Approach and strategy for developing human health toxicity information for contaminants of concern at sites administered by the US Department of Energy Oak Ridge Field Office, Environmental Restoration Program
Toxicity assessment is an important part of the risk assessment effort presently under way at US Department of Energy Oak Ridge Field Office (DOE-OR) Environmental Restoration (ER) facilities. Four major tasks in the toxicity assessment process are (1) identification and prioritization of contaminants of concern at DOE-OR ER sites; (2) compilation and dissemination of toxicity values approved by the US Environmental Protection Agency for the contaminants of concern and identification of contaminants requiring toxicity value development (i.e., reference doses, reference concentrations, and slope factors); (3) development of toxicity summaries; and (4) development of toxicity values. Prioritization of chemicals was the lint step because resources are limited and because the chemicals that pose the greatest risk of human exposure need immediate assessment. Identifying and disseminating the toxicity values for the chemicals of concern is also important because these toxicity values are the basis for determining whether environmental levels are of concern. It is very important that all parties conducting health risk assessment for DOE-OR ER sites have the most current toxicity values so that risk assessment will be consistent The toxicity summaries for the chemicals of concern briefly summarize what is known concerning the toxicity of each chemical and present the information in a way that is useful for the risk assessor. After existing toxicity values are located and the toxicity summaries prepared, the chemicals that have sufficient information to derive missing toxicity values can be identified. Where toxicity values are missing and the information is deficient to derive the values by conventional means, predictive toxicology methods will be employed.
- Research Organization:
- Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE; USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-84OR21400
- OSTI ID:
- 6992541
- Report Number(s):
- ES/ER/TM-38; ON: DE93001933
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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