program to determine the efficacy of
silica enhancement of ocean outfalls to control the explosive
growths of phytoplankton (e.g., red tide) often associated
with mephitic waters. Another major effort will be a field
program to evaluate the state of Narragansett Bay with
respect to a number of environmental features related to
pollution or other anthropogenic effects. This effort is being
carried out in cooperation with other studies of pollutant
inputs, shellfish health, bacterial contamination,
hydrodynamic modeling, etc., in association with the
Narragansett Bay Project, also supported by EPA.
Environmental Epidemiology: The area of environmental
epidemiology is addressed by one center, the Center for
Environmental Epidemiology. Its primary objective is to
improve the theoretical understanding of the human health
risks associated with environmental pollution. The center
has established four research priorities: (1) problem
definition and feasibility assessments for epidemiology
studies, (2) research to develop and improve
epidemiological methods related to environmental health,
for example, research on statistical and analytical methods,
(3) research on exposure assessment relevant to
epidemiological investigations, and (4) research support to
EPA including review of data and reports, and identification
of problems where epidemiology can support EPA's
mission.
Emphasis will be given to indoor air contamination, where
research will focus on inhalation exposures to volatile
constituents from water used for purposes other than
drinking. A project relating to volatile constituents from
shower water will be completed and a new study initiated to
determine the source, strengths and dissemination of indoor
volatile and gaseous constituents from water and other
materials. Plans will be made to extend this project to
measurements of organics in exhaled air of humans in
homes where environmental exposures have been well-
characterized. This research will be a joint project between
the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie-Mellon
University.
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Efforts will be directed toward better characterization of
environmental contamination. Work will be carried out on
the development of a passive sampler which has optimal
properties for the routine monitoring of airborne vapors at
very low concentrations such as are found in the general
environment.
Some preliminary investigations will also be made in an
area new to the center. This area is characterization of
heterotrophic bacteria in air and water and the identification
of pathogens. Work here will be exploratory and will be
closely coordinated with work being conducted elsewhere in
EPA. There is some evidence that these bacteria are
important in human respiratory disease
Quality Assurance
How does the Agency assure that its environmental data
collection is of high quality?
A significant portion of EPA's budget is spent on collecting
environmental data. Quality assurance activities play an
integral role in the planning and implementation of
environmental data collection efforts and in the evaluation of
the resulting data. Quality assurance is the process of
assessing whether the data provided by data collectors to
line managers is of the quality needed and claimed. Quality
assurance should not be confused with quality control (QC);
QC includes those activities required during data collection
to produce the data quality desired and to document the
quality of the collected data (e g., sample spikes and
blanks).
The Quality Assurance Management Staff (QAMS) is
charged with overseeing the quality assurance activities of
the Agency. QAMS came into being in May 1979, when the
Agency recognized the need for formalizing an Agency-
wide quality assurance program for all environmental data
collection activities. More recently, with the issuance of EPA
Order 5360.1 in April 1984, the Agency's quality assurance
program has been significantly strengthened and
broadened. The Order mandates that QA be an integral part
of all environmental data collection activities, from planning
through implementation and review
In recent years, the Agency's QA activities have focused on
identifying the basic elements that are essential to effective
quality assurance for environmental data QAMS has put
considerable effort into issuing guidance defining and
analyzing these key elements The long range outlook for
the QA program is a transition from the guidance phase to
implementation. During the next several years, QAMS will
support all EPA environmental data collection programs in
pursuit of the following priorities: 1) quality assurance
program plans, 2) data quality objectives, 3) management
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systems audits and audits of data quality, and 4)
documentation of routinely used measurement methods.
Summary of Long-Term Trends
The scientific assessment activity has three components.
risk assessment guidelines, the Risk Assessment Forum,
and development of methods for risk assessment The first
round of risk assessment guidelines are in place and work
on longer term issues well underway. These include
development of guidelines for. health assessment of
suspect reproductive toxicants, health risk assessment of
systemic toxicants, and using data measurements for
estimating exposures. The Agency has stated its
commitment to continual review of all the guidelines and
updating of them as new theories of toxicology or new risk
assessment methods become accepted.
The Risk Assessment Forum meets regularly to resolve
scientific disputes and recommend new science policies for
Agency use. Though many of its analyses are short-term,
its work includes longer-term analyses such as
development of better methods for low-dose extrapolation
in carcinogen risk assessment.
Technology transfer is a continuing responsibility. In
response to requests from the EPA program offices and the
needs expressed by the regions and the states, ORD
disseminates the available technology and technical data to
states and localities to enable them to meet their regulatory
responsibilities. Technology transfer activities will include
the design, production, quality control, and distribution of
materials such as design manuals, user's guides,
handbooks, and workshops
The goals of the research grants and centers program are
to stimulate investigation of emerging environmental
problems and identify steps which can predict their
occurrence, address exploratory research needs of
importance to EPA's mission that require multi-media and
multidisciplmary approaches, extend the capabilities of
EPA's laboratories, and establish links between EPA and
the scientific and technical communities.
Among the areas which will be emphasized in the grants
program during the next five years are modeling of wetlands
ecosystem effects, the capability of sediments to transport
heavy metals, and incineration processes for hazardous
wastes. In the centers program, the trend will be to increase
research on hazardous waste removal and control, modeling
of marine ecosystems, and control of indoor radon.
During the next several years, QAMS will support all EPA
environmental data collection programs in pursuit of the
following priorities: 1) quality assurance program plans, 2)
data quality objectives, 3) management systems audits and
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audits of data quality, and 4) documentation of routinely
used measurement methods.
Resource Options
1987 Current Estimate. $ 27.9M
1988 President's Budget: $ 22.9M
Projections
Growth FY 1989 FY 1990 FY 1991 FY 1992
None
Moderate
High
22.9
23.6
24.3
22.9
24.3
250
229
25.0
25.7
22.9
25.7
26.5
No Growth: The program would proceed as described in
this Research Outlook.
Moderate: Additional development of new risk assessment
methods would be sponsored. Also, solid and hazardous
waste technology transfer would be expanded. Additional
seminars and manuals would be developed to provide
regional and state regulatory enforcement personnel with
information on protection of drinking water supplies from
ground water contamination and pollutant leaching from
surface impoundments. In addition, the process for
developing and implementing Audits of Data Quality would
be accelerated.
High: Risk assessment support would be provided to
offices not normally part of the Research Committee
process, for instance, the Office of Policy, Planning, and
Evaluation. In addition, a major effort to expand and
computerize the data base for routinely used measurement
methods would make it more useful and accessible to all
Agency users
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III. APPENDIX
Interagency Coordination
Reorganization Plan 3, which established the EPA, did not
intend that all relevant environmental research be included
within the EPA in-house research establishment. The
Agency was expected to rely in part on relevant research
and development performed by other federal agencies as
well as non-federal organizations1. Acquiring and
integrating such information was considered to be an
important function of the EPA R&D operation.
A review of the recent Directory of Federal Laboratory and
Technology Resources1 indicates the breadth of
environmentally related research and development being
done in the non-EPA federal laboratories. In order to
prevent unnecessary duplication of research e*forts,
awareness of such activities and available information is
considered in the development of the EPA research
program
In addition, mteragency cooperation and coordination is
utilized to bring the appropriate expertise to bear on
environmental problems. Interagency committees and
interagency agreements are techniques utilized to effect the
communication and coordination
The Office of Research and Development presently has
active interagency agreements with the following agencies':
Department of Agriculture (measurements, ecology,
health, engineering)
Department of Defense (measurements, engineering)
- Army (measurements, ecology, health, engineering)
Army Corps of Engineers (engineering,
measurements, ecology)
- Navy (engineering, measurements)
- Air Force (engineering, measurements, ecology,
health)
1 Directory ol Federal Laboratory and Technology Resources, 1986-
1987, PB86 100013, Center lor Utilization of Federal Technology, US
Department of Commerce. NTIS, 1986
* Disciplines and/or areas of cooperative agreement are inserted
parenthetically
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Department of Commerce (measurements, ecology,
health, engineering)
- National Bureau of Standards (measurements)
- NOAA (transport and fate)
Department of Energy (engineering, assessment,
measurements, ecology)
Executive Office of the President (measurements,
exploratory research)
Department of Health and Human Services (ecology,
health, engineering)
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (health,
ecology)
Department of the Interior (measurement, ecology)
National Science Foundation (exploratory)
Tennessee Valley Authority (ecology, measurement)
Department of Transportation (engineering)
Examples of the interagency committees on which
EPA/ORD is represented include the following:
Interagency Committee for Stratospheric Ozone
Protection
Task Force on Environmental Cancer and Health and
Lung Disease
Interagency Committee on Indoor Air Quality
Committee on Ocean Pollution Research, Development,
and Monitoring
National Acid Deposition Assessment Program
Biotechnology Science Coordinating Committee
Interagency Advisory Committee on Water Data
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f J * UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
IV ASHIMGTCN DC 20J60
.^JSSnuary 16, 1987
Honorable Lee M. Thonas SAB-BC-87-019
Administrator
U. S. Environmental Protection Agency -,. - v
401 M Street, S. W. '"' A '' --'-
Washington, D. C. 20460
Dear Mr. Thomas:
The Science Advisory Board has conducted a series of scientific reviews
of Agency research programs that have proven to be a highly useful means of
assessing the quality and relevance of existing research, identifying
research needs and involving the scientific community in the research
planning process. Such reviews have also aided internal communication
within the Office of Research and Development (ORD) and between ORD and the
program offices.
The specific research programs SAB has reviewed since January 1986
include the following:
Dioxins
Biotechnology
Extrapolation Modeling
Water Quality
Ecological Risk Assessment
Alternative Hazardous Waste Control Technologies
Superfund Innovative Technologies Evaluation
Indoor Air Research Plan
Integrated Air Cancer Project
Radon Mitigation Program
Ft '88 Budget Proposal for the Office of Research and Development
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In addition, the Science Advisory Board is scheduled to conduct scientific
reviews for the following research programs later this fiscal year: advances
in neurotoxioology, health effects of disinfectants and disinfectant by-
products; acid deposition; radon and indoor air; biological control agents;
effectiveness of asbestos removal processes; control of water quality in water
distribution systems; land disposal; and waste minimization.
The purpose of presenting this information is to inform you that such
reviews have focused both the SAB's and the Agency's thinking on research
plans and needs to a degree never before achieved through preparation and
review of the Five Year Research and Development Plan (Research Outlook).
As you know. Congress has required that the Agency provide the SAB with the
opportunity to review the Plan. The Board believes that its extensive
research program reviews fulfill the spirit and intent of Congress for SAB
oversight of the Agency's research program. Comments on specific issues in
the five year plan have also been addressed in individual research program
reviews.
The Board reiterates its long-standing support of research directed to
address problems beyond the immediate regulatory needs of the Agency. It is
preparing a separate report on this and other issues as it reviews the proposed
research budget for Fiscal Year 1988.
Sincerely,
Norton Nelson
Chairman
Science Advisory Board
/4Hi;'l / AAI46
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