United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Office of Health and
Environmental Assessment
Washington, DC 20460
Research and Development
EPA/600/S8-87/012 Sept. 1987
&ER& Project Summary
Multimedia Approaches to
Assessment and Management of
Hazardous Air Contaminants
F. Vandiver Bradow and Anne H. App
The chief goal of the NATO/CCMS
Denver workshop was to broaden the
perspective of air pollution professionals
in workshop session dialogue. A further
goal was to provide an opportunity for
air pollution research and control ex-
perts to share information on risk
assessment and management, address-
ing multimedia aspects of contamina-
tion. The final report identifies the
theme, structure, and major points of
workshop discussion, and presents
recommendations for consideration by
national policymakers.
The workshop was attended by about
60 people representing nations both
within and outside the Alliance. These
countries included the United States,
the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy.
the Netherlands, Sweden, Canada, and
Japan. Experts from each of the par-
ticipating nations were involved as
presenters, panel members, and session
leaders. Dr. Michael Berry, U.S. En-
vironmental Agency, and Ms. Christa
Morawa, Federal Environmental
Agency, Federal Republic of Germany,
were overall co-chairs of the workshop.
The workshop used lead as a paradigm
for examining difficulties and successes
in reducing human exposure to a
hazardous contaminant. Following a
presentation that summarized the cur-
rent consensus on scientific opinion
regarding lead exposure and effects, a
series of case studies was presented.
These studies illustrated various coun-
tries' experiences in managing lead
contamination. The workshop also
considered the problems in assessment
and management posed by compounds
where scientific evidence of health and
environmental hazards is less certain
than in the case of lead. Other workshop
sessions focused on methods for multi-
media assessment and management.
At the conclusion of the workshop,
the participants discussed proposed
recommendations to national authori-
ties. These recommendations concerned
comparability and coordination of
methods research to quantify uncertain-
ty in risk assessment methodologies.
environmental education, more effective
means of communicating risk to the
public, and organizational and legislative
structures more responsive to the need
for integrated management across all
media.
In addition to the individual presenta-
tions, panels, and general discussions,
microcomputer demonstrations of
REFEREE, an EPA-developed biblio-
graphic database management system,
and pMAP™. a geographic information
system, were available. Supplementary
materials contributed by presenters
were also available onsite or by order.
This Project Summary was dare/oped
by EPA's Environmental Criteria and
Assessment Office, Research Triangle
Park, NC, to announce key findings of
the research project that Is fully docu-
mented In a separate report of the same
title (see Project Report ordering In-
formation at back).
Overview and Recommendations
Overview
In 1984, with the successful conclusion
of a series of air pollution pilot studies
initiated and sponsored by NATO/CCMS,
the member nations recommended that
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the information exchange developed
during the preceding 15 years be con-
tinued. A 5-year program of annual
workshops, focusing on topical aspects
of air pollution control, was suggested
and adopted as follow-up to the inter-
national air pollution research and control
expertise fostered by the pilot studies.
The first follow-up workshop was held
in Lindau, Federal Republic of Germany,
on October 7-9, 1985, and it dealt with
advanced techniques for air pollution
measurement.
During the 2-1 /2 day Denver workshop,
22 presentations were made. They in-
cluded a keynote address by John
Spengler of Harvard University, who out-
lined the dimensions of the problem of
multimedia, multiple exposure environ-
mental contamination. The first session,
"Defining the Challenge," opened with a
summary of the scientific consensus on
lead, by David E. Weil, U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency. This was followed by
five case studies in multimedia manage-
ment of lead. Magnus Piscator of the
Karolinska Institute, Sweden, was chair
of this session.
The case studies presented several ap-
proaches to assessing and managing
specific instances of lead contamination.
The speakers were Paul Ciriello, U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency; Ian von
Lindern, TerraGraphics; Gen Ohi, Uni-
versity of Tokyo; Erich Weber, Federal
Republic of Germany; and Sergio
Facchetti, Joint Research Center, Varese,
Italy.
Following the examination of the
challenges presented by environmental
contamination with an element whose
hazardous effects are well documented,
Rolf Hartung of the University of Michigan
presented an overview of the very difficult
problems decision-makers and scientists
face when they must deal with com-
pounds where data on dose rates and
dose-response are unclear. The uncer-
tainty surrounding many such compounds
presents an unusually strong challenge.
Air, water, and soil are interdependent
compartments of the environment, yet
are often dealt with in an independent
manner. The workshop stressed the need
to consider all media in evaluating the
scientific information available for any
pollutants identified, and to take the
multimedia aspects of environmental
contamination into account for risk
assessment and risk management. The
workshop also recognized the challenge
to protect the total environment, including
but not exclusively public health, by
making and administering legislation and
regulations — often defined as single-
medium, but just as importantly, analyzed
and evaluated in terms of cross-media
effects.
Session Summaries
To illustrate the problems and the chal-
lenge in developing a multimedia risk
assessment/risk management model, the
workshop employed the case study
method, using lead as a paradigm. David
Weil of the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency summarized the outcome of the
recent, detailed scientific assessment
regarding the exposure and health effects
of lead.
Lead is known to be a multimedia
pollutant to which people are exposed
through air, food, water, soil, and dust; it
is estimated that each American has an
average daily consumption of about 100
micrograms. Most of the atmospheric
emissions (approximately 90%) in the past
resulted from the combustion of leaded
gasoline. However, that percentage is
expected to drop significantly as EPA's
Lead Phasedown in Gasoline program
takes full effect in January, 1988. The
EPA's assessment also concluded that
the onset of health effects of concern can
be observed at blood lead levels of 15-20
jug/dl in young children and at levels as
low as 10-15 M9/dl in fetuses. Based
upon evaluation of this data, the EPA is
now considering revision of the National
Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS)
for lead to protect as many young children
as possible (e.g., 99.5%, as was done in
setting the current NAAQS for lead) from
exceeding a blood lead level of 15-20
/^g/dl. Whether or not revising the
standard to this level will be sufficient to
protect fetuses from achieving blood lead
levels of 10-15 ^g/d\, given the relatively
greater lead exposure of young children
than pregnant women (and, hence, their
fetuses), is under investigation at this
time.
In summing up the session on lead
pollution, the chair of the session con-
cluded that a continuing decrease in lead
emission into the air is demonstrated in
all cases, but that total accumulation will
still (slowly) increase and remedial mea-
sures towards soil and dust pollution
should be taken.
Another session considered methods
of multimedia assessment. Compared to
"data rich" pollutants such as lead and
sulfur and nitrogen oxides, information
for new hazardous pollutants often is
lacking or incomplete. Establishing a
dose-response curve for these compounds
is therefore extremely uncertain. The
complexity of the relationships is also
indicated with the use of varying param-
eters: 1) dose rate, 2) duration of ex-
posure, 3) intensity of response, 4)
incidence of response, and 5) severity of
response. Other uncertainties include the
extrapolation to other species, from short-
to long-term exposure, from high dose to
low dose, and from one substance to a
combination of substances. He recom-
mended intensified efforts to state as-
sumptions and uncertainties explicitly. In
the discussion following the presenta-
tions, it became clear that for carcinogenic
substances the inherent uncertainties are
smaller than for other toxic pollutants.
The European approach in preparing and
separating promoter from initiator car-
cinogens was recognized. Participants
supported the statement that toxicological
tests supplying accurate predictive results
should be established before decisions
regarding protection levels are made by
policymakers.
The chair of the session on multimedia
assessment methods, began by discussing
factors of importance for planning and
interpretation of population surveys. The
importance of the selection of specific
chemical compounds as suitable exposure
indicators was shown. Examples were
given for arsenic, cadmium, and mercury.
Depending on metabolic processes, specia-
tion of chemical substances is of critical
importance to the evaluation of survey
data. For example, arsenic and mercury
can appear in one form in an environ-
mental medium, but differently in human
urine.
The final methods sesson dealt with
national strategies for managing multi-
media contaminants.
In the Federal Republic of Germany,
environmental problems still have largely
to be solved within the usual compart-
ments of air, water, and soil. A number of
activities have been started that aim at
introducing cross-media ideas, such as a
recently initiated soil protection program.
In Italy, a massive accidental release of
dioxin at Seveso focused worldwide at-
tention on the lack of information about
health and environmental effects of
dioxins and other persistent multimedia
contaminants. The subsequent research
response has clearly demonstrated that
TCDD and other dioxins are widely oc-
curring multimedia contaminants pro-
duced from a number of sources, whose
relative importance varies according to
time and place.
For Japan, a comparison was made
between conditions existing in 1961 and
in the early 1980's. Due to emission
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controls in the years after 1967 such as
the Basic Law for Environmental Pollution
Control and the Air Pollution Control Law,
air pollution concentrations have been
drastically reduced in the major cities
and nationwide. Environmental pollutants
are monitored on a continuous basis.
In the Netherlands, a multimedia
assessment is made for each chemical
compound to be regulated. In the be-
ginning, only air quality criteria docu-
ments were prepared. Since 1985,
multimedia also include food, drinking
water, and occupational health factors.
The U.S. government agencies are still
structured to address single-purpose,
problem-oriented programs. The single-
medium statutes and policies of the past
have worked well under the circum-
stances. That stage has been outgrown,
however, and there is a need to take a
more comprehensive look at environ-
mental management in the future. Clean
air and water are visible, and cross-media
approaches are a more abstract concept;
the holistic approach involves complex
ideas.
The final workshop session was co-
chaired by Michael Berry and Christa
Morawa. The major discussion in this
session was a review of the issues that
had been addressed throughout the
workshop. The participants made a
number of comments and suggestions to
produce a set of proposed recommenda-
tions, summarized below.
1. Decision-makers, in assessing and
managing the problems associated
with hazardous air contaminants,
must remain cognizant of the multi-
media implications to development
of control strategies and strive to
harmonize and coordinate methods
to mitigate environmental harm
across air, water, biota, and soil
media.
2. Decision-makers, in assessing and
managing the problems associated
with hazardous air contaminants,
must recognize, acknowledge, and
understand the limitations of
authorities restricted to a single
medium. Efforts should be expended
to regulate and mitigate, from a
multimedia perspective, the environ-
mental insult.
3. NATO countries should emphasize
their commitment to support re-
search in quantifying uncertainties
in the risk assessment methodolo-
gies. Furthermore, member coun-
tries should be especially attentive
to communicating risk to the public
and to public acceptance of the risk
assessment process and results
derived therefrom.
4. NATO member countries need to
cooperate in the development of
integrated simulation techniques
which can assist in the multimedia
risk assessment process. Multimedia
models must be easy to use, yet
flexible enough to cover a broad
range of environmental problems. If
at all possible, they should be
designed in a modular fashion to
provide the widest application. It is
further recommended that a follow-
on effort to the current NATO/CCMS
pilot study be considered for devel-
oping and validating such models.
5. NATO countries should actively seek
and support environmental educa-
tion curricula for elementary school,
secondary school, and college and
university students. Furthermore,
public outreach programs to increase
the awareness of environmental
problems and protection, to include
scientific discussion as well as
general approaches, should be pur-
sued. In the educational process,
particular attention should be given
to knowledge of the risk assessment
process.
6. Member countries should strive
during the next few years to develop
close cooperation and coordination
among governmental bodies in the
scientific pursuit of environmental
risk assessment. Two kinds of in-
tegration must be emphasized: in-
tegration across media and integra-
tion among policymakers and
researchers. Member countries are
encouraged to develop experimental
multimedia programs.
7. Member countries use the NATO/
CCMS pilot study structure as a
mechanism to recommend, select,
and plan for joint research. Alter-
natively, informal contacts developed
through the NATO/CCMS experi-
ence may be used to begin bilateral
agreements. Results of investiga-
tions should be published in standard
NATO format (English and French
languages) and the NATO/CCMS
structure should be used as a clear-
inghouse for research results.
Periodically, NATO/CCMS should
publish a bibliography of available
reports, and also a summary of in-
ternational research in the planning
stage.
The EPA author, F. Vandiver Bradow (also the EPA Project Officer, see below},
is with Environmental Criteria and Assessment Office, Research Triangle Park,
NC 27711; and Anne H Appe is with Dingle Assoc.. Washington. DC 20006.
The complete report, entitled "Multimedia Approaches to Assessment and
Management of Hazardous Air Contaminants," (Order No. PB 87-190 880/
AS; Cost: $18.95, subject to change) will be available only from:
National Technical Information Service
5285 Port Royal Road
Springfield, VA 22161
Telephone: 703-487-4650
The EPA Officer can be contacted at:
Environmental Criteria and Assessment Office
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Research Triangle Park, NC 27711
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