Proceedings of the EPA workshop on the environmental scoring of chemicals

Technical Report · Thu May 01 04:00:00 EDT 1980

OSTI ID:5366973

Ross, R H; Welch, J ^[1]

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1. comps.

The environmental scoring of chemicals is viewed by the US Environmental Protection Agency as a tool to assist in the ranking or ordering of the universe of chemicals that are under the jurisdiction of the Toxic Substances Control Act. The purpose of scoring is to identify most of the chemicals that have a high probability for requiring review for regulation or testing. This report describes a three-day workshop held in Washington, DC, August 13 to 15, 1979, to develop an environmental scoring system. Initial discussions centered on the determination of a safety factor (calculated as the concentration at which an effect is observed divided by environmental concentration) that would allow a numerical score to be assigned to a chemical to reflect its potential hazard. Further discussion, however, indicated that the environmental concentration of a chemical is usually not available and that the estimation of an environmental concentration is not readily accomplished; therefore, a scoring system was developed that does not require environmental concentrations. This system relates environmental exposure to toxicity by using a multiplier (3x, 2x, or 1x) which is assigned on the basis of the concentration xt which an effect is observed. The applicability of the scoring system is demonstrated by scoring selected chemicals.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-26
• OSTI ID: 5366973
• Report Number(s): ORNL/EIS-158; EPA-560/11-80-010
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

570000* -- Health & Safety
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
DATA FORMS
ECOLOGICAL CONCENTRATION
HAZARDOUS MATERIALS
LIMITING VALUES
NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
NORTH AMERICA
SAFETY STANDARDS
STANDARDS
TABLES
TOXICITY
US EPA
US ORGANIZATIONS
USA
VARIATIONS