*>EPA
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
EPA 601/K-15/007 November 2015 www.epa.gov/research
Homeland Security
STRATEGIC RESEARCH ACTION PLAN
2019-2022
Office of Research and Development
Overview: Science for a Sustainable Future
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Homeland Security Research Program
Strategic Research Action Plan, 2019 -1022
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Table of Contents
LIST OF ACRONYMS Ill
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1
INTRODUCTION 2
Research to Support the EPA Strategic Plan 3
Statutory and Policy Context 4
ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS AND PROGRAM PURPOSE 7
Problem Statement 10
Program Vision 10
PROGRAM DESIGN 10
Building on 2016-2019 Program 11
Solutions-Driven Research 14
EPA Partner and Stakeholder Involvement 15
Integration Among Research Programs 17
RESEARCH PROGRAM OBJECTIVES 18
RESEARCH TOPICS 19
Topic 1: Contaminant Characterization and Consequence Assessment 21
Topic 2: Environmental Cleanup and Infrastructure Remediation 27
Topic 3: Systems Approaches to Preparedness and Response 38
ANTICIPATED RESEARCH ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND PROJECTED IMPACTS 40
CONCLUSION 42
REFERENCES 43
APPENDICES 45
Appendix 1: Summary table of Proposed Outputs for Homeland Security Research Program (FY2019 -
2022) 45
Appendix 2: State Needs Reflected in ORD Research Planning 50
Appendix 3: Cross-cutting Research Issues 51
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List of Acronyms
CAA
Clean Air Act
CBRN
Chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear
CERCLA
Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act
CIPAC
Critical Infrastructure Protection Advisory Committee
CONOPS
Concept of operations
CSS
Chemical Safety for Sustainability
CWA
Clean Water Act
HHS
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
DHS
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
DOD
U.S. Department of Defense
DPAS
Decontamination Preparedness and Assessment Strategy
DWH
Deepwater Horizon
EPA
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
EPCRA
Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act
ERLN
Environmental Response Laboratory Network
ESAM
Environmental Sampling and Analytical Methods
ESF
Emergency Support Function
FAD
Foreign animal diseases
FSMA
Food Safety Modernization Act
HHRA
Human Health Risk Assessment
HSA
Homeland Security Act
HSPD
Homeland Security Presidential Directive
HSRP
Homeland Security Research Program
ICCOPR
Interagency Coordinating Committee for Oil Pollution Research
IMO
International Maritime Organization
NCP
National Contingency Plan
NCPPS
National Contingency Plan Product Schedule
NDRF
National Disaster Recovery Framework
NEBA
Net environmental benefit analysis
NRDA
Natural Resource Damage Assessment
NRF
National Response Framework
NRP
National Response Plan
NRT
National Response Team
NSTC
(White House) National Science and Technology Council
OAR
U.S. EPA Office of Air and Radiation
OCSPP
U.S. EPA Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention
OECA
U.S. EPA Office of Enforcement and Compliance
OEM
U.S. EPA Office of Emergency Management
OLEM
U.S. EPA Office of Land and Emergency Management
OPA
Oil Pollution Act
ORCR
U.S. EPA Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery
ORD
U.S. EPA Office of Research and Development
ow
U.S. EPA Office of Water
OWM
U.S. EPA Office of Waste Management
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PAL
Provisional Advisory Level
PFAS
Per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substance
PFOA
Perfluorooctanoic acid
RCRA
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
R&T
Research and Technology
SBIR
Small Business Innovation Research
SDWA
Safe Drinking Water Act
SHC
Sustainable and Healthy Communities
SSWR
Safe and Sustainable Water Resources
S&T
Science and technology
StRAP
Security Strategic Research Action Plan
USDA
U.S. Department of Agriculture
WCIT
Water Containment Information Tool
WLA
Water Laboratory Alliance
WSD
U.S. EPA Water Security Division
WSTB
Water Security Test Bed
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Executive Summary
Caused naturally or by humans, environmental emergencies continue to challenge our nation. The use
of chemical threats in Syria and the United Kingdom, the opioid epidemic, and several recent water
system contamination incidents that affected hundreds of thousands of people, remind us of the impact
that chemical contaminants can have on public health. Further, the radiological contamination following
the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011 demonstrated the significant impact and challenge of
cleaning up large-scale contamination incidents. Smaller-scale incidents, such as the attempted ricin
poisonings in several communities around the country, also highlight the ever-present threat of
terrorism post 2001.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is responsible for helping communities prepare for and
recover from disasters that result in threats to public health and the environment. The Office of
Research and Development's (ORD) Homeland Security Research Program (HSRP) aims to increase the
United States' capabilities to prepare for and respond to releases of oil and hazardous substances into
the environment, as mandated by Congress. The hazardous substances involved can include chemical,
radiological, nuclear, and biological materials. There are considerable gaps in our capabilities to address
these risks, including understanding the behavior of contaminants when released into the environment,
potential public exposures, determining where contamination is present that may pose an exposure risk,
and cleaning up contaminated areas and infrastructure. Enhancing capabilities for response and
remediation of contaminated areas and protecting water systems will improve our nation's resilience to
environmental catastrophes.
The Homeland Security Strategic Research Action Plan (StRAP), 2019-2022, is a four-year research
strategy designed to meet the following objectives:
Research Objective 1: Advance EPA's capabilities and those of our state, tribal, and local
partners to respond to and recover from wide-area contamination incidents; and
Research Objective 2: Improve the ability of water utilities to prevent, prepare for, respond to
and recover from water contamination incidents that threaten public health.
EPA's HSRP is organized into three topics supporting these objectives: (1) contaminant characterization
and consequence assessment; (2) environmental cleanup and infrastructure remediation; and (3)
systems approaches to preparedness and response. Short- and long-term goals accomplished through
research areas within these topics outline a strategy for addressing the objectives.
HSRP performs applied research that delivers relevant and timely methods, tools, data, technologies,
and technical expertise in support of federal, regional, state, tribal, water system, and local community
resilience. HSRP engages partners throughout the research life-cycle to ensure their needs are being met
- from identifying scientific capability gaps, to performing research to address those gaps, to
formulating and delivering timely and reliable products that fill those gaps, to implementing the
products via collaborative field studies and exercises. HSRP products provide systems-based approaches
to site characterization, risk assessment, and remediation (which includes waste management) to
address large-scale contaminated areas and water systems. Federal, state, tribal, and local decision
makers will have access to the information and tools they need to prepare for and recover from
catastrophes involving environmental contamination incidents that threaten public health.
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Introduction
The Homeland Security Strategic Research Action Plan (StRAP) for 2019-2022 is a four-year strategy to
deliver research necessary to support the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) overall mission to
protect human health and the environment, fulfill the EPA's legislative mandates, and advance cross-
agency priorities identified in the FY2018-FY2022 EPA Strategic Plan (U.S. EPA, 2018a). This StRAP
outlines how EPA's Office of Research and Development's (ORD) Homeland Security Research Program
(HSRP) aims to meet the homeland security science needs of the EPA partners and stakeholders. EPA
partners include EPA program and regional offices, federal agencies, state, and tribal governments
supporting the protection of human health and the environment; stakeholders include local
governments, non-governmental organizations, private industries, academic institutions and others with
an interest or investment in public and environmental health.
The Homeland Security StRAP is one of six research plans, one for each of EPA's national research
programs in ORD. The six research programs are:
• Air and Energy (A-E)
• Chemical Safety for Sustainability (CSS)
• Homeland Security Research Program (HSRP)
• Human Health Risk Assessment (HHRA)
• Safe and Sustainable Water Resources (SSWR)
• Sustainable and Healthy Communities (SHC)
EPA's six strategic research action plans lay the foundation for EPA's research programs to provide
focused research that meets the Agency's legislative mandates and the goals outlined in the EPA and
ORD Strategic Plans (U.S. EPA, 2018d). The StRAPs are designed to guide an ambitious research portfolio
that delivers the science and engineering solutions EPA needs to meet its goals now and into the future,
while also cultivating an efficient, innovative, and responsive research enterprise.
HSRP addresses science gaps related to remediation of environmental contamination that threatens
public health and welfare, as well as science gaps related to environmental quality before, during, and
after a disaster. In the U.S. National Response Framework (NRF) (U.S. DHS, 2016b) Emergency Support
Function #10 (ESF-10) (U.S. DHS, 2008), EPA is designated as the lead agency in providing federal
support to states in response to the release of oil or hazardous materials. Hazardous materials are
defined by the U.S. National Contingency Plan (NCP) (U.S. EPA, 2018b) as hazardous substances,
pollutants, and contaminants including chemical, biological, and radiological (CBR) substances. The NCP
serves as the operational complement to the NRF, providing more specifics on EPA's role and
responsibilities, as well as providing a strategic plan for responding to oil spills and other hazardous
substance releases.
In addition, EPA has supporting roles under several other NRF Emergency Support Functions associated
with cleanup, debris/waste management, and supporting water-related disasters. One example is EPA's
supporting role under ESF-11 (U.S. DHS, 2016c) (led by the U.S. Department of Agriculture) in
responding to "any outbreak of a highly contagious or economically devastating animal/zoonotic (i.e.,
transmitted between animals and people) disease or any outbreak of an economically devastating plant
pest or disease." EPA also supports local governments under the U. S. National Disaster Recovery
Framework (NDRF) as a supporting agency in several Recovery Support Functions (U.S. DHS, 2016a).
Through NDRF, support is provided to: (1) facilitate problem solving; (2) facilitate access to resources;
and (3) to foster communication, coordination, and collaboration among state and federal partner
agencies and non-governmental stakeholders.
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In addition to these responsibilities, EPA is also designated as the Sector-Specific Agency lead for water
and wastewater systems under the National Infrastructure Protection Plan and in response to
Presidential Policy Directive 21 (PPD-21). As such, EPA also has a role in protecting water systems and
supporting their resilience. More details on the NRF, NCP, PPD-21 and other mandates legislated to EPA
are provided in the Statutory and Policy Context section.
HSRP helps EPA carry out its homeland security and emergency response mission by working closely
with partners in EPA's program offices and regions, other federal agencies, states, and tribes to
understand the potential threats and consequences of hazardous substance release. HSRP works in
coordination with its partners and stakeholders to conduct research that gives decision makers the
information they need for their communities and environments to rapidly recover after a disaster.
HSRP's general research approach is to adapt suitable methodologies that have proven effectiveness in
a laboratory setting for success in real-world settings. Real-world settings can be challenging because
affected environments are not pristine; grime and biofilms complicate the behaviors of sampling and
cleanup technologies, thereby affecting responders' ability to sample and remediate sites. Furthermore,
some response activities and decisions may occur in sequence where such activities are coupled to, or
are dependent on, other response activities and decisions. Human behavior is not always predictable,
stakeholder relationships must be negotiated, and risks can be difficult to communicate. HSRP develops
information and tools for cleanup, waste management, characterization and assessment of hazards, and
application of the latest information in decision making.
Research to Support the EPA Strategic Plan
In February 2018, EPA released its FY2018-FY2022 EPA Strategic Plan, which is designed to implement
the Administrator's priorities for the next five years. This Strategic Plan identifies three overarching
strategic goals: core mission, cooperative federalism, and rule of law and process (see Figure 1). EPA's
research programs are aligned to the Strategic Plan and designed to ensure that the Agency successfully
meets the goals and objectives articulated in the Strategic Plan.
Figure 1: FY2018-2022 EPA Strategic Plan
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Improve Air Quality
Provide for Clean & Safe Water
Revitalize Land & Prevent Contamination
Ensure Safety of Chemicals in Marketplace
Cooperative
Federalism
Enhance Shared Accountability
Increase Transparency & Public Participation
Rule of Law & Process
i'
Compliance with the Law
Create Consistency & Certainty
Prioritize Robust Science
Streamline & Modernize
Improve Efficiency & Effectiveness
The first goal emphasizes EPA's Core Mission of improving air quality, providing clean and safe water,
revitalizing land and preventing contamination, and ensuring chemical safety. HSRP directly supports
this Core Mission through its applied research in response and remediation, a critical component of
building resilience.
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The second goal of EPA's Strategic Plan is Cooperative Federalism, which empowers the states and tribes
in fulfilling environmental mandates. ORD has been working for the past six years to strengthen its
direct relationship with states through partnerships with the Environmental Council of the States (ECOS)
and the Environmental Research Institute of the States (ERIS). Over the past year, ORD implemented a
Memorandum of Understanding with several health organizations, such as the National Environmental
Health Association (NEHA) and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), to better
engage the states and disseminate research to decision makers. ORD is also developing an Emergency
Management State Engagement Strategy that will seek further collaboration with first responders,
emergency managers, and others who rely on critical research information before, during, and after the
response to a contamination incident.
Rule of Law and Process is the final goal of EPA's Strategic Plan. This goal includes the specific objective
to prioritize robust science. ORD helps achieve this by conducting research and providing EPA programs
and regions with the scientific support they need to develop innovative solutions to environmental
challenges.
Statutory and Policy Context
Since the attacks of September 11, 2001 on the United States, the nation's homeland security enterprise
was reconstructed, ultimately leading to better national protection from both natural and
anthropogenic disasters. Prior to 9/11, EPA had authority and obligation to respond to emergencies,
such as oil spills, and to develop research that would improve hazardous material removal actions
primarily through the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act
(CERCLA), Clean Water Act (CWA), and Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). Pesticide use may be necessary
under some decontamination events, which is regulated by the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and
Rodenticide Act.1 In addition, the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act gave
EPA authority to prepare for and respond to disasters and emergencies (U.S. EPA, 2017). These
responsibilities were further established through the NCP and Oil Pollution Act (OPA), which help guide
the federal response to oil and hazardous-substance pollution incidents, with EPA as the lead for inland
zones.
In the post-9/11 era, initial legislation directed the newly organized Department of Homeland Security
(DHS) to coordinate executive agencies in developing research-based goals for countermeasures to
chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats ("Homeland Security Act," 2002). In
addition to new legislation, executive orders and other actions also influence homeland security
research. A major driver is Homeland Security Presidential Directive (HSPD) 5, which directed the
development of the National Response Plan (NRP) in 2004 to bolster preparedness and response to
emerging threats. HSPD 8,2 released as a companion document to HSPD 5, directed development of the
National Preparedness Goal (U.S. DHS, 2015) that established five Mission Areas of preparedness: (1)
Prevention; (2) Protection; (3) Mitigation; (4) Response; and (5) Recovery. The Mission Area of
"Response" requires the assessment of environmental hazards and directs EPA to "detect, assess,
stabilize, and clean up releases of oil and hazardous materials into the environment, including
1 https://www.epa.gov/pesticide-registration/pesticide-emergency-exemptions
2 HSPD 8 has been replaced by the Presidential Policy Directive (PPD) 8, which establishes five categories of threat:
natural hazards, human and animal infectious diseases, technological and accidental hazards, terrorist threats, and
cybersecurity.
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DRAFT; November 15, 2018
buildings/structures, and properly manage waste/' in alignment with EPA's mission. The NRP was later
superseded by the NRF (U.S. DHS, 2016b). This framework "sets the strategy and doctrine for how the
whole community builds, sustains, and delivers the Response core capabilities identified in the National
Preparedness Goal." (U.S. DHS, 2016b) The NRF has supplemental annexes that detail responsibilities,
organization, and coordination for 15 specific areas that help ensure the success of the framework.
ESF-10, with EPA's its lead agency, can be activated by DHS during a federal response to a declared
emergency. EPA also has independent authorities under CERCLA and CWA for response to applicable
incidents. In addition, EPA serves as a support agency for seven other ESFs: Public Works and
Engineering, Firefighting, Emergency Management, Public Health and Medical Services, Agriculture and
Natural Resources, Public Safety and Security, and External Affairs.
Congress and the national security community recognized that incident response may need an approach
that is distinct to specific sector needs. The Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and
Response Act required EPA and its partners to help water utilities conduct vulnerability assessments and
develop emergency response plans. EPA's responsibilities include determining methods to prevent,
detect, and respond to intentional and accidental CBR contaminations in water systems (U.S. EPA,
2018e). Furthermore, HSPD 73 helped define federal government roles and responsibilities within the
homeland security enterprise for U.S. critical infrastructure. This directive designates EPA as the lead for
drinking water and water treatment systems, and it requires EPA to "identify, prioritize, and coordinate
the protection of critical infrastructure and key resources in order to prevent, deter, and mitigate the
effects of deliberate efforts to destroy, incapacitate, or exploit them."
The homeland security enterprise continues to evolve as incidents occur that challenge the framework
for response and bring about new lessons-learned. These incidents can lead to legislative action, such as
the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act, and identified vulnerabilities can lead to new
Presidential Directives. This evolution of needs and directives further specifies EPA's role in incident
response and, therefore, informs the design of the HSRP StRAP.
For a listing of legislation and executive actions that have shaped EPA's preparedness and response
efforts, and hence HSRP, see Table 1.
Table 1: Homeland Security Research Program Supports Decisions Mandated by Legislation
and Executive Actions
Legislation
Acronym
Website
Clean Air Act (1970)
CAA
https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/STATUTE-
84/STATUTE-84-Pgl676
Clean Water Act (1972)
CWA
https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/STATUTE-
86/STATUTE-86-Pg816
Safe Drinking Water Act (1974)
SDWA
https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/STATUTE-
88/STATUTE-88-Pgl660-2
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
(1976)
RCRA
https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/STATUTE-
90/STATUTE-90-Pg2795
3 HSPD 7 was revoked by PPD 21, which states all plans developed pursuant to HSPD 7 remain in effect until
specifically revoked or superseded.
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Comprehensive Environmental Response,
Compensation and Liability Act (1980)
CERCLA
https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/STATUTE-
94/STATUTE-94-Pg2767
Emergency Planning and Community
Right-to-Know Act (1986)
EPCRA
https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/STATUTE-
100/STATUTE-100-Pgl613
Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and
Emergency Assistance Act (1988)
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-
2015-title42/pdf/USCODE-2015-title42-
chap68.pdf
Oil Pollution Act (1990)
OPA
https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/STATUTE-
104/STATUTE-104-Pg484
Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and
Rodenticide Act (1996)
FIFRA
https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/STATUTE-
110/STATUTE-110-Pgl489
Homeland Security Act (2002)
HSA
https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/PLAW-
107publ296
Public Health Security and Bioterrorism
Preparedness and Response Act (2002)
https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/STATUTE-
116/STATUTE-116-Pg594
Post-Katrina Emergency Management
Reform Act (2006)
https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/PLAW-
109publ295
Food Safety Modernization Act (2011)
FSMA
https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/PLAW-
lllpubl353
Executive Action
Acronym
Website
Homeland Security Presidential Directive-
4 National Strategy to Combat Weapons
of Mass Destruction (2002)
HSPD-4
https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=860
Homeland Security Presidential Directive-
5 Management of Domestic Incidents
(2003)
HSPD-5
https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/PPP-
2003-bookl/PPP-2003-bookl-doc-pg229
Homeland Security Presidential Directive-
9 Defense of United States Agriculture and
Food (2004)
HSPD-9
https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/PPP-
2004-bookl/PPP-2004-bookl-doc-pgl73
Homeland Security Presidential Directive-
18 Medical Countermeasures Against
Weapons of Mass Destruction (2017)
HSPD-18
https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=456436
Presidential Policy Directive-22 Domestic
Chemical Defense
HSPD-22
Classified
Presidential Policy Directive-8 National
Preparedness (2011)
PPD-8
https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=7423
Presidential Policy Directive-21 Critical
Infrastructure Security and Resilience
(2013)
PPD-21
https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/DCPD-
201300092
National Security Presidential
Memorandum-14 Support for National
Biodefense (2018)
NSPM-14
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-
actions/presidential-memorandum-support-
national-biodefense/
Executive Order-13636 Improving Critical
Infrastructure Cybersecurity (2013)
EO-13636
https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/DCPD-
201300091
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Environmental Problems and Program Purpose
In 2001, a few grams of Bacillus anthracis (B. anthracis) spores (the causative agent for the bacterial
disease anthrax) mailed through the U.S. Postal Service resulted in the contamination of several postal
facilities and public and private buildings. EPA was tasked to support the cleanup of numerous facilities
during the 2001 anthrax incidents. The cleanup process faced many challenges. At the time, there were
no methods to determine which facilities were contaminated, no capabilities for cleaning up
contaminated areas, no means to manage waste generated from cleanup activities, and the government
did not fully understand the risk to workers and the public. The ultimate development and adaptation of
methods for sampling, analysis, cleanup, waste management, and risk assessment were created on a
site-by-site basis and resulted in cleanup efforts taking years and costing taxpayers hundreds of millions
of dollars.
The resulting exposure of workers and the public, including five deaths attributed to inhalation of B.
anthracis spores, made bioterrorism a reality in the United States. The reality of bioterrorism also
highlighted the possibility of an ever-growing list of other potential threats (including biological,
chemical, and radiological contaminants) being released in urban/suburban environments and the
intentional contamination of water systems.
EPA and other federal agencies have invested considerable effort since the incidents in 2001 to build the
nation's capabilities. Incremental advances have been made and standardized in: (1) early warning for
biological threat release; (2) sampling and analysis methods for indoor areas; (3) cleanup methods for
facilities; (4) waste management approaches; and (5) biological risk assessment methodologies.
However, the United States continues to lack the full capability and capacity to effectively address large,
wide-spread contamination incidents the size of, for example, lower Manhattan, or Washington DCs
drinking water distribution system.
The scenarios that challenge our current capabilities are real threats. The 2011 Fukushima nuclear
power plant disaster resulted in immense impacts to the public, environment, and the economy of
Japan, further exacerbated by the lack of tools and technologies to address the challenge of large and
complex environmental cleanup in an area the size of Connecticut. The international Ebola outbreak in
2014 demonstrated the challenges of environmental decontamination to stop the spread of disease and
manage voluminous biological wastes resulting from cleanup actions and health care delivery. The few
Ebola cases in the United States were enough to spotlight the challenges that would be faced in a wide-
spread biological incident. A relatively mild accident like the backflow of a dilute industrial chemical into
Corpus Christi's distribution system in 2017 caused a ban on water use for much of the city's 300,000
residents for approximately 4 days causing mass disruption to daily life and huge economic costs. A
major incident, such as a highly toxic chemical warfare agent attack on a water system, would likely
result in much greater impacts. Chemical warfare agents have been used multiple times recently in the
Syrian civil war and in the United Kingdom, highlighting the threat and impact if used in the United
States. Natural threats also continue, such as Hurricane Maria damaging much of Puerto Rico's drinking
water systems, leading to a lack of safe water and increased waterborne disease incidents.
A disaster that results in wide-spread CBRN contamination over a large outdoor area, or throughout a
water and wastewater system, presents a daunting challenge to EPA, state, tribal and local responders
in carrying out their responsibilities. Once released into the environment, contaminants can spread via
natural forces and human activities. For example, a contaminant released in an urban center can spread
across the city by transportation systems, such as subways or airports, and into and out of buildings.
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DHS ran a realistic simulation showing that an intentional release scenario4 of a 100-liters of a B.
anthracis spore slurry in Denver could result in many square miles of contamination, with associated
public health and economic damages (U.S. EPA, 2012b).
Contamination can also spread from the initial release point to other communities. The potential for
cross-media spread of contamination is depicted in Figure 2 and represents a sample of the complex
scenario that large-scale contamination incidents present to communities.
Aerosol resuspensiori
Contamination source
Deposition in water
Infiltration
iunoff by precipitation
Resuspension
Delayed leaching into watersource
:ood contamination
Chemical Plant
Storage
Deposition in soil
:omite transport I
Fallout on ground
Secondary hotspotl
Leaching/subsurface
penetration
iroundwater contamination
Water Treatment 4
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1
1 II
Figure 2: Schematic Overview of a Wide-Area and Water-System Contamination Incident for Scenario-
Based Resilience Planning
Natural forces such as wind and water (e.g., rain and stormwater runoff) can distribute contaminants
from one area to another. Human activities, such as walking and driving, can result in contaminants
being picked up and transferred to other places or other people. These and other activities can result in
contaminants deposited on surfaces being re-aerosolized, resulting in transport of the contaminants by
air currents and the potential for subsequent human exposure. The transfer of contaminants on
clothing, vehicles, or other inanimate objects can also play a major role in the spread of contamination.
4 The Wide Area Recovery and Resiliency Project (WARRP) was conducted in 2011-2013 as interagency effort led by
DHS Science and Technology Directorate to enhance the wide-area recovery capabilities to "enable a timely return
to functionality, restore basic services, and re-establish social and economic order following a catastrophic
incident." (U.S. DHS, 2012) The biological release scenario was a 100-liter B. anthracis spore slurry sprayed from a
truck-mounted pesticide sprayer. This aerosol release was modelled to look at spread and deposition over Denver.
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Drinking water systems can become contaminated by several mechanisms causing direct threats to
public health. Distribution systems can become contaminated when source water becomes polluted to
such an extent that treatment plants cannot remove the contamiatnion. Such source water
contamination can result from releases by industrial sources caused by accidents or natural disasters.
Distrubtion systems can be directly contaminated by industiral accidents, pipe breaks, or intentionally,
to cause terror and economic losses.
There is also considerable uncertainy in the effectiveness of sampling methods to characterize wide-
spread contamination, in decontamination methods to reduce or eliminate contamination in complex
urban environments, and in the ability to manage the vast amount of waste that could be generated.
Current methods used in previous, smaller-scale CBRN incidents are not readily suitable for deployment
over large areas. The dynamic nature of the contaminant within the environment, coupled with the lack
of readily-available tools, lead to considerable challenges in ensuring communities are resilient to
disasters. The United States needs remediation methods that are rapidly deployable and scalable, with
documented effectiveness. With readily-available approaches repurposed from other sectors,
responders can adapt methods to address different-sized incidents and unanticipated challenges within
finite budget and time contraints.
As a real-world example, consider the release of asbestos-containing ash from a warehouse fire in 2017
that caused wide area asbestos contamination of North Portland, Oregon. Asbestos-containing debris
was thought to spread as far as two miles on each side of the Willamette River. EPA provided support to
the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality to clean up debris and assess the potential for public
exposure. This incident presented the challenge of determining where asbestos fibers might have
settled over a 13-square mile area and raised concerns for suspended particle (dust) transfer of asbestos
into residences. Researchers and responders had to address many questions, such as how to determine
which areas were contaminated (both indoors and outdoors), what type of sampling was both effective
and technically feasible over the potentially contaminated, large area, and the impact of wind, rain, and
human activity on the redistribution of asbestos and, hence, the value of sampling results from a
previous day. This incident provided a vivid example of the challenges that would be faced if CBRN
contaminants are spread over an urban area.
Science to support response decisions prior to and during a disaster should consider long-term recovery.
The decisions and priorities set by an impacted community prior to a disaster (prevention and
protection pillars in the NDRF) and during the mitigation and response phase of a disaster have a
cascading effect on the overall recovery (U.S. DHS, 2016a). The importance of community engagement
highlights the need to understand the social-environmental system interactions as scientific solutions to
mitigation and response are developed. Contaminant movement, exposure, and susceptibility are
affected by social as well as environmental systems. So too are decontamination actions and outcomes.
The dynamic nature of wide-area contamination (including indoor, outdoor, and water system impacts)
highlights the complexity of response activities to ensure that communities across our nation are
resilient to disasters. Although EPA's homeland security responsibilities related to the NRF ESF-10 focus
primarily on mitigation and response, the ultimate purpose of resilience is for communities to recover
rapidly from a disaster. Further, as the sector-specific lead for water and wastewater infrastructure,
ensuring resilience of water systems also includes understanding and reducing vulnerabilities to
contamination incidents.
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DRAFT, November 15, 2018
Considering the general widespread contamination scenario discussed above, HSRP focuses on
supporting community resilience to disasters by supporting decision makers in addressing questions
such as:
• What tools and strategies are available for sampling wide areas or water systems to determine
the extent of the contamination?
• How can movement of contaminants in the environment be predicted, monitored, or
suppressed in support of sampling, cleanup, and public health decisions?
• How can detection, surveying, monitoring, and sampling information be used to guide public
health decisions, including mitigating human exposure potential?
• How can wide areas and water systems be rapidly and safely cleaned up and returned to
normalcy?
• How can water systems be protected against contamination incidents?
In addressing these questions through research, HSRP focuses on priority CBRN threat agents that
challenge the current capabilities of response. Irrespective of the cause of the contamination,
communities need capabilities and support for hazards impacting public health. Predicting the next
disaster and its impacts is nearly impossible. Recent major disasters in the United States (e.g., West
Virginia's water contamination incident in 2014, the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa in 2014 and
subsequent Ebola cases in the United States, and the avian flu outbreak in the poultry industry in 2015,)
and abroad (e.g., Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident in 2011) highlight the unpredictable
nature of disasters and their consequences for communities. PPD-21 outlines a holistic approach to
homeland security, which is known as the "all hazards" approach with respect to building resilience to
disasters.5 HSRP uses this approach in drafting the mission and design of this research program.
Problem Statement
Disasters often result in environmental contamination that can threaten public and environmental
health. The United States is regularly affected by natural disasters, industrial accidents, and has been the
target of intentional contamination incidents with a growing list of chemical, biological, and radiological
agents. When scientifically-sound information is not readily available for the potential array of low-
probability, high-consequence threats, communities cannot be resilient to these acute, environmental
catastrophes.
Program Vision
Federal, state, tribal, and local decision makers have timely access to information and the tools they
need to ensure community resilience to catastrophes involving environmental contamination that
threatens public health and welfare.
Program Design
The ORD StRAPs are guided by EPA's Strategic Plan and the draft ORD Strategic Plan. The StRAPs position
ORD to contribute to EPA meeting its strategic measures, depicted in Figure 3. The HSRP St RAP provides
a vision and blueprint for advancing homeland security research in ways that meet legislative and policy
mandates and address the highest priority partner needs. HSRP supports EPA's responsibilities to
prepare for and respond to acute disasters by conducting short-term, applied scientific research. The
5 PPD-21 states 'The Federal Government shall...take proactive steps to manage risk and strengthen the security
and resilience of the Nation's critical infrastructure, considering all hazards that could have a debilitating impact on
national security, economic stability, public health and safety, or any combination thereof."
10
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DRAFT, November 15, 2018
foundation of the program focuses on CBRN contamination resulting from intentional or unintentional
incidents.
Figure 3: ORD's Strategic Research Action Plans are driven by EPA's Strategic Goals and Objectives to
contribute to EPA's Strategic Measures
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HSRP collaborates with other ORD research programs and with other federal departments/agencies to
address the most pressing needs related to an "all hazards" approach to disasters. HSRP also finds
multiple uses of its research by applying, when appropriate, its products to EPA's needs that are not
otherwise met. One example is the Ebola Outbreak in 2014. Although this was a natural outbreak with
major response efforts led by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), EPA's expertise was requested
related to environmental cleanup and waste treatment and disposal. While HSRP had not done work
specifically on Ebola virus, the program provided necessary expertise on environmental
decontamination, personal protective equipment decontamination, and solid waste and waste-water
management through adaptation of its work with other biological agents. Since the next disaster cannot
be adequately predicted, an essentia! component of HSRP is the ability to adapt and apply its research to
meet unforeseen challenges in a timely manner. By applying HSRP research on specific threats/scenarios
more broadly, HSRP is helping address unforeseen threats and scenarios.
Developing resilience at the community level is a critical aspect of building sustainability, especially for
communities that have greater exposure to disasters and are more vulnerable to their impacts.
Communities that "prepare for, absorb and recover" (National Research Council, 2012) from disasters
will, in turn, have more sustainable economic, environmental, and social systems. By developing and
transitioning effective tools and guidance to community decision makers, including emergency
management officials and water and wastewater utility owners and operators, HSRP is helping
communities to prepare for and more rapidly recover from these incidents.
Building on 2016-2019 Program
The current (2019-2022) HSRP StRAP builds on the 2016-2019 StRAP(U.S. EPA, 2015) and the foundation
set forth in the 2012-2016 StRAP (U.S. EPA, 2012a). The 2012-2016 StRAP recognized the
interconnection of research efforts based upon the impact each decision has on other decisions during
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DRAFT, November 15, 2018
response and remediation activities. This overarching systems approach shows the cascading
dependence of remediation activities upon one another and guides research planning to support
detection, sampling analysis, threat mitigation, decontamination, and waste management research
activities. This "systems approach"6 also fostered the development of decision-support tools that
incorporated the ability to estimate (forecast) the impact that one decision has on downstream options
or total remediation time and cost. The systems approach was advanced in the 2016-2019 St RAP
through systems-based tools that allowed researchers to model entire systems and aided decision
makers in exploring trade-offs between response and remediation activities. HSRP research also made
advancements in integrating analysis of the social and environmental systems that affect community
resilience.
HSRP will use scenario-based planning to continue to refine priority needs and outputs over the course
of 2019-2022 St RAP implementation. The 2019-2022 St RAP will continue to advance the overall systems
approach, as well as the interconnection of response decisions, by implementing a scenario-based
planning approach. This planning will involve HSRP partners and will include exercise scenarios on the
regional and national levels, as well as scenarios modified from real-world incidents. For example, in the
North Portland fire, modified scenarios could predict the impact that an anthrax-spore release would
have posed to public health, instead of asbestos.
HSRP will also continue to focus on developing capabilities for communities to be resilient to large-scale
disasters, employing the wide-area scenario view presented in Figure 2. The lessons-learned from large-
scale incidents can be applied to smaller-scale incidents involving oil or other hazardous substances. The
approach that HSRP has taken is to "plan big" and scale as needed for the incidents that actually happen
(Lumpkins, 2017). Ongoing interagency efforts will continue to simulate and plan for these wide-area
biological incident remediation capabilities. Toward that objective, HSRP and the Office of Land and
Emergency Management (OLEM) Consequence Management Advisory Division will partner with DHS
and the U.S. Coast Guard to conduct field-scale research on responses to a wide-area biological incident.
This multi-year effort will include addressing critical gaps through laboratory and field-scale research.
Efforts will also be made to initiate a focus on outdoor (wide-area) chemical releases and water
contamination incidents with chemical and radiological threats. HSRP will also prioritize addressing
emerging chemical threats to both wide areas and water systems. This includes addressing high priority
needs of HSRP's partners with respect to emerging threats related to nation-state supported terrorism,
as well as supporting communities to address increasing issues with opioid-contaminated sites (e.g.,
fentanyl).
Zoonotic disease has re-emerged over the last three decades to become a world-wide challenge.
Additional understanding is needed of the complex relationships between zoonotic agents at the
human-animal-environment interface to develop environmental countermeasures that would effectively
stop the chain of infection. To address adverse exposures to, and ecological consequences of, zoonotic
diseases, many federal agencies have adopted a One Health (One Health Initiative) approach to
integrate multiple scientific disciplines (i.e., microbiology, ecology, environmental engineering, public
health, industrial hygiene, veterinary, etc.) to attain optimal health for people, animals, and the
environment. HSRP will work to integrate a One Health approach to better assess risks posed by
6 Systems approaches, including systems-based solutions, aim to understand a system in totality through analyzing
its various components while still understanding how these components interact. These approaches also aim to
understand the system at many levels. In this context, the "system" here is the incident response and recovery
efforts composed of many interconnected activities, such as constructing a sampling strategy, selecting a cleanup
technology, and managing wastes.
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DRAFT, November 15, 2018
biothreat agents and for conducting research to develop effective, environmentally-sustainable
response strategies.
HSRP research will continue to be conducted at EPA facilities (intramural) and off-site (extramural) at
grantee or contractor laboratories. Extramural research, funded through interagency agreements,
grants, and contracts, complements and expands the intramural research program by engaging the
agency with the nation's leading scientists and engineers. This broad engagement is particularly valuable
where additional expertise and capabilities are needed from the scientific community to provide an
expanded strategic response to an environmental challenge and to address important gaps in scientific
expertise. EPA also participates in similarly focused Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)7 efforts
established by the Small Business Innovation Development Act of 1982.
ORD recognizes that EPA program and region, state, and tribal partners must respond to emerging,
unforeseen needs that can benefit from ORD research and technical expertise. In these situations, ORD
works with partners to balance the relative importance of these emerging needs with other research
activities and to ensure agreement in any changes in research direction with respect to available
resources. HSRP promotes the development of innovative commercial technologies to address
environmental challenges. HSRP does this through vehicles including SBIR, innovative incentive
programs including citizen prizes/awards to drive crowd sourcing of inventive approaches, and ORD
internal innovative challenges (e.g., Pathfinder Innovative Projects).
This St RAP outlines priority research efforts for 2019-2022. These efforts are intended to address the
highest priority needs identified by HSRP's EPA program and regional partners and reflect the needs of
states, tribes, and local communities with respect to EPA's Homeland Security responsibilities. HSRP also
undertakes a systematic examination of potential threats and opportunities (i.e., horizon scanning) to
identify scientific challenges that may rise in importance from emerging technologies. For example,
recently-developed genome editing technologies are poised to revolutionize the use of biotechnology to
benefit mankind. Yet, these technologies could also result in unintended consequences on public health
and the environment or be used to develop novel threat agents. Demonstrated by the recent outbreaks
of the Ebola, Zika, and avian flu viruses, we should expect unanticipated disease outbreaks to continue
to challenge public and animal health and the environment. The increasing capability of computation
approaches will revolutionize the prediction of scientific properties (e.g., chemistry, toxicology),
enhance decision-support tools, and help manage environmental systems (e.g., monitor whole
watersheds including water distribution systems). However, as such advances become more
affordable/accessible, they could have unintended consequences, accentuating the importance of
understanding how such effects could be detected and minimized. Finally, recent uses of chemical
warfare agents in Syria and the United Kingdom warn of an increased use of these agents that can have
impact beyond the intended targets. HSRP serves as a foundation for anticipating and communicating
scientific issues of which EPA and other stakeholders must be aware, and for ensuring that the research
designed to address high priority needs related to existing threats can also support response to all
hazards (anticipated and unforeseen).
7 https://www.epa.gov/sbir
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DRAFT, November 15, 2018
Solutions-Driven Research
ORD is renewing and expanding its commitment to producing research that addresses real-world
problems and helps EPA program and regional offices, state and local agencies, as well as tribal
organizations, to make timely decisions based on science. This commitment includes exploring ways to
improve research processes through the application of a solutions-driven research framework.
Solutions-driven research emphasizes:
1) Planned partner and stakeholder engagement throughout the research process, starting with
problem formulation and informing all elements of research planning, implementation,
dissemination, and evaluation
2) A focus on solutions-oriented research outputs identified in collaboration with partners and
stakeholders
3) Coordination, communication, and collaboration both among ORD researchers and between
researchers and partners to develop integrated research that multiplies value to partners and
stakeholders
4) Application of research outputs in cooperation with partners and stakeholders to solve complex
environmental problems, and to test the feasibility, appropriateness, meaningfulness, and
effectiveness of the research-driven solutions
ORD will also study how we engage with stakeholders and partners and how we design and conduct
research to inform solutions to their most pressing environmental problems. ORD will continue to
support research outputs after they are delivered to partners and stakeholders, and will evaluate the
usefulness and effectiveness of this research in helping solve the identified environmental and public
health problems. This application of translational science will help ORD continually improve and increase
the value of our research to our partners and stakeholders. Translational science is a widely practiced
approach developed by the National Institutes for Health8 to "understand the scientific and operational
principles underlying each step of the translational process," which moves science along the path from
lab research to practical solutions in real world circumstances.
ORD is adopting a 3-pronged strategy for solutions-driven research:
1) Apply principles of solutions-driven research broadly across ORD's six national research
programs
2) Conduct pilot translational science projects that apply and evaluate methods of solutions-driven
research to planning, conducting, applying, and evaluating integrated research that addresses a
well-defined and unmet need of partners and stakeholders
3) Conduct case studies of previous and current research activities that embody the principles of
solutions-driven research, which will help inform a list of best practices
Risk communication is a central factor in solutions-driven research, allowing people to understand their
risks and adopt protective behaviors, as well as informing risk management decisions. ORD will
emphasize advances in the science of risk communication and apply best practices for communicating
risk to different audiences across HSRP and the other national research programs. Risk communication
allows people to understand the likelihood and potential magnitude of adverse effects from exposure to
CRBN and adopt protective behaviors, as well as informing risk management decisions. The science of
8 https://ncats.nih.gov/
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DRAFT, November 15, 2018
risk communication includes research on the social contexts of how information is disseminated,
interpreted, and acted upon, e.g., analyzing stakeholder values and risk perceptions. Throughout our
research programs and as a central tenet of translational science, ORD will be emphasizing both
advances in the science of risk communication and application of best practices for communicating risk
to different audiences. HSRP's research on the social science of decontamination and resilience will
inform this effort.
EPA Partner and Stakeholder Involvement
Numerous EPA program offices and regions implement EPA's homeland security responsibilities. EPA's
Office of Homeland Security, within the Administrator's Office, coordinates all activities relating to
homeland security. HSRP's primary partners include EPA's Office of Water (OW), OLEM, and each of the
Agency's ten regional offices across the country. Additional EPA partners include OCSPP, the Office of Air
and Radiation (OAR), the Office of Enforcement and Compliance (OECA), and the Office of Policy's Office
of Sustainable Communities. HSRP also engages with state and local agencies and water utilities to
ensure their input is included in research activities.
End-users of HSRP research will find scientific products most useful if they are closely involved with the
research program from the outset. The HSRP partner-engagement process involves working together
diligently on each step of output development, identifying and prioritizing research needs, implementing
research studies, and designing and delivering useful outputs. HSRP considers its partners in the
research to be EPA program offices and regions, federal agencies, states, tribes, and local government.
Other stakeholder beneficiaries of HSRP products include non-governmental organizations, industry,
communities, and others who directly benefit from or are users of HSRP outputs. HSRP's research
partners are directly involved in the research efforts conducted under this St RAP through planning,
implementation, and transitioning/translation of outputs.
HSRP addresses prioritized needs based on specific problems identified through defined interactions
with HSRP's partners. The process of understanding and prioritizing the needs of HSRP's partners is
collaborative and involves discussion of current capabilities and desired end states and is informed by
DHS-led threat assessments. EPA's mission and strategic direction further informs prioritization of
needs. In addition, water utilities convey their needs through the water sector's Critical Infrastructure
Protection Advisory Committee (CIPAC) (U.S. DHS, 2018), managed out of DHS and co-led by EPA's OW.
This group periodically releases research priorities, such as the Roadmap to a Secure and Resilient Water
and Wastewater Sector (Water and Wastewater Sector Strategic Roadmap Work Group, 2017), and
these priorities inform HSRP research on this topic. For oil spill-specific needs, HSRP coordinates with
EPA partners and other federal agencies, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA), the U.S. Coast Guard, and the National Response Team (NRT).
Much of the implementation and enforcement of homeland security responses is operationalized at
local, state, and tribal levels. EPA serves mostly in a technical support role to these decision makers and
first responders, as well as to water and wastewater utilities. Input from these partners is relayed to the
EPA regional and program offices, who then incorporate this information into the programmatic needs
that are transmitted to HSRP. ORD will also seek state, tribal, and local input more directly during the
implementation of the 2019-2022 St RAP through execution of ORD's State Engagement Strategic Plan
and HSRP's Emergency Management State Engagement Strategy.
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DRAFT; November 15, 2018
HSRP collaborates extensively with other federal agencies whose missions support environmental
disaster response, particularly those where there is overlapping or complementary mission space with
EPA. HSRP works closely with the DHS, Department of Defense (DOD), Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS), USDA, and others to leverage their homeland security/environmental disaster science
efforts. These interactions range from high-level strategic planning and coordination managed by the
White House's National Science and Technology Council9 to staff collaboration on individual research
efforts. Table 2 shows these agencies and their response roles and areas of research collaboration. HSRP
also leverages DOD's CBRN decontamination and fate and transport research.
Using the systems understanding of disaster preparedness and response, and identifying high priority
research needs, HSRP is organized by topics under which there are specific research areas. The work in
the research areas produces bodies of data, tools, models, and technologies ("outputs") to address the
capability needs expressed by our partners to solve the problems of vulnerability to wide-area
contamination and vulnerabilities of water utilities to water contamination incidents that threaten
public health. The anticipated FY19-22 outputs, organized by topic and research area, are listed in
Appendix 1. HSRP will engage the relevant partners as members of product and output development
teams, working together on the research to ensure that products and outputs adequately address
needs. This includes working together to determine the format of products and outputs and
communication strategies with stakeholders. In addition, Appendix 2 tabulates the HSRP research that
can be used to support specific state needs, as identified through EPA's engagement with the
Environmental Council of the States.
Table 2: HSRP Research Collaborations with Federal Partners in the Environmental Response Context
Federal Response Leads for Environmental Aspects of Disasters
EPA and U.S.
Coast Guard
HHS
USDA and
Department of
the Interior
U.S. Army
Corps of
Engineers
DHS for
federally-
declared
disasters
Role
Cleanup of oil
and hazardous
materials
Supplement
public health,
medical,
behavioral, or
human services
Protect Nation's
agriculture,
natural, and
cultural resources
Support critical
infrastructure
and
environmental
response post-
disaster
Coordination of
federal
response (as
required)
Area of HSRP
Research
CBRN response
and
remediation
Exposure
science,
sampling and
analysis
methods
Carcass disposal
and
decontamination
of agricultural
facilities
Water
infrastructure
protection and
waste
management
CBRN threat
and risk
assessment,
mitigation,
remediation,
and community
resilience
9 ORD HSRP participates on the National Science and Technology Council's (NSTC) Committee on Environment and
the Committee on Homeland and National Security.
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DRAFT, November 15, 2018
Integration Among Research Programs
EPA's six research programs work together to identify and address science challenges. Coordination
efforts can range from formal integration across the programs, to collaboration among EPA scientists
working on related issues. Based on feedback from EPA programs and regions, state and local agencies,
tribal organizations, other federal agencies, and ORD scientists, HSRP is working in several cross-ORD
areas (Appendix 3). These include:
• Wildland fires: Wildfires can affect air quality and drinking water quality. HSRP is concerned
with the fate and transport of contaminants from contaminated areas during wildland fires. The
fire in North Portland discussed earlier demonstrated the potential for contaminants to be
spread by fire. Since the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, there are considerable areas of forest in
Japan that remain radiologically contaminated. These forest areas are difficult to remediate and
can remain a source of exposure or spread of contamination; forest fires are a potential method
of spreading this contamination to uncontaminated or cleaned-up areas.
• Per- and polyfiuoroalkyl substances (PFAS): PFAS research within ORD is focused on developing
and applying scientific information and tools to enable states, tribes, and EPA regional and
program office partners to make informed decisions to protect public health and the
environment. The research is designed to support cross-EPA and cross-federal efforts. HSRP is
concerned with the release of PFAS-related chemicals during emergency response activities,
including the use of fire-fighting foam containing PFAS. HSRP is addressing this by testing and
developing on-site treatment methods for contaminated water.
• Lead (Pb): The cross-ORD lead effort is focused on answering the question, "How can EPA
mitigation efforts/techniques and coordinated multimedia assessments most effectively reduce
exposures and blood lead levels for the most vulnerable children in the United States?" HSRP is
continuing to develop water infrastructure modeling tools that can assist water utilities in
understanding the impact of changes in their systems on lead concentrations in drinking water.
HSRP is also continuing to test sensors that can indicate contamination in water.
• Resilience: The cross-ORD resilience effort is focused on integrating ORD's work preparing for
and recovering from disasters, including extreme weather events and accidental and intentional
contamination incidents, to serve the safety and resilience goals of EPA regions and programs
and ORD's state, tribal, and local partners and stakeholders. HSRP focuses on understanding the
problem and developing solutions so that communities have the information and resources they
need to effectively respond to all hazards resulting from disasters.
SSWR and HSRP will also increase collaboration and leverage work on sensors to detect contamination
in water and methods to improve water infrastructure. This includes efforts by HSRP and SSWR to
provide analytical methods and occurrence assessments, health effects, and treatment assessments for
emerging contaminants. HSRP and SSWR also provide resources and tools to maintain drinking water
infrastructure performance and integrity. HSRP and SSWR will continue to work together to provide
technical support to states and tribes for water treatment, analytical methods, and risk assessments.
SHC, A-E, and HSRP will continue to leverage efforts related to enhancing community resilience to
disasters, including waste management. Together, the research efforts of SHC, A-E, SSWR, and HSRP
strive to enhance resilience to near and long-term impacts of disasters.
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DRAFT, November 15, 2018
Research Program Objectives
The HSRP StRAP is focused on addressing two primary research objectives. One primary research
objective is to advance EPA capabilities to respond to wide-area contamination incidents. Terrorist-
related incidents or natural disasters can result in wide-area contamination with hazardous materials,
including oil spills or CBRN agents or materials. Wide-area contamination includes contamination of the
built environment (both inside and outside of buildings and semi-enclosed infrastructures such as
subways or arenas) and the natural environment. EPA needs effective and affordable cleanup strategies
and methods so that affected communities can successfully and rapidly recover. After a wide-area
contamination incident occurs, HSRP products can assist in determining the nature and extent of the
problem, assessing risk, choosing the best cleanup approach, and managing the resulting contaminated
wastes. Communities are also looking to EPA for ways to holistically assess their environmental
resilience to disasters.
The second objective is to improve the ability of water utilities to prevent, prepare for, and respond to
water contamination that threatens public health. Disasters, anthropogenic or naturally occurring, can
impact the ability of water and waste-water utilities to function, including the potential disruption of
drinking water supplies to municipalities. To support disaster preparedness, HSRP develops modeling
tools that aid the design and operation of water and waste-water systems in a way that decreases their
vulnerability to disasters. HSRP has developed tools, technologies, and data to support post-incident
responses. Following an incident, HSRP research helps water utilities detect contamination, determine
the extent of contamination, assess risk, treat the water, take mitigative actions, and decontaminate any
infrastructure. Collectively, these efforts reduce vulnerabilities and improve resilience of water systems
when faced with disasters.
Science Challenges
Because this program supports state, tribal, and local community emergency planning for time-critical
response to disasters, HSRP results must be available in easily accessible, usable, and concise formats for
decision makers. HSRP aims to deliver science-synthesis products into the hands of end-users by making
this information available through existing, widely-used information databases, and supporting this
work with technical assistance. The primary metric of the success of the program is the use of its
research in decision-support tools, databases, guidance, and training developed by EPA partners and
external stakeholders. The objectives and corresponding science challenges (questions) being addressed
by the program, under each of the objectives, are documented below.
Objective 1: Advance EPA's capabilities and those of our state, tribal, and local partners to respond to
and recover from wide-area contamination incidents
• What are indicators and metrics of resilient communities, including social, cultural, economic
and environmental variables, that influence resilience?
• What tools and strategies are available for determining the extent of environmental
contamination in wide-area incidents?
• How can the movement and fate of contaminants over wide areas (both indoors and outdoors)
be understood to inform sampling methods and strategies, mitigation, decontamination, waste
management, and public health decisions?
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DRAFT, November 15, 2018
• What are the verified sample collection and analysis methods, strategies for characterization of
contamination, and methods to assess exposure pathways that better inform risk assessment
and risk management decisions after a wide-area contamination incident?
• What technologies, methods, and strategies are effective for mitigating the impacts of the
contamination and for reducing the potential exposures?
• What technologies, methods, and strategies are best suited (minimize cost while protecting
human health and the environment) for cleanup of indoor and outdoor areas, including
management of waste?
• How do social system dynamics affect decontamination actions and outcomes?
• How can HSRP organize its research in an easy-to-use format for EPA partners and state, tribal,
and local decision makers?
Objective 2: Improve the ability of water utilities to prevent, prepare for, respond to and recover from
water contamination incidents that threaten public health
• What tools and strategies are available for determining the extent of contamination in water
systems?
• How can the movement and fate of contaminants in water systems be better understood to
inform sampling methods and strategies, mitigation, decontamination, and public health
decisions?
• What are the verified sample collection and analysis methods, strategies for characterization of
contamination, and methods to assess exposure pathways that allow a water utility to protect
public health and return to service quickly?
• What methodologies and strategies are most effective (minimize cost while protecting human
health and the environment) and accepted (e.g., social, cultural, economic) for water
infrastructure decontamination and water treatment?
• What effective methodologies can be developed to manage contaminated water for safe
handling and discharge?
• How can HSRP organize its research in an easy-to-use format for EPA water partners and water
utilities?
Research Topics
The needs identified with HSRP's program office and regional partners are summarized at high level by
the science questions under each of the two research objectives discussed in the preceding section. The
research to address the specific needs associated with these science questions is then organized under
seven research areas that are associated with specified research topics. These research areas are based
upon analysis of the identified needs and their correlation with respect to the objectives and science
questions and the response categories identified with respect to ESF-10.
Under ESF-10 in the NRF, EPA supports states and local communities in the cleanup of oil and hazardous
contaminants released into the environment that threaten public health. This includes the remediation
of critical infrastructure, such as water and wastewater utilities. Efficient remediation plans need to be
developed for safe and rapid response and recovery. These remediation plans rely on an effective
assessment of the nature and extent of the contamination and its potential impact on public health.
Decision makers need to know where the contamination is located and where it may spread to make
public health decisions (such as evacuation), hazard mitigation decisions, and ultimately, cleanup
decisions. Assessing the impact of the environmental contamination on public health must be made
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DRAFT, November 15, 2018
through an understanding of the exposure potential. Further, cleanup decisions rely on an
understanding of the behavior of contaminants in the environment. For example, will contaminants
remain a persistent public health threat or will they attenuate naturally? This type of information is
essential for decision makers when developing remediation plans to support response and recovery.
When developing decontamination and waste management plans, decision makers use information
from the characterization of the contaminated area, the nature of the contaminant and its interaction
with the environment, and the impact of the contaminated environment on public health. They then
couple this with information on capabilities for site-specific decontamination and waste management
options. Decontamination options depend on how effective methods are for inactivating, neutralizing,
or removing the CBRN contaminant from the environment. Effectiveness depends on site-specific
conditions (including the characteristics of the environment), the surfaces upon which the contaminants
are bound, the contaminant, and their interactions. For example, in 2007, EPA supported the state of
Connecticut in remediating a house that was contaminated with B. anthracis spores from imported
animal hides. The house was fumigated in the winter, and, unfortunately, the target conditions of
maintaining the house at 75°F and 75% relative humidity could not be met. HSRP research was used on-
site to determine the potential impact on efficacy and what adjustments to the process (e.g., increasing
the fumigant concentration or increasing the fumigation time) could be made to improve the chance of
a successful decontamination.10
Waste management is also intricately connected to decontamination options, since waste is generated
during all response activities, starting with initial sampling. The waste includes materials that are
removed and treated as waste prior to decontamination, materials removed after site decontamination
and treated as waste, and materials generated as waste due to the decontamination process. Choices of
decontamination technologies and application methods drive the types and amount of waste generated.
Decision makers need to understand the impact of decontamination options on waste management,
and vice versa, to develop efficient remediation plans. Further, having suitable waste management
options significantly increases the overall efficiency of the remediation by enabling effective handling,
storage, treatment, transport, and disposal of waste, thereby increasing the overall number of
decontamination options.
Understanding the trade-offs among site characterization, decontamination, and waste management is
critical for the decision maker. Trade-offs among response options will be necessary in the recovery
from a wide-area incident when resources are limited, illustrated by the events of Chernobyl and
Fukushima. Decision makers need the best available science and the capabilities during an incident. For
example, extensive characterization sampling can aid in selection of decontamination options, including
which specific areas require decontamination and which may not. While this extensive sampling may
reduce overall decontamination costs, it may increase the cost and duration of the overall remediation
due to the number of environmental samples required (both in terms of sample collection and time and
cost for analysis). Alternatively, using available lines of evidence (i.e., multiple pieces of information that
together provide an indirect indication of the likely effectiveness of a decontamination),
decontamination can be conducted without extensive initial characterization, although it might increase
decontamination cost and impact (e.g., waste generation). Decision makers can more efficiently
10The incident in Dan bury, CT was due to a drum-maker importing animal hides from Africa that contained
naturally occurring B. anthracis spores. The drum-maker and his son, residing in the house, developed cutaneous
anthrax. During the preparation of the hides for making drums, B. anthracis spores were released from the hides
and resulted in contamination of the resident's shed (where he made the drums) and his house. Additional
information can be found at: https://www.newstimes.com/news/article/Danbury-house-free-of-anthrax-
101815.php (last accessed July 24, 2018).
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remediate sites by simultaneously assessing the effectiveness and efficiency of sampling,
decontamination, and waste management options and their trade-offs. The ability to remediate
contaminated areas rapidly is a key factor in building resilience to possible disasters. For intentional
contamination incidents (such as acts of terrorism), minimizing the consequences through such
resilience can reduce the threat.
In alignment with the ESF-10 response framework and based upon the above understanding of response
decisions supporting recovery, HSRP's seven research areas are aligned under three topic areas: (1)
contaminant characterization and consequence assessment; (2) environmental cleanup and
infrastructure remediation; and (3) system approaches to preparedness and response. The research
topics and areas are shown in Table 3.
Table 3: List of Topics and Research Areas in HSRP
Research Topic
Research Area
Contaminant characterization and
consequence assessment
Contaminant Fate, Transport, and Exposure
Contaminant Detection/Environmental Sampling and Analysis
Environmental cleanup and
infrastructure remediation
Wide-Area Decontamination
Water Treatment and Infrastructure Decontamination
Oil Spill Response
Waste Management
System approaches to preparedness
and response
Tools to Support Systems-based Decision Making
These research topics are also critical, interdependent emergency response activities. For example,
decisions about how to clean up a contaminated site may affect the decision on how best to
characterize the site as cleanup progresses. Thus, the research efforts that comprise these topics are
designed to reflect and support this interdependent system of activities. Figure 4 illustrates the
interconnectedness of the research topics and how they must work together within a systems (holistic)
view of preparedness and response, to successfully "drive the train" of bring resiliency to our
communities.
Topic 1: Contaminant Characterization and Consequence Assessment
Effective contaminant characterization provides for understanding the extent and nature of the
environmental contamination. Information on contaminant characterization coupled with an
understanding of exposure potential can be used to inform the potential consequences of the
contamination on public health. Characterization is an essential part of response and remediation
efforts. Following a CBRN incident or oil spill, EPA may support or lead site characterization and
remediation of contaminated water systems and wide areas. Additional characterization of the site may
be required during cleanup operations to assess progress and determine waste streams and to inform
site re-occupancy and reuse decisions (sometimes referred to as clearance decisions). EPA's OLEM
founded the EPA Environmental Response Laboratory Network (ERLN)11, including the Water Laboratory
Alliance (WLA)12, to establish the capability and capacity for analyzing environmental samples for site
characterization, clearance sampling, and remediation after national-scale incidents.
11 https://www.epa.gov/emergency-response/environmental-response-laboratory-network
12 https://www.epa.gov/waterlabnetwork
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Figure 4: Schematic diagram of the systems view of HSRP research topics and areas, in support of
response and recovery to build resilient communities
Resilient Community
Consequence Assessment
Environmental
Cleanup
Characterization
Systems Approach
Infrastructure Remediation
Risk assessment is informed by characterizing the nature and extent of the environmental
contamination and understanding of the potential impact of exposure to the contaminated environment
on public health. Remediation decisions are made to reduce the risk related to exposure to
environmental contamination. However, using environmental characterization data in a risk assessment
is not straightforward, particularly for microbial contamination, due to the uncertainty and variability in
the field data as weli as uncertainty in how to estimate exposure to the contaminant in the
environment. For effective response and remediation, decision makers must have capabilities to rapidly
detect contamination, to determine the extent of the contamination, to understand the behavior of the
contaminant in the environment, and to assess the impact of the contaminated environment on public
health. Many decisions makers may not have ready access to such capabilities.
The research under this topic is planned and executed under two research areas. The first research area
addresses how contaminants behave in water systems and the built and natural environment, including
the development of capabilities to support decision makers in their assessment of the threat that the
contamination poses to public health. The second research area is focused on developing contaminant
detection, environmental sampling, and analytical capabilities. Combined, these two research areas
provide essential information to support environmental response and remediation decision making to
protect public health and the environment.
Research Area: Contaminant Fate, Transport, and Exposure
Cleanup after a wide-area contamination incident will be complex and resource intensive. Knowledge of
the persistence, movement, and associated phenomena over wide areas is a key element to inform
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decision making regarding cleanup and restoration. For example, during the Gotham Shield13 exercise,
impacted state and local decision makers sought information from EPA on the impact of impending rain
on their response actions. Such fate and transport issues are closely linked to understanding the risk of
exposure and the development of sampling, decontamination, and waste management strategies.
Exposure assessment information and models can inform sampling, decontamination, and waste
management strategies and decisions, particularly for microbial contamination.
The unintentional or intentional introduction of harmful contaminants into drinking water distribution
systems can affect a relatively large area, which could impact the storage tanks, pipes, and pumps used
in water distribution systems, service connections to buildings, and water-consuming appliances such as
water heaters. Fate and transport information informs actions such as decontamination of water
infrastructure, which allow reuse of the system. Additionally, to inform where physical security or other
measures are needed to reduce vulnerability of water systems, information and models can help assess
the consequences resulting from exposures to CBRN contaminants.
This research area focuses on identifying and quantifying issues related to movement and persistence of
contaminants over wide areas and in water and wastewater systems. The work addresses gaps in
understanding to inform decision makers and gaps identified as needs by EPA programs and regions.
Research is conducted at the bench- and pilot-scale to understand fate and transport, which will inform
decisions regarding sampling, decontamination, waste management, and operational countermeasures.
This research area also focuses on assessing exposure to contaminants, for example, through
understanding the implications of the sampling results.
Program, regional, state, and/or tribal needs
Research needs related to fate and transport and exposure assessment, in general, provide a
foundational basis to inform other parts of HSRP, including sampling, decontamination, and waste
management. These needs generally fall into the following areas:
• Persistence of contaminants in and on different types of infrastructure
• Movement of contaminants within and between different types of infrastructure
• Understanding how movement and persistence of contaminants can affect sampling
strategies, decontamination, and risk assessment
Addressing needs in the above areas will inform decision makers in addressing topics such as:
• Understanding how data collected in the field can be used to estimate exposure following a
release
• Assessing the consequences of CBRN contaminant introduction into water systems to
support vulnerability assessments, including understanding the movement and persistence
of contaminants in pipes and premise plumbing
• Understanding of the fate and transport of CBRN contaminants to inform public health and
mitigation decisions, including determining the impact of natural forces such as rain and
sunlight on the fate and persistence of contaminants
13 Operation Gotham Shield was an exercise conducted by FEMA in 2017 testing civil response capabilities to a
nuclear weapons attack in the New York City area.
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For wide areas, understanding the ability of a contaminant released into the environment to continue to
pose an exposure threat is important in remediation decision-making. The persistence of a chemical or
biological agent depends on environmental conditions (e.g., temperature, relative humidity, sunlight,
etc.) and the material in or on which the chemical or biological agent is bound. For some contaminants,
natural attenuation (where naturally-occurring degradation processes are used to reduce the
concentration and subsequent exposure) is a viable cleanup option under some circumstances. The
impacts of wind and precipitation events, and their ability to move contaminants within an outdoor
area, may have a profound impact on subsequent public health risk and on the ability of responders to
contain and mitigate the contamination. These incidents can also spread contamination into venues that
were previously uncontaminated, including storm and sewer collection systems as well as drinking water
sources.
Research in this area informs public health and mitigation decisions by addressing the fate and transport
of CBRN agents once released into the environment. An example of an output under this research area
is a synthesis of information on the fate and persistence of chemicals on surfaces, which will inform
sampling and remediation decisions (Appendix 1, Output #3). Research in this area, such as
understanding the transport of B. anthracis spores will feed into outputs developed under other
research areas (e.g., informing vehicle decontamination by understanding where contamination may
end up within vehicles passing through contaminated areas) (Appendix 1, Output #12). Figure 5 shows
an example of research in the aerosol wind tunnel in EPA's facility in Research Triangle Park, NC to
assess the re-aerosolization and spread of B. anthracis surrogate spores due to human activity, including
responders' activities.
For water systems, it's critical to understand how contaminants may adhere to corrosion products or
biofilms on pipe walls, which could prolong contamination by desorption, leaching, or otherwise
detaching from the surface and into the water over time. Contamination could also impact drinking
water treatment plants, wastewater treatment facilities, and storm and sewer collection systems. To
better understand the behavior of contaminants in water infrastructure, this research area develops
innovative processes for prediction of the fate and transport. Researchers examine the fate and
transport of contaminants in drinking water and wastewater systems at bench, pilot, and full-scale. Data
on decontamination and contaminant persistence in drinking water and wastewater infrastructure will
be included in the Water Contaminant Information Tool (WCIT)14. HSRP researchers are developing
innovative methods for modeling contaminant fate and transport to enhance water utilities' ability to
manage contaminated source water (e.g., water in rivers that is treated for drinking water) and
contaminated overland flow. Researchers will develop a tool that predicts the fate and transport of
radiological and biological contamination in stormwater in a wide-area urban setting (Appendix 1,
Output #4 and Output #5).
To support risk-based site-specific decisions during response incidents, decision makers must have
methods to assess exposure pathways and exposure models for CBRN contaminants. Exposure-based
modeling is a mature field for traditional chemical contaminants like conventional pesticides, but
14 https://www.epa.gov/waterdata/water-contaminant-information-tool-wcit
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Research Area: Contaminant Detection/Environmental Sampling and Analysis
Decisions regarding remediation are based largely on the results of infrastructure or site
characterization sampling (to establish the extent of contamination) and on clearance sampling (to
evaluate the efficacy of the cleanup). The recovery of contaminated areas and infrastructure will be
hindered by a lack of consensus on contaminant detection capabilities, sampling strategies, sample
collection procedures, and sample analysis methodologies.
HSRP, working with its partners, will address critical gaps related to this research area by evaluating
current detection capabilities, developing and/or refining sampling strategies, developing innovative
sample collection techniques, and providing sample processing and analysis methodologies. The goal of
this research is to develop, synthesize, and compile the protocols into user-friendly and readily-available
tools for the EPA response community and homeland security partners and stakeholders. Overall, HSRP
provides the science needed to establish detection and sampling strategies for wide areas and water
systems. This work will provide the maximum amount of information regarding the extent of
contamination while minimizing the sampling and laboratory resources required.
modeling efforts for exposure to biological agents are limited. People's exposure to contaminants
depends on human activities and on the how the contaminant behaves in the environment. Research
conducted under this area develops or modifies existing exposure modeling tools to support these
strategies. For example, models for water-based exposures are being developed and incorporated into a
tool that estimates consequences for entire water systems (Appendix 1, Output #2). Another set of
example outputs are Provisional Advisory Levels (PALs). PALs are quantitative risk values for short
duration exposures, that exceed safe levels, used to inform emergency actions like evacuation and
cessation of water service (Appendix 1, Output #1).
Figure 5: Assessment of reaerosolization of B. onthracis surrogate spores due to typical and response-
related human activity (Aerosol Wind Tunnel at EPA's Facility in Research Triangle Park, NC)
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Program, regional, state, and/or tribal needs
Advances have been made in environmental contaminant detection, sampling strategies, sample
collection, and sample analysis. However, major gaps remain in these areas, especially as they apply to
wide-area biological releases. The currently-accepted surface sampling methods are not practical for
wide-area responses because they are very time-consuming, labor-intensive, and require many samples.
Strategies that significantly reduce the cost and time associated with site-characterization and clearance
sampling are needed to effectively respond to a wide-area incident. Surface sampling approaches that
expand collection areas or pool samples collected using historic methods have demonstrated the
potential to achieve effective sampling coverage of large areas while reducing the resources required.
These "composite sampling" methods have considerable advantages over historical sampling methods
that covered more discrete sample sizes. New sampling methods will, therefore, be further developed
to support decision makers during characterization of wide-area incidents (Appendix 1, Output #8).
In support of these approaches, HSRP is conducting sample collection research to refine historical
methods and develop new and innovative approaches. These methods will be able to sample and
analyze complex environmental matrices such as underground transit systems and outdoor urban areas.
HSRP is developing field-deployable protocols using novel and pioneering techniques that include
pathogen concentration techniques, commercially available robotic cleaners, wet vacuum-sampling
devices, native air filters (e.g., heating, ventilation and air conditioning filters), and activity-based air
sampling. HSRP will develop outputs that describe sample collection methods for different
environmental media (outdoor construction surfaces, soil and vegetation, air). This will be reported in
an overall collection method summary (Appendix 1, Output #6 and Output #8) and added to the online
sample collection information document that is part of the Environmental Sampling and Analytical
Methods (ESAM) online tool.
The ESAM program15 continues to be a major focus for HSRP. ESAM is a website that supports the entire
environmental characterization process. ESAM includes searchable method queries and downloadable
documents for use by responders and the public. During an environmental response, ESAM provides
responders and laboratories with the single best available sample collection and analysis method. When
using ESAM, decision makers have confidence in the integrity of the data, can quickly interpret what the
data mean, and can readily communicate its meaning to the public. HSRP ensures that ESAM includes
methods for the highest priority contaminants and is continually updated with the most recent
methods. Collectively, the HSRP ESAM detection and sampling and analysis tool will help local, state,
tribal, and federal emergency response field personnel and their supporting laboratories more
efficiently respond to incidents, enabling smooth transitions of samples and data from the field to the
laboratory to the decision makers (Appendix 1 Output #10).
HSRP is also looking to address sampling and analysis of bio-contaminated solid waste and wastewater
(including water from the decontamination processes) in coordination with the OLEM's ORCR and OW's
Office of Waste Management (OWM). Sampling and analysis of solid and liquid waste generated during
remediation will be needed to determine if the waste requires treatment or has been adequately
treated to allow for transportation as conventional solid or liquid waste. Currently, there is no federal
regulatory framework for management of bio-contaminated waste, therefore each state regulates the
requirements separately. Regardless of whether regulations specify sampling requirements, response
personnel will need effective and feasible waste sampling strategies and methods so that waste
treatment/disposal facilities can safely accept treated waste. HSRP will modify existing methods or
15 https://www.epa.gov/homeland-security-research/sam
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create new ones to characterize bio-contaminated solid waste and wastewater. Sampling protocols for
these methods will be released as outputs (Appendix 1 Output #6 and Output #8) in addition to inclusion
in ESAM.
HSRP researchers are also developing sampling and analysis methods to address emerging chemical
threats, including nation-state supported threats and responding to illegal drug manufacture fueling the
opioid (e.g., fentanyl) crisis in states and tribes. Local, tribal, state, and federal partners have expressed
significant needs regarding characterization, cleanup, and waste management alternatives for these
emerging threats, notably the chemical risks posed by abandoned illegal drug manufacture sites or the
evolution of chemical agents that do not lend themselves to current rapid detection methodologies.
Without sampling and analysis methods, response personnel are very limited in making informed
decisions on the extent of contamination, efficacy of cleanup, and proper waste disposal options. HSRP
will develop an output that summarizes chemical sample collection and sample analysis methods for
environmental media (Appendix 1 Output #6); these methods will also be added to the online tool.
Existing modeling and mapping capabilities for sampling strategies will be updated to utilize optimal
locations and methods (Appendix 1, Output #7 and Output #9).
Topic 2: Environmental Cleanup and Infrastructure Remediation
After understanding the extent of the contamination and accessing its potential impact on public health,
EPA may then be responsible for supporting the cleanup of oil or hazardous contaminants and mitigating
their impact on human health and the environment. EPA has a long history and extensive expertise in
cleaning up contamination associated with accidental spills and industrial accidents. However,
remediating CBRN contamination released over wide areas, such as outdoor urban centers or impacted
water systems, is a responsibility for which EPA lacks substantial operational experience. Such release,
including oil spills, can pose a continual challenge with long-standing consequences.
Cleanup includes having the capability to address contaminants in all media within the built and natural
environment. DOD has expertise in the tactical decontamination of personnel and equipment, but this
expertise is not directly applicable to the decontamination of public facilities and outdoor areas. These
areas have a variety of porous surfaces and might require more stringent cleanup goals for public re-
occupation. Furthermore, water systems pose considerable additional challenges. Contamination of
drinking water can occur through the direct introduction of CBRN substances into the distribution
infrastructure, through compromises in the integrity of the distribution lines, or via a contaminated raw
water supply entering a treatment plant through a water intake. Direct distribution system
contamination can result from acts of terror or inadvertent disruptions such as manmade breaks or
cross connections. Intentional, accidental, or natural contamination can enter drinking water supplies
via contaminated stormwater runoff, wastewater and industrial outfalls, or transportation/industrial
incidents.
HSRP activities in this topic aim to fill the most critical scientific gaps in the capabilities of EPA's response
community (identified by HSRP's program office and regional partners) so that, when needed, EPA can
make the most informed mitigation and remediation decisions. Understanding social, cultural,
behavioral, and economic factors is also critical to inform effective response decisions that will
ultimately lead to recovery. EPA's tools, methods, and technologies for disaster preparedness and
response are designed to improve the ability of our communities, including water utilities, to rapidly
recover from a disaster (or contamination incident). To support research needs related to cleanup, HSRP
has four research areas under this topic. The first wide-area decontamination research area develops
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capabilities for addressing hazardous contaminants in the environment, including indoor and outdoor
areas. The second research area focuses on addressing needs related specifically to water treatment and
decontamination of water systems. Research to support response to oil spills is addressed under the
third research area. The fourth research area addresses capabilities associated with waste management
as part of the response and remediation efforts.
Research will continue to evolve to focus on scalability of cleanup methods and application of the
research to additional hazards inside and outside of the traditional CBRN paradigm (as needs and
threats emerge). Related to water systems, the focus will continue to move towards more field-scale
assessments and improving the overall resilience of water systems to disasters.
Research Area: Wide-Area Decontamination
Wide-area contamination requires comprehensive remediation capabilities to help impacted
communities recover rapidly and safely. Decision makers developing a remediation strategy seek to
identify and secure the most applicable decontamination methods and resources (e.g., workers,
equipment, materials, etc.) to execute the identified methods.
For example, critical infrastructure (e.g., government, health care, school, transportation, energy,
communication) in the contaminated area must be restored quickly to minimize both direct and indirect
impacts. Wide-area contamination may pose a direct impact on the local community due to health
impacts and denial of services, including possible relocation. Surrounding communities may also be
(secondarily) impacted, such as through people being unable to commute to work or denial of services
obtained from the directly impacted area.
HSRP's decontamination research outputs can be used to support decision makers in selecting
decontamination options with consideration for safety, resource demand, logistics, training, availability,
and technology necessary to remediate a wide-area incident. Researchers will develop methods and
critical information for response strategy development and to inform the decision-making process.
Program, regional, state, and/or tribal needs
Following a wide-area incident, local response authorities need access to decontamination methods that
are effective, feasible, and versatile for various contamination situations. Since there is no universal
decontamination method that is applicable for all combinations of environments and contaminants,
decision makers seek information to help them decide on the most appropriate site-specific approaches.
Information to assist decision makers includes understanding the effectiveness and impact of various
decontamination approaches for contaminated areas depending on conditions and priorities (e.g.,
urgency, contamination level, surface/media types, etc.) for remediation.
Rapid decontamination methods are needed to clean up critical infrastructure and enable continuous
operation. Examples of critical infrastructure include water and wastewater utilities (discussed in the
next research area), hospitals, electrical power utilities, and transportation systems. Some critical
infrastructure contains sensitive and valuable instruments/equipment: the decontamination process
must be designed to protect this equipment from damage so that the infrastructure can be returned to
service promptly. Research is needed to develop methods that can be deployed rapidly and are
compatible with critical infrastructure components. As part of the summary outputs supporting
biological and chemical threat response, HSRP will produce specific outputs that describe
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decontamination methods for these threats that are compatible with sensitive and valuable items
(Appendix 1, Output #12, Output #13, Output #15, and Output #16).
Decontamination of public and residential areas is challenging due to the complexity of the material
types and their different uses within communities. Common outdoor surfaces such as soil, concrete,
brick, and asphalt pose significant decontamination challenges due to their porous and reactive nature.
To meet the capability gap posed by outdoor surfaces, HSRP will continue to evaluate and develop
decontamination methods that are effective for outdoor surfaces under various environmental
conditions. Results will be summarized in summary outputs (Appendix 1, Outputs #11, #13, #15, and
#16), as well as informing the development of trade-off and strategic-consideration decision-support
tools (Appendix 1, Output #14).
Response to contamination incidents affecting residential and commercial areas may be delayed until
resources are available, as federal, state, tribal, and local government resources are devoted to critical
infrastructure. Research is needed to develop feasible decontamination methods for residential and
commercial areas that are widely-available, user-friendly, economical, and safe. To meet this need,
widely-applicable decontamination methods will be identified by surveying: (1) CBRN decontamination
methods previously used by national and international agencies; (2) common equipment available in
municipalities (such as street sweepers, orchard sprayers, sanitation trucks, and snow plows) that could
be re-purposed to support remediation; and (3) household maintenance activities for indoor and
outdoor decontamination (including social, cultural, behavioral, and economic factors).
The methods identified will be developed as a field-usable decontamination option via laboratory and
field studies. Figure 6 shows one example of this, depicting an orchard sprayer that could be used to
rapidly spray liquid decontaminants over large areas. Decontamination methods using common
municipal or commercial equipment and household maintenance activities are innovative approaches
that will reduce contamination exposure to the public and decrease the need for decontamination
resources that may be needed elsewhere. HSRP will also conduct research to develop gross
decontamination methods that can be safely and rapidly deployable for remediation. While these
methods may not achieve an ultimate cleanup goal, they can help to reduce exposure potential until
additional decontamination methods can be deployed as necessary. An example output from this
research is listed in Appendix 1 as Output #15, providing decision makers information on widely-
available and user-friendly decontamination options for wide-area radiological incident response.
Remediation of a CBRN wide-area incident requires an extensive number of decisions that span
numerous areas of expertise. These decision points, and the tools and models that support them, are
tightly intertwined and should employ a holistic solution. HSRP will produce user-friendly tools to assess
numerous factors (e.g., efficacy, availability, logistics, worker training, diminishing returns) that can be
considered when selecting the most appropriate decontamination options following a wide-area
incident. Information regarding an array of decontamination methods will be incorporated into these
decision-support tools (Appendix 1, Output #14). To ensure the tools are relevant and easy to use, HSRP
will request input from local, state, tribal, and federal governments as part of the output development
process.
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Figure 6: Demonstration of the use of an orchard air blast sprayer for the decontamination of a
subway station during an operational technology demonstration
Research Area: Water Treatment arid Infrastructure Decontamination
Resilient water infrastructure systems can facilitate quick and effective decision making during
emergency situations to ensure access to adequate water capacity and quality. Decontamination of
drinking water systems following intentional contamination, or after a natural disaster (e.g., pipe breaks,
storms, earthquakes) is critical for effectively resuming operation and restoring water distribution for
drinking purposes, as weli as other applications such as fire protection, hospital, and industrial use. For
example, EPA Region 6 in Texas requested assistance to address contamination from an asphalt
emulsifying agent, Induliri AA-86, that had contaminated Corpus Christi's water supply leading to a
temporary suspension of use. ORD scientists provided data on flushing chemical contaminants to help
with the cleanup. ORD also helped the region evaluate the toxicity and possible risks associated with
ingesting water contaminated with Indulin AA-86 and the water-soluble salt from the product. The
researchers established a health-based action level for the contaminant in support of an immediate
need by the region, state, and the city to protect public health.
Drinking water distribution systems, household plumbing, and appliances are increasingly vulnerable to
interruption in service from a terrorist attack, industrial accident, or extreme weather events. Water
systems can also be impacted significantly if their source water is affected by natural disasters and/or
spills of industrial chemicals and oils. This vulnerability presents operational challenges in maintaining
good water quality to protect human health and ensure water availability for fire protection and other
vital uses. Natural and man-made incidents further exacerbate the declining integrity of our aging water
infrastructure. Regardless of the source of contamination, the ability to reliably and cost effectively
decontaminate miles of distribution system pipes and plumbing is critical to rapidly returning the system
to service. Making swift and effective decisions will help minimize impacts to partners, the time to
return to service, and associated costs.
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Wastewater infrastructure is also vulnerable to contamination incidents. Depending on the
contaminant, the incident may impact the operation of wastewater treatment (e.g., worker safety,
sludge, aeration), which in turn can disrupt wastewater collection or result in the discharge of untreated
waste to receiving waters. Contaminants in the wastewater treatment process may result in those
contaminants ending up in the biosolids. Contaminated biosolids may not be able to be re-used (e.g.,
land application) and result in an additional waste stream from the incident.
Program, regional, state, and/or tribal needs
HSRP works with EPA partners to understand and address their needs, and with the Association of State
Drinking Water Administrators16 and the Association of Clean Water Associations17 to ensure that the
research developed and implemented also supports their needs. These stakeholders are on the front
lines supporting water and wastewater systems in responding to operational and emergency response
challenges.
One of HSRP's priorities is to provide tools and methodologies to inform decontamination of water
infrastructure, management of the contaminated water, and resumption of operations. Discussions with
the drinking water management community and recommendations from Water CIPAC emphasize the
importance of water infrastructure decontamination and testing of methods and technologies on a
large-scale system, representative of a real drinking water distribution system. To address this need,
HSRP constructed the Water Security Test Bed (WSTB)18 in Idaho to conduct water infrastructure
research at the full-scale (see Figure 7). Through operational technology demonstrations and exercises
(e.g., tabletops, full-scale exercises), WSTB research can also be used by emergency response and water-
sector communities to fully understand the operation, application, and performance of these tools and
techniques. HSRP plans to expand current research to include additional contaminants and scenarios,
such as:
• decontamination methodologies (including automatic flushing) for various contaminants
• consequences of a cyberattack on water distribution systems
• effectiveness of in-line contaminant detectors
• wash-water treatment methodologies
• water system modeling tools
Example outputs from this work include summarizing decontamination approaches for water
infrastructure (Appendix 1, Outputs #19 and #21), including methods to extrapolate the research for
contaminants not directly addressed (Appendix 1, Output #18) and methods to support disinfection for
Legionella pneumophila (Appendix 1, Output #20).
EPA also supports wastewater utilities by providing tools and data that help them respond to and
recover from contamination incidents and other disasters. To support this need, HSRP will address how
wastewater utilities (both infrastructure and personnel) and collection systems might be impacted by
and/or treat CBRN contaminated waters. Results from this work will include technical data to support
uniform, sole source guidelines issued by OW, OWM, industry, and others (e.g., OSHA) to inform
wastewater utilities as they adopt response plans to address wastewater contaminated with high-
consequence pathogens or radiological contamination.
16 https://www.asdwa.org/
17 https://www.acwa-us.org/
18 https://www.epa.gov/homeland-security-research/water-security-test-bed
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Data from HSRP's water infrastructure and decontamination research will be used in tools developed by
OW and the response community, including state, tribal, and local responders. Contamination of source
waters will be addressed through the Drinking Water Source Vulnerability and Emergency Management
Tool (planned for FY20), which identifies upstream hazards using geographic information system (GIS)
databases and models to determine travel time to downstream drinking water intakes, as well as leading
edge, peak, and trailing edge contaminant levels. The technical basis for a water/wastewater
decontamination and treatment technology tool will be developed for integration into WSD's
Decontamination Preparedness and Assessment Strategy (DPAS), scheduled for release in FY 19
(Appendix 1, Output #17).
The enhanced capability of water systems to predict future system behavior and evaluate the
implications of response decisions will improve emergency response and shorten the time needed to
resume operations. As such, real-time modeling tools can support accurate hydraulic and water quality
predictions. Modeling tools can also enable rapid and effective decisions. HSRP has developed tools and
technologies19 to assist water infrastructure systems in identifying, evaluating, and improving their
resilience to man-made or natural disasters, whether by changing operations or by redesigning and
retrofitting the infrastructure. These system-specific tools need to be tested and adapted to be
applicable for wastewater, storm water, source water, and water reuse applications (Appendix 1, Output
#22). In addition, a complete watershed system approach needs to be explored to examine the effects
of one system perturbation on another.
Initial HSRP research efforts have focused on developing prototype decision-support tools for drinking
water systems. HSRP will focus on expanding these tools to "all hazards", validating their results with
real-world data, and using the tools in case study applications with partner drinking water utilities.
These tools will help decision makers manage and respond to incidents.
19 Information on existing EPA tools developed by HSRP can be found at https://www.epa.eov/homeland-security-
research.
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Figure 7: Aerial view of the Water Security Test Bed
Research Area: Oil Spill Response Support
EPA is responsible for responding to and assessing environmental releases of oil that occur over land, on
inland waters, and in the ocean (in conjunction with the U.S. Coast Guard). Oil spills can affect human
health and the environment through their impacts on water (including drinking water supplies), air
quality, ecosystem health, or through direct exposure to toxic constituents. Atypical oil spills (e.g., deep
sea and prolonged releases such as the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill) have resulted in greater
awareness of the capabilities and limitations of spill response methods available for use today and also
of the ecological and human health concerns associated with certain spill mitigation technologies.
Similarly, smaller and more frequent spills occur each year, which also have human health, ecological,
and economic concerns for impacted communities. Ecological issues concerning oil and spill-treating
agent toxicity on aquatic flora and fauna, their fate in the environment, and the effects on impacted
shorelines and wetlands are of concern for the federal, state, tribal, and local governments, as well as
impacted communities, especially those who rely on aquatic resources for their livelihood.
HSRP's innovative research helps to achieve more efficient and effective management of oil spills with
respect to preparedness, emergency response, and fate and transport. ORD provides critical products
that address key science questions in support of the OEM and OW. Products help to formulate guidance
and rulemaking with respect to preparation for and response to releases. In addition to EPA program
offices, this research informs technical support to the regions, states, tribes, and other regulatory
authorities. This research has fostered strong collaboration with NOAA, the U.S. Coast Guard,
Department of Interior's Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, and U.S. Geological Survey
(USGS). Additionally, this research effort is in collaboration with Canada's Department of Fisheries and
Oceans, the American Petroleum Institute, and other industry members. Needs related to this research
area are developed in coordination with EPA and federal partners. EPA participates on the Interagency
Coordinating Committee on Oil Pollution Research (ICCOPR)20 with fifteen federal agencies. The
20 https://www.dco.uscg.mil/ICCOPR/Members/
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committee focuses on providing updates on oil research, discussing collaboration plans, and developing
ways for research to translate to response efforts.
Program, regional, state, and/or tribal needs
The NCP includes a Product Schedule (NCPPS) (U.S. EPA, 2018c) for commercially available spill-treating
agents (e.g., dispersants, surface washing agents, herders, solidifiers). The CWA and the OPA give
authority to EPA to prepare and maintain this schedule. The NCP also requires that EPA maintain
reference oils for product testing. HSRP develops and refines the protocols for product effectiveness and
toxicity that are used to inform regulatory actions. This research also provides guidance for emergency
responders on product performance and trade-offs to potentially impacted communities and
ecosystems. Research in support of this guidance is dedicated to:
• NCPPS efficacy protocol development: currently, the focus includes, but is not limited to,
developing efficacy tests for surface washing agents, solidifiers, and chemical herders, and
evaluating product performance in fresh and salt waters (Appendix 1, Output #24).
• Toxicity of oil and spill treating agents: developing toxicity procedures and threshold
determinations for regulatory listing and establishing LCso values (i.e., the lethal concentration
required to kill 50% of the species population tested) for a range of crude oils (Appendix 1,
Output #26).
• NCP reference oil evaluation: evaluating potential reference oils for dispersant effectiveness,
chemical characterization, and toxicity to enable OEM to select new reference oils (Appendix 1,
Output #25).
In addition, efficient oil spill response requires the ability to characterize the behavior, transport, fate,
and effects of various oils and spill agents rapidly, including diluted bitumen, which is particularly
difficult to remediate and exhibits unique chemical and physical behavior. To protect communities and
ecosystems, further research is needed on the chemical characterization, biodegradation, weathering,
and toxicity of a range of oils and spill agents. Studies at the bench-, laboratory-, and field-scale improve
our ability to minimize environmental and human impacts from spills and serve to calibrate numerical
models of oil tracking. Understanding environmental behavior informs predictions of oil fate and
transport and helps establish appropriate response, remediation, and restoration methods, including
Net Environmental Benefit Analysis (NEBA) Natural Resource Damage Assessment.21 Research
supporting these needs includes:
• Degradation of oil and spill treating agents: characterization of fate processes (e.g.,
biodegradation) and toxicity of oil exposed to NCPPS agents that are not intended to be
recovered from the environment, and evaluate degradation of oil encapsulated in ice or under
sediments (Appendix 1, Output #23).
• Oil toxicity and exposure pathways: evaluate unconventional oils, including diluted bitumen, to
determine the fate and transport when discharged to the aquatic ecosystem, and evaluate
additional new species for toxicity testing beyond current test species for oil-agent mixtures
(Appendix 1, Output #25).
21 NEBA is used to balance trade-offs during oil spill response for considering the most appropriate options to
minimize the impact of the spill. Additional information on NEBA can be found at
http://www.oilspillprevention.org/oil-spill-cleanup/oil-spill-cleanup-toolkit/net-environmental-benefit-analysis-
neba (last accessed July 24, 2018).
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• Behavior of oil and spill-treating agents at laboratory-, tank-, and field-scale: this effort includes
comparative analyses of spill detection sensors, determining oil behavior for validation of
subsea blowout models, evaluating agent effectiveness as a function of oil weathering and
environmental conditions, and assessing in situ burn efficiencies.
A portion of ORD oil spill research is reserved for emergency response technical support, spill exercises
and area planning, interagency working groups, and emerging issues (e.g., Arctic spill planning and
increased shipment of diluted bitumen via rail, barge, and pipeline). Focus topics are ever-evolving but
current research is dedicated but not limited to:
• Oil tracking tools and emergency response technical support: evaluate oil spill detection assets
and establish cutting-edge technologies for oil slick thickness estimates for decision making in
skimming and burning (Appendix 1, Output #27).
• Spill planning and guidance formulation: interagency coordination activities, including research
on International Maritime Organization dispersant guidelines, National Response Team science
and technology factsheet updates, and formulating the six-year interagency Coordinating
Committee for Oil Pollution Research plan.
ORD oil spill research includes experiments over large scales such as spill simulations using wave tank
facilities, like Ohmsett at the Naval Weapons Station Earle in NJ (Figure 8, left panel), and at small scales
for evaluating the performance of spill-treating agents on the NCP Product Schedule (Figure 8, left
panel).
Figure 8: Photo of spill simulations using the Ohmsett wave tank facility at the Naval Weapons Station
Earle in NJ (left panel) and laboratory evaluation of the performance of spill-treating agents (right
panel).
Research Area: Waste Management
During a wide-area CBRN incident, particularly in an urban area, there can be enormous challenges
related to waste management. Currently, there is no federal regulatory framework for bio-contaminated
waste. The existing disposal capacity for radiologically-contaminated waste is likeiy only a fraction of
what would be needed in a large-scale radiological or nuclear incident. Environmental remediation after
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the Fukushima Daiichi accident has been estimated to have generated over 37 million tons of waste,
much of it soil.22 Waste staging and on-site waste minimization and treatment will be critical to allow
remediation efforts to proceed. The waste streams include solid materials impacted by the
contamination incident as well as waste generated through the decontamination process. In addition to
solid waste, large volumes of contaminated water may be generated through decontamination
activities. As a marker of how challenging waste management can be for highly pathogenic or toxic
contaminants, the single Ebola patient in New York City generated 352 drums of waste (335 drums from
patient treatment, 17 drums from apartment cleanup) and the total cost for disposal was $1,120,000.23
Water infrastructure can become contaminated due to an intentional act (e.g., terrorist attack) or an
unintentional incident (e.g., natural disaster). Large volumes of contaminated water may be generated
during flushing of contaminated infrastructure or decontamination operations. With the current goal of
trying to contain and treat as much of the waste on-site (by discharging to surface water, a wastewater
treatment plant, stormwater, or combined systems), these waste streams may be difficult to manage24.
Program, regional, state, and/or tribal needs
Decision makers need sound science and tools to assist in planning for and conducting waste
management activities effectively. Information is needed to:
• Support effective staging of waste and waste minimization and treatment,
as well as the fate and transport of contaminants in disposal facilities.
• Prove the ability of existing treatment technologies (e.g., incineration) to destroy acutely toxic
chemicals when they are associated with building materials and other materials that may be
contaminated after an incident.
• Test and further develop scalable water treatment and containment methods (potentially
recycling the water for further use) to support effective management of contaminated water.
• Predict the effectiveness of treatment methods for contaminants that lack treatment data in
preparation for unknown water system contamination threats.
To support these needs, HSRP will develop an all hazards tool on EPA's Geoplatform25 that analyzes GIS
layers to determine optimal waste staging locations, estimates the cost, time, and logistical
requirements associated with transporting large volumes of waste, and assists state, tribal, and local
governments in determining optimal waste transport options and routes. HSRP will also continue to
develop tools to support estimations of waste volumes that are needed for development of waste
management plans, including evaluation of advanced technologies (e.g., aerial photography, remote
sensing) for waste estimation post-incident. Ultimately, HSRP will develop synthesis documents that will
be incorporated into decision support tools that assist state, tribal, and local governments in developing
22 This estimate was derived from materials presented by the Government of Japan, Ministry of the Environment.
The presentation is titled "Environmental Remediation in Japan", dated March 2018, and accessed at
http://iosen.env.eo.ip/en/pdf/progressseet progress on cleanup efforts.pdf (last accessed July 24, 2018).
23 This information was provided by EPA Region 2 in a presentation that can be accessed at
https://www.nrt.org/site/download.ashx?counter=3098 (last accessed July 24, 2018).
24 Discharging to Hazardous Material Water Treatment Facilities is also an option in some areas of the country.
25 https://epa.maps.arcgis.com/
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DRAFT, November 15, 2018
their waste management plans, pre- and/or post-incident26, and executing them. Specifically, the
program will integrate its tools into EPA's forthcoming pre-planning waste management and response
tool (Appendix 1, Outputs #28 and #31).
HSRP will continue to develop and test methods for CBRN-contaminated waste minimization and waste
treatment (Appendix 1, Output #32). Efforts range from developing field-usable treatment technologies
for pathogen-contaminated waste (Appendix 1, Output #30)—a key gap identified during the recent
Underground Transit Restoration Operational Technology Demonstration27 (see Figure 9)—-to
developing treatment technologies for chemical threat-contaminated building and outdoor materials.
Because current existing processes for recycling and salvage cannot currently be used to manage waste,
innovative approaches will also be developed to manage niche waste streams, like vehicles.
Chemical contaminants, biological agents, and radiological agents ending up in water and other complex
matrices (e.g., wastewater collection systems) during emergency situations pose significant and often
unique treatment challenges. Some of these contaminants (e.g., PFAS in firefighting foam) can be
generated during initial response activities. HSRP is evaluating on-site water treatment technologies to
address the need for treating chemically-contaminated water on-site or at the contamination source
(Appendix 1, Output #28). This research will inform a water treatment selection framework within the
OW's DPAS tool (see Appendix 1, Output #17).
Decision makers and waste treatment operators need information to facilitate their acceptance of waste
for treatment or disposal. For example, to assist informed decision making regarding the acceptability of
CBRN wastewater for drain disposal and treatment, HSRP will examine the impact of contaminated
water on wastewater infrastructure. HSRP will also develop management options, like those needed for
management of contaminated biosolids and membranes. HSRP will also work to understand the
characteristics of the treated water and how it might impact wastewater, stormwater, or combined
sewer systems so that utilities have the information they need to make decisions regarding acceptability
(Appendix 1, Output #29). HSRP will share information on difficult-to-treat perfluorooctanesulfonic acid
(PFOS) and shorter chain perfluoroalkyl sulfonic acids in collected wash water with ORD's Safe and
Sustainable Water Research program, recognizing the cross-program interest, along with leveraging
other research of mutual interest.
26 EPA has developed guidance on how to construct pre-incident waste management plans and provided resources
to support their development. Please see: https://www.epa.gov/homeland-security-waste/waste-management-
benefits-planning-and-mitigation-activities-homeland#preincident
27 The Underground Transport Restoration Project was a collaborative effort between U.S. DHS, U.S. EPA, and local
stakeholders designed to develop capabilities for the rapid return to service of underground transportation
systems after a biological incident.
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Figure 9: Testing of on-site solid waste treatment approaches.
Topic 3: Systems Approaches to Preparedness and Response
HSRP works to ensure that decision makers and responders have knowledge of and access to the latest
capabilities supporting response and remediation. Information related to incident detection, site
characterization, and the behavior of the contaminant in the environment is critical for assessing the
potential impact of the contaminated environment on human health. This information is also important
to consider when developing remediation plans designed to clean up the environment and reduce
potential subsequent impacts on human health. Decisions related to sampling, decontamination, and
waste management should consider site-specific information that factors into trade-offs. Decision
makers need access to tools and information built from a systems approach where each of these
research areas is brought together through their interdependencies and relative impacts. This topic area
addresses the development of systems-based tools by pulling together the connected elements of the
previous two research topics (contaminant characterization and consequence assessment,
environmental cleanup and infrastructure remediation) to provide technical support and decision-
support tools. This topic focuses on ensuring that information is readily and easily accessible during an
emergency. HSRP research under this topic is focused on developing models, methods, and decision-
support tools for the responders and decision makers.
Research Area: Tools to Support Systems-based Decision Making
During a wide-area incident, the response community needs tools to rapidly assess the incident,
including access to emerging technologies capable of surveying, detecting, and monitoring the event.
HSRP models and tools enhance the timeliness of disaster recovery by providing metrics and decision
support. These tools help decision makers select the optimal technologies for characterizing or
remediating environments after various CBRN agent-related incidents. The response community also
needs tools that consider timeframes and cost to evaluate viable options from economic or social
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standpoints, and they need tools that retain flexibility in remediation activities due to the complexity,
uncertainty, and dynamic nature of a wide-area incident. HSRP recognizes the need to develop a
baseline model and simulation tools for comparing or measuring decisions against the true resiliency of
a community.
Program, regional, state, and/or tribal needs
A great number of decision-support tools have already been developed under HSRP, covering a wide
range of hazards. These support tools individually consume separate sources of data, making them
susceptible to becoming obsolete and costly to update. The response community has sought EPA's
assistance in developing a centralized and routinely-maintained database for monitoring and surveying
the latest decontamination, mitigation, and waste treatment technologies/methods (Appendix 1,
Output #33). A database could store up-to-date data derived from HSRP literature reviews, studies, and
tools in a web-based searchable platform, greatly enhancing response, planning, and preparedness
capabilities and efficiencies. HSRP will also develop and integrate a cost model for predicting the
economic and social survivability of urban areas according to a range of geographically-specific criteria
(Appendix 1, Output #34). The model could then connect to other HSRP tools (such as the Waste
Estimation Support Tool28) to provide end-users with a tool to assess community viability based on
selected technologies.
In addition to selecting the best technologies and considering resource needs, the consequences of
remediation activities and the impact to the follow-on activities must be carefully considered. The
effectiveness of remediation activities is difficult to predict due to the complexity, uncertainty, and
dynamic nature of a wide-area incident. HSRP plans to develop a tool that can simulate the remediation
effectiveness of various response activities that will be helpful for a wide-area response (Appendix 1,
Output #35). This work will build on support tools that already exist and will provide quantitative
estimation for the following items:
• How the selection of certain methods (decontamination, sampling, and waste treatment) would
impact the overall remediation
• Bottlenecks in the remediation activities
• Resource availability and demand for remediation
• Testing of future decision-support-tool feasibility before development/deployment
• Testing of future methods/technologies before investment.
Another significant gap for a wide-area incident is the need to collect and communicate data effectively.
Inefficiencies in this process can hamper recovery efforts and potentially put lives and the environment
at risk. There is a need to develop a framework and identify potential technologies for collecting and
synthesizing information to better inform situational awareness, decision making, and management of
data during a response. This includes communication of information to decision makers, ultimately to
inform the public regarding exposure risks, what can be done to reduce these risks, and on federal,
state, tribal, and local response activities. HSRP will address this gap through by developing tools for
community stakeholders to conduct self-assessments of their community environmental resilience to
disasters (Appendix 1, Output #36).
28 https://www.epa.gov/homeland-security-research/waste-estimation-support-tool
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Anticipated Research Accomplishments and Projected Impacts
Some of the anticipated research accomplishments from across HSRP and their intended impacts or
outcomes are highlighted below.
Advancing Resources for Characterization after a Wide-Area Contamination Incident
HSRP is developing ESAM29 as a comprehensive online source for all information needed to conduct
characterization activities after a CBRN incident. During a large environmental response, ESAM provides
responders and laboratories with the single best available sample collection and analysis method. When
a single method is used, those making decisions based on the data can feel confident about data
integrity and can more easily interpret and communicate the information. Over the period of the St RAP,
the analytical methods and sample collection information contained in ESAM will be updated. Sampling
procedures and information will be added to support the development of sampling strategies. New
methods for sample collection will be developed and added for priority biological agents on urban and
outdoor surfaces and in air, solid waste, and wastewater. Sample collection methods for chemical
threats in water and on surfaces will be developed for inclusion in ESAM.
Developing a Decontamination and Water Treatment Technology Selection Tool
Water contamination incidents continue to threaten the delivery of clean water. To address this
concern, HSRP will continue to conduct pilot to field-scale technology testing for water infrastructure
decontamination and water treatment. Findings from this research, as well as previously completed
research, will be used to construct a tool to assist water utilities in selecting decontamination and water
treatment technologies. The tool will consider technology efficacy and operational considerations when
providing the end-user options for the selection of an appropriate technology. The tool will be
developed in collaboration with technology end-users and incorporated into OW's DPAS, a tool used
directly by water utilities to prepare for and respond to water contamination incidents.
Improving Approaches for Response to Emerging Chemical Threats
Fentanyl and its analogs (e.g., carfentanil and 3-methyl fentanyl) are compounds of increasing concern
to states, tribes, and local public health and environmental agencies due to their increased availability,
extreme toxicity, and increasing misuse. HSRP will continue to address state, tribal, and local needs
related to fentanyl and its analogs by developing sampling and analysis methods and proven
decontamination options in environmental matrices (specifically, surfaces and water). To assist in
interpreting these data and informing emergency response activities, HSRP will develop exposure values
that describe health effects based on dosage. The ability of decontamination techniques to clean up
fentanyl and its analogs on different types of surfaces (porous and non-porous) will be assessed initially
at the lab-scale, prior to testing methods in the field for transition to responders. The development of
sampling, analysis, and decontamination methods will provide an update to the recently released
fentanyl fact sheet for responders, filling gaps in knowledge and capabilities that were recognized during
the development of the fact sheet. Field demonstrations and updates to the fact sheet will provide an
opportunity to transition the most effective sampling and decontamination methods to end-users. This
29 https://www.epa.eov/homeland-securitv-research/environmental-sampling-anatytical-methods-esam-program-
home
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DRAFT, November 15, 2018
research will allow EPA to make cleanup recommendations and offer solutions to first responders across
the country.
Scalable Approaches for Remediation after a Wide-Area Radiological Incident
Federal government cleanup resources will be extremely stretched after a wide-area radiological
incident, like the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Accident. Innovative decontamination
approaches that can be safely employed by the public and state, tribal, and local government will be
needed. HSRP is developing the technical information required for state, tribal, and local agencies to
develop self-help decontamination instructions for owner/occupants or their contractors. HSRP is also
developing radiological and nuclear response-specific "how-to" documents for operators on the use of
municipal, construction, farm, and critical-infrastructure-specific equipment. These resources will
greatly increase local communities' self-sufficiency after a wide-area radiological or nuclear incident and
decrease the time needed to recover.
Field-sale Assessment and Demonstration of Wide-Area Biological Response Capabilities
HSRP partners often express the high priority need for capabilities and information to support response
to a wide-area biological incident, specifically response to a large urban area intentionally contaminated
with B. anthracis spores. Over the course of this 4-year St RAP, HSRP, in coordination with OLEM, and in
close collaboration with other EPA partners and stakeholders, including states, regions, and other
federal agencies, plans to work with the DHS Science and Technology Directorate and the U.S. Coast
Guard to develop wide-area biological response capabilities and test them in the laboratory and in the
field, resulting in generic guidance and tools to support a wide-area biological incident response. These
efforts will then culminate in a field-scale (operational) wide-area biological response demonstration to
assess and improve developed capabilities.
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Conclusion
HSRP works with EPA program and regional, federal, state, tribal, and local partners, and other
stakeholders, to improve the nation's resilience to "all hazards". HSRP works closely with these partners
and stakeholders to understand the challenges posed by CBRN threats, including oil spills, regardless of
the cause of the contaminant/threat release and to develop capabilities to aid in rapid response. This
response includes capabilities to support pre-incident planning, detection of contamination,
characterization of the environment to determine the extent of contamination and its potential threat
to public health, mitigating the hazard, cleanup of the contaminated environment including built
infrastructure, and effectively managing the waste generated. The program vision is that federal, state,
tribal, and local decision makers have timely access to the information and tools they need to ensure
community resilience to catastrophes involving environmental contamination that threatens public
health and welfare.
HSRP takes technologies and methodologies that have been successfully demonstrated at the
laboratory-scale and investigates how these technologies can be implemented at full-scale in the real
world. In real-world situations, responders contend with varied considerations such as the impact of dirt
and grime, resource limitations, prioritization of infrastructure for cleanup, and the impact of
technologies on other aspects of the response (e.g., sampling, decontamination, waste management).
The program focuses on providing decision makers with relevant information they can use when
considering their site-specific situation and requirements.
HSRP focuses on understanding the cascading impacts of response decisions and activities. The program
focuses on developing capabilities using a systems view and develops decision-support tools that enable
decision makers to have ready access to the latest science information and to analyze decision trade-
offs.
An underlying principle of the program is to understand the capabilities of communities and residents as
they addressed historical and emerging threats and how this experience factors into the current and
future state of community environmental resilience. The program's focus is on the many challenges
associated with wide-area contamination, including improving the nation's water infrastructure
protection and resilience. Proven characterization, risk assessment, and cleanup approaches provide a
deterrence to terrorist activities because timely and effective responses serve to minimize the overall
impact of an incident (Pavel, 2012).
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References
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Appendices
Appendix 1: Summary table of Proposed Outputs for Homeland Security Research Program (FY2019 -2022)
The following table lists the expected Outputs from the Homeland Security Research Program, organized by topic. It should be noted that the
Outputs may change as new scientific findings emerge. Outputs are also contingent on budget appropriations. The Research Need that the
Output is addressing is provided in the table; these needs were defined through the HSRP's partner involvement process. Specific research
Products to address these Outputs will be identified and implemented through continued engagement with partners.
Research Area
Program, Regional, State and/or Tribal Need
Output Title
Topic: Contaminant Characterization and Consequence Assessment
1. Fate, Transport, and
Exposure
Review, Clearance, and Dissemination of Provisional Advisory Levels
(PALs) for high priority chemical contaminants
1) FY20 - PALs for hazardous chemicals and
PALs User Guide
A process to determine a cleanup goal for chemical warfare agents
and their degradates
2) FY20 - Quantitative chemical risk
assessment and evaluation of chemicals for
prioritization during water contamination
incident remediation
Fate of chemical contaminants of interest in media requiring
decontamination
3) FY21 - Fate of persistent chemical agents
and pesticides in porous or permeable
materials informing remediation options
Understanding and applying fate and transport of chemical,
biological, and radiological contaminants resulting from water
infrastructure contamination to improve risk management decisions
4) FY21 - Summary of research on biological
contaminant fate, transport, and
inactivation in water and wastewater
systems to inform mitigation decisions
Develop and evaluate tools and methodologies to inform
decontamination of water infrastructure (drinking water, premise
plumbing, wastewater, stormwater, source water, and reuse),
management of the contaminated water, and return to service
5) FY22 - Development of Stormwater
Operational Tool to predict fate and
transport of biological and radiological
contaminants
Detection/
Environmental
Sampling and Analysis
Need for continuance of systematic development of sampling and
analytical methods for analysis of priority chemical agents (for
example CWAs, precursors, degradates, TICs) and their degradation
products for all environmental matrices (this includes waste
matrices).
6) FY20 - Chemical sample collection
methods for environmental matrices and
protocols for target chemical analysis
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Research Area
Program, Regional, State and/or Tribal Need
Output Title
Development of methods and tools to identify sampling locations and
strategies within water infrastructure
7) FY20 - Strategies for use of simulation
tools and modeling to identify sampling
locations within a water distribution system
and building plumbing systems
Sampling methods and strategies are needed for outdoor urban
surfaces
Strategies for sample collection, processing, and analysis methods for
persistent biological agents or biotoxins in solid wastes, including
decontaminated wastes
8) FY21 - Biological sample collection
methods for environmental matrices and
protocols for target biological agent analysis
Development of sample collection and analysis methods for drinking
water contaminants of interest. (CBR contaminants and biotoxins)
Assessment of emerging technologies to enhance
surveying/detection/monitoring capabilities for wide-area incident
response application
9) FY21 - Indoor contaminant mapping
capabilities for supporting radiological
remediation decision making
Need for continuance of systematic development of sampling and
analytical methods for analysis of priority chemical agents (for
example CWAs, precursors, degradates, TICs) and their degradation
products for all environmental matrices (this includes waste matrices)
10) FY22 - Selected Analytical Methods for
Environmental Remediation and Recovery
2022
Development of Rapid and High-Throughput Methods for Analysis of
Pathogens in Characterization and Post-Decontamination Samples
Topic: Environmental Cleanup and Infrastructure Remediation
Wide-Area
Decontamination
Need data on wide-area, outdoor decontamination efficacy and
application parameters for B. anthracis, including the effectiveness of
various types of washdown and rain in reducing spore concentrations
on surfaces, vegetation, and soil, and research supporting strategies
for remediating urban environments including the exterior of high
rise buildings
11) FY21 - Decontamination methods for B.
anthracis contaminated outdoor surfaces
Persistence, fate and transport, and methods to prevent the
transport of spore-forming biological agents in natural environments
(including waterways) and in/on built infrastructure
12) FY21 - Decontamination options for B.
anthracis spore-contaminated vehicles
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Research Area
Program, Regional, State and/or Tribal Need
Output Title
Need data on wide-area, outdoor decontamination efficacy and
application parameters for non-anthrax biological agents, including
the effectiveness of various types of washdown and rain in reducing
concentrations on surfaces, vegetation, and soil, and research
supporting strategies for remediating urban environments including
the exterior of high rise buildings
13) FY21 - Decontamination options for
wide-area biological agent (non-anthrax)
contaminated surfaces
Need methodologies for decontamination of critical infrastructure;
including, transportation infrastructure such as rolling stock and
subway tunnels. This need not only includes determination of
effective methods, but developing an assessment of the impact and
methods suitable for high value materials and equipment
14) FY22 - Decision Support Tool to Aid
Development of CBRN Wide Area
Remediation Strategy
Decontamination and Waste Volume Reduction Methods for Wide-
Area Remediation
Self-Help Decontamination and/or Risk Reduction
Measures/Tools/Practices
15) FY22 - Widely-available and user-friendly
decontamination options for wide-area
radiological incident response
Effective decontamination methods for porous or permeable
materials for CWA and other HS chemicals of concern.
Nondestructive and operational decontamination methods for CWAs
and TICs on sensitive equipment, rolling stock, valuable items, and
records
16) FY22 - Decontamination technologies for
indoor/outdoor surfaces and vehicles
contaminated with persistent hazardous
chemicals
Water Treatment and
Infrastructure
Decontamination
Develop and evaluate tools and methodologies to inform
decontamination of water infrastructure (drinking water, premise
plumbing, wastewater, stormwater, source water, and reuse),
management of the contaminated water, and return to service
17) FY20 - Decontamination and Water
Treatment Technology Selection ("How-to")
Tool
18) FY21 - Summary of decontamination
approaches tested at the bench, pilot-scale,
and at the full-scale water security test bed
for contaminated drinking water
infrastructure
19) FY21 - Legionella pneumophila
disinfection results related to biofilm- and
aerosol-associated forms
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Research Area
Program, Regional, State and/or Tribal Need
Output Title
20) FY21 - Methods for homeowner
decontamination of post-service connection
plumbing and appliances
Treatment and disposal options for large volumes of chemical agent-
contaminated drinking water and wastewater - this includes
decontamination of wash water
21) FY21 - Methods to determine water
treatment and infrastructure
decontamination options when efficacy data
are not available for CBR contaminants
Water infrastructure systems (drinking water, wastewater,
stormwater, source water, and water reuse) need to be resilient to
man-made and natural disasters, with the ability for rapid response
22) FY22 - Situation Awareness Tool for
water security and infrastructure
applications that utilizes real-time analytics
and modeling framework
Oil Spill Response
Support
Emergency Response to Oil Spills: Some products on the NCPPS are
not intended to be recovered from the environment (e.g.,
dispersants, herding agents). However, little information exists on
certain fate processes (e.g., biodegradation)
23) FY22 - Behavior of oil and spill treating
agents at laboratory-, tank-, and field-scales
Develop efficacy test protocol for surface washing agents, solidifiers,
and oil herding agents, as well as determine fate of these agents in
salt and fresh waters
24) FY22 - NCP product schedule efficacy
protocol development
Subpart J Regulatory Support: Evaluate new reference oils testing for
Dispersant Effectiveness, Chemical Characterization, and Toxicity
25) FY22 - NCP reference oil evaluation
Emergency Response to Oil Spills: Evaluate additional new species for
toxicity testing beyond M. beryllina and A. bahia for dispersants and
dispersants mixed with oil
26) FY22 - Oil and spill treating agent toxicity
and exposure pathways
Subpart J Regulatory Support: Development of material and method
procedures, and toxicity threshold determinations, for regulatory
listing
Subpart J Regulatory Support: Need LC50s for crude oils.
Improving oil slick thickness estimates for decision making on
skimming and burning.
27) FY22 - Oil tracking tools and emergency
response technical support
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Research Area
Program, Regional, State and/or Tribal Need
Output Title
Emergency Response to Oil Spills: Evaluation of oil spill detection
assets
Waste Management
Treatment and disposal options for large volumes of biological agent-
contaminated water
Treatment and disposal options for large volumes of chemical agent-
contaminated drinking water and wastewater-this includes
decontamination wash water
28) FY21 - Information to assist on-site
treatment of CBR contaminated water
29) FY22 - CONOPS for scalable on-site
treatment of B. anthracis contaminated
waste
Best management practices for staging, segregating, and transporting
waste contaminated with biological agents
Comprehensive resource which enables efficient, fast, and accurate
decision making regarding sustainable waste and debris management
30) FY21 - Tools and information to aid in
CBR-waste minimization, staging/storage,
treatment, transport, and disposal
31) FY22 - Integration of HSRP and other
emergency response and waste tools
Develop and evaluate tools and methodologies to inform
decontamination of water infrastructure (drinking water, premise
plumbing, wastewater, stormwater, source water, and reuse),
management of the contaminated water, and return to service
32) FY22 - Informed decision making for CBR
wastewater drain disposal and wastewater
treatment plant acceptance
Topic: System Approaches to Preparedness and Response
Tools to Support
Systems-based
Decision Making
Centralized and routinely maintained database for monitoring,
surveying, decontamination, mitigation, and waste treatment
technologies/methods
33) FY19 - Database for storing and
distributing data on remediation activities
for use in all-hazards response and recovery
research, operations, and tools
Assessment of emerging technologies to enhance
surveying/detection/monitoring capabilities for wide-area incident
response application
34) FY22 - A time-based model for
evaluating economic and social costs of a
wide-area CBRN incident
Need for a user-friendly decision-support tool that assists in the
prioritization of remediation activities
35) FY22 - GIS-based tool for assessing
bio/rad risk based on location-specific
environmental factors
Water infrastructure systems (drinking water, wastewater,
stormwater, source water and water reuse) need to be resilient to
man-made and natural disasters with the ability to respond rapidly
36) FY22 - Summary of resilience tools for
community and water networks including
associated case studies
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Appendix 2: State Needs Reflected in ORD Research Planning
The table below lists the state needs identified in the 2016 Environmental Council of States (ECOS)
survey and in discussions with ORD in spring of 2018. These needs are aligned to the ORD Research
Areas planned in the ORD StRAPs. Additional research designed to meet the state needs identified here,
and additional state needs, may be found in other ORD National Research Program Strategic Research
Action Plans.
Source
State Need
HSRP Activities
Air
ECOS Media
Specific
Meetings
Prescribed burns/wildfires and
emission factor work with KS
and R7 (NE)
Assessment of the potential spread of contamination
from wildland fires
Water
ECOS 2016
Survey
Water and Wastewater
Infrastructure
Resilience of water and wastewater infrastructure
ECOS Media
Specific
Meetings
More work on wastewater
treatment plants and landfills
(Ml)
Research on wastewater treatment plants'
acceptance of wastewater after a biological incident;
wastewater treatment of chemical, biological, and
radiological contaminants from a wide-area incident,
on-site treatment of chemical, biological, or
radiological contaminated water, including water
contaminated with PFAS from emergency response
operations
Emergin
g Contaminants
ECOS 2016
Survey
Manage new chemicals of
emerging concern and existing
chemicals
Environmental sampling, analysis and clean-up
methods for emerging chemical threats
Adapt and respond to
emergencies
Support for response and environmental remediation
to environmental contamination incidents
Waste/Remediation
ECOS 2016
Survey
Emerging contaminants (e.g.,
PFAS)
Environmental sampling, analysis and clean-up
methods for emerging chemical threats
Cross-Media
ECOS Media
Specific
Meetings
PFAS
• Need remediation
techniques to accompany
EPA's work on
analysis/detection (OK)
• Actual health or
environmental impacts of
PFAS (currently only
speculation exists) (TN)
On-site water treatment options for PFAS
contaminated water from emergency response
operations, such as water contaminated with PFAS
from fire-fighting foam
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Appendix 3: Cross-cutting Research Issues
The following table lists research issues and activities coordinated across the ORD national research programs.
Research
Issue
A-E
CSS
HHRA
HSRP
SHC
SSWR
Ecosystem
services
• Secondary NAAQS
• Near road & urban
air quality
• Wildfires
• Extreme heat
• Ecotoxicity
• Eco risk assessment
• Site recovery
• Health promotion
• Community
revitalization
• Ecosystem services
• Secondary NAAQS
Lead
• Regulatory models
• Risk Assessment
• Sensors and water
infrastructure
modeling, including
contaminant fate
and transport
• Locations
• Exposure data &
evaluated models
• Innovative solutions
• Water treatment
systems
• Drinking water
quality sampling
• Risk Assessment
• Sensors & Water
Infrastructure
Nutrients
• Atmospheric
deposition of
airborne nitrogen
and phosphorus to
ecosystems
• Toxicity testing
• Sensors and Water
lnfrastructure(w/SHC)
• N & Co-pollutants
• Toxicity Testing
(w/CSS)
PFAS
• Air and emissions
sampling and control
potential
• Analytical standards
• Adverse outcome
pathways
• Rapid toxicity testing
• Risk characterization
• Treatment of
contaminated water
from emergency
response activities,
including use of PFAS
containing
firefighting foam
• Tech Support
• F&T at contaminated
sites and landfills
• Estimating human
exposure
• Analytical methods
• Remediation
• Waste-water
treatment
• Toxicity Testing
Resilience
• Sector-based
approaches to
resilience
• Assessment of
trends and
development of
scenario to support
• Emergency
preparedness and
response for all
hazards
• Indicators of long
term resilience
• Preparation and
response to natural
disasters
• Coastal Resilience
• Stormwater
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Research
Issue
A-E
CSS
HHRA
HSRP
SHC
SSWR
adaptation and
resilience for
extreme events
Wildland
fires
• Models and
measurement
methodologies
• Vulnerable
ecosystems and
human populations
• Approaches to
mitigate risks
• Fate and transport of
contaminants during
wildland fires, e.g.,
fire in asbestos
contaminated area
• Models and
measurement
methodologies
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