A systems approach to risk assessment: Application to methylmercury from coal combustion
- Dept. of Energy, Washington, DC (United States)
- Brookhaven National Lab., Upton, NY (United States)
The Department of Energy (DOE) asked Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) to perform a probabilistic assessment of the health risks associated with Hg from coal-fired power plants. The objective of the assessment is to estimate the incremental health risks that might ensue from a typical coal-fired power plant, together with their uncertainties, taking into account existing background levels and the actual adverse health effects that have previously been associated with exposure to various Hg species. Mercury has a long history of association with adverse neurological effects at high exposure levels. The most important current exposure pathway has been found to be ingestion of fish containing methylmercury (MeHg), which is the end product of bioconcentration moving up the aquatic food chain. Mercury can enter natural waters from either industrial discharges or from atmospheric deposition of various inorganic Ho. compounds. Because of the worldwide background and the existence of local emissions sources, Hg deposition must be considered on local, regional and global scales. The regulatory technical challenge presented by methy1mercury is to protect public health without foreclosing an appreciable a portion of the food supply or impacting on the lifestyles of North American native populations. This paper presents an abbreviated account of the DOE/BNL risk assessment, as viewed from a systems perspective. We review the structure of the model, the sources of data used, the assumptions that were made, and the interpretation of the findings. Since publication of the first risk assessment report, we have refined our estimates of local atmospheric dispersion and deposition and {open_quotes}calibrated{close_quotes} the pharmacokinetic portion of the model against observations.
- Research Organization:
- Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC02-76CH00016
- OSTI ID:
- 67767
- Report Number(s):
- BNL-61521; CONF-950313-1; ON: DE95008858; TRN: 95:004540
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 20. international technical conference on coal utilization and fuels systems, Clearwater, FL (United States), 20-23 Mar 1995; Other Information: PBD: [1995]
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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