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Recent Additions

November 16, 2004
November 3, 2004
  • Collaboration with the Canaan Valley Institute - Watershed health assessment tools.
  • Philadelphia Forum on Laboratory Accreditation - January 29 - February 4, 2005 (PDF, 2pp, 43KB). The Institute for National Environmental Laboratory Accreditation (INELA) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are pleased to announce the Philadelphia Forum on Laboratory Accreditation. This is a week long event consisting of the Tenth Interim Meeting of the National Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Conference (NELAC 10i), a meeting of the Environmental Laboratory Advisory Board (ELAB), seminars and training courses, INELA’s semi-annual Meeting, and other events. All meetings are fully open to anyone who wishes to participate.
  • Regional Vulnerability Assessment for the Mid-Atlantic Region: Evaluation of Integration Methods and Assessment Results (PDF, 90pp, 2.4MB) - Prioritization of risk management actions involves balancing many different factors that can be addressed through a series of assessment questions. Analysis results presented here should provide useful information to others involved in integrated risk assessment in that integration methods were tested and compared using the same set of regional spatial data. By comparing the results of each method, we have identified which integration methods are appropriate to address different types of assessment questions that contribute to informing decisions that require prioritization of areas for risk management actions. These results are directly transferable to other regions and can be applied to other scales of data.
October 21, 2004
October 20, 2004
October 18, 2004
September 30, 2004
September 10, 2004
  • Potential Environmental Impacts of Dust Suppressants: "Avoiding Another Times Beach" [PDF, 97 pp., 1.6 MB] - An expert panel summary. The purpose of this report is to summarize the current state of knowledge on the potential environmental impacts of chemical dust suppressants. Dust suppressants abate dust by changing the physical properties of the soil surface and are typically used on construction sites, unpaved roads, and mining activities.
September 9, 2004
  • Particulate Matter Research Program: Five Years of Progress - Five years of research confirms the need to reduce fine particle air pollution. EPA's proposed Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) will result in the deepest cuts in a decade in emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) - the two most important precursors of fine particle pollution.

September 2, 2004
September 1, 2004
  • Science Report on Exposure Research and Development: Observations of the Earth – Leading Science and Technology - The August 2004 edition of the "Science Report on Exposure Research and Development" provides news about the Agency's exposure research program and scientists. The report covers topics such as research on human exposure to particulate matter and air toxics, and indoor air pollution detection.

  • ORD Hosts Workshop to Explore Environmental Effects of Aging Population - Scientists, public health officials and other professionals in the fields of aging, demographics, health and ecology came together August 10-12 at an EPA workshop in Research Triangle Park, N.C., to share their expertise on the potential impacts a growing legion of older Americans may have on natural resources and environmental quality. The growth in the number of older Americans has major implications from both a human and ecological health perspective.
August 30, 2004
August 24, 2004
August 19, 2004
  • Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) - In July 2003, the United States hosted the Earth Observation Summit. The summit brought together 33 nations plus the European Commission to adopt a declaration that signified a political commitment toward the development of a comprehensive, coordinated and sustained Earth Observation System to collect and disseminate improved data, information, and models to stakeholders and decision makers. As part of that effort, EPA has provided state fact sheets detailing how Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) could be beneficial to each state (Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS)).
July 21, 2004
July 20, 2004
  • Science for the 21st Century - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) along with other federal agencies has developed information in support of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy report, "Science for the 21st Century".
July 7, 2004
July 6, 2004
  • NERL Postdocs - The National Exposure Research Laboratory (NERL) of the United States Environmental Protection Agency is seeking candidates to fill approximately 9 federal, four-year post-doctoral research positions. NERL conducts research and development related to the exposure of people and ecosystems to a wide range of pollutants in the air, water, and soil, and to other environmental changes resulting from human activities at a wide range of scales including landscape alterations.
June 30, 2004
June 28, 2004
  • Air Quality Criteria for Particulate Matter (Fourth External Review Draft) [revised Chapters 7, 8, and 9, June 2004] - On December 30, 2003, EPA released for public review and comment revised draft Chapters 7 and 8 of the Fourth External Review Draft of EPA's document, Air Quality Criteria for Particulate Matter. These chapters incorporate revisions made in response to earlier external review of those chapters, including comments received at the August 25 and 26, 2003, review meeting of the EPA Science Advisory Board's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC). At that meeting, CASAC reached closure on all chapters except Chapter 7 (toxicology), Chapter 8 (human health), and 9 (integrative synthesis). Since then CASAC has provided additional review comments on revised drafts of Chapters 7 and 8 (dated December 2003). EPA is now making further revised drafts of Chapters 7, 8, and 9 available for CASAC and public review. These revised draft chapters will be reviewed by CASAC at a public meeting to be held July 20-21, 2004.
June 22, 2004
June 18, 2004
  • Henry’s Law Calculations:
    The Henry’s law estimator has been enhanced to include more chemicals and an alternate method of calculation. The alternate method was developed by EPA Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response (OSWER) for use in vapor intrusion assessment. Where required input data exist, both calculation methods give similar results. The OSWER method contains data for 97 chemicals, including many that are new to the calculators.

  • Vapor Intrusion Model
    Two versions of the Johnson-Ettinger (JE) model for vapor intrusion (VI) have been added to the calculator collection. These implement the approach taken in the OSWER VI guidance. Given a indoor air risk level, the first model back-calculates target soil gas and ground water concentrations. The second reverses the process by presuming a measured soil gas or ground water concentration and determines the associated risk. Both models implement a limited uncertainty analysis, because most of the parameters of the models are not measured in typical applications. Future work will include expanding the uncertainty analysis to include additional parameters.
June 16, 2004
  • NERL Science Forum 2004 poster abstracts and posters - these posters focus on Science and Innovation to Protect Health and the Environment but also include posters for Delivering Science-Based Information to Decision Makers and Using Science to Make a Difference.
May 21, 2004
May 17, 2004
May 10, 2004
May 7, 2004
May 6, 2004
  • Environmental Science Education (PDF, 2 pp., 621 KB) - The Environmental Science Education (ESE) program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Exposure Research Laboratory-Ecosystems Research Division provides schools and the general public with results of the Agency’s basic and applied environmental research.
  • Mid Atlantic Land Cover Change - The Mid-Atlantic region is comprised of southern New York, southern and western New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia, northeastern North Carolina, Delaware, and Washington, D.C. It is an ecosystem rich in streams, wetlands, forests, estuaries, breeding birds, biological diversity and a large human population. This collection of digital coverages will provide researchers with the resources to document the alteration of critical landscape ecological components and processes within the Mid-Atlantic region.
  • Water Quality Analysis Simulation Program (WASP6.1) Workshop (PDF, 5 pp., 912 KB) - WASP6 is used routinely throughout the United States in the development of TMDLs and waste load allocations. The model contains algorithms for conducting: 1) Eutrophication/Conventional Pollutants, 2) Organic Chemicals/Simple Metals, 3) Mercury, 4) Temperature, Fecal Coliforms, Conservative Pollutants. This workshop will be held June 21 - 25 in Atlanta, GA.
April 27, 2004
April 21, 2004
  • Collaboration with the Canaan Valley Institute - The Canaan Valley Institute (CVI, a nonprofit outreach organization) and NERL's Ecosystems Research Division (ERD),  Athens, Georgia, will collaborate in adding to the existing GIS/modeling tools (Landscape Analyst, Highlands Profiler, REVA web tool) to address aquatic ecosystem management and restoration.

  • EXAMS - Exposure Analysis Modeling System (EXAMS) is an interactive software application for formulating aquatic ecosystem models and rapidly evaluating the fate, transport, and exposure concentrations of synthetic organic chemicals including pesticides, industrial materials, and leachates from disposal sites. Several versions of the EXAMS system are now available on the EPA Center for Exposure Assessment Modeling (CEAM).
April 12, 2004
  • Particulate Matter (PM) Research - The information on these pages describes the research being done by EPA to better understand how particles are emitted into the air or how they form in the air from gaseous pollutants, how they are transported, how people are exposed to them, and the health effects people may experience after they breathe in these particles.
April 6, 2004
  • The National Exposure Research Laboratory Particulate Matter (PM) Research Program's five major areas of research are (1) Human exposure measurements and modeling, (2) Source / receptor modeling, (3) Atmospheric measurements, (4) Atmospheric chemistry, and (5) Atmospheric modeling. Read more about them at NERL's new Particulate Matter Research Web site.
March 29, 2004
March 23, 2004
March 11, 2004
March 3, 2004
March 1, 2004
  • On-Line Training Course: Two modules of the "Modeling Subsurface Transport of Petroleum Hydrocarbons" course have been completed and posted to the Internet. The course addresses primarily the transport of contaminants from leaking underground storage tanks. The materials are based on a series of live courses that have been taught to EPA regional offices, state agencies and the private sector over the past 5 years.

    Each module is self-contained with an introduction, objectives, course materials consisting of 20 to 40 web pages, a quiz and certificate. Passing scores of 85% or higher on the quiz allow receipt of the certificate. See http://www.epa.gov/athens/learn2model/
  • Particulate Matter
February 9, 2004
  • Integrating Ecological Risk Assessment and Economic Analysis in Watersheds: A Conceptual Approach and Three Case Studies (Final Report) - This new report discusses a program of research that investigated the integration of ecological risk assessment and economics, focused on watersheds as the scale for analysis. It presents the results of three case studies (Big Darby Creek watershed of Ohio; the upper Clinch and Powell River watersheds of Virginia and Tennessee; and the central reach of the Platte River in Nebraska) and offers a conceptual approach for the integration of ecological risk assessments and economic analysis.
February 4, 2004
February 3, 2004
January 7, 2004
January 6, 2004
  • The Feasibility of Performing Cumulative Risk Assessments for Mixtures of Disinfection By-Products in Drinking Water - First, exposure modeling is conducted to estimate the potential dose at the absorption barrier (e.g., gastrointestinal tract, skin, and lung) and the results are linked with physiologically-based pharmacokinetic modeling to estimate measures of internal dose from exposure to all three routes for use in risk assessment. Second, a mixtures risk assessment method, based on additivity concepts presented in the Agency's mixtures guidance documents (U.S. EPA, 1986; 2000), is proposed to logically evaluate human health risks using total internal doses and oral toxicology dose-response data based on knowledge or assumptions regarding mode of action.
  • Developing Relative Potency Factors for Pesticide Mixtures: Biostatistical Analyses of Joint Dose-Response - New quantitative methods for applying Relative Potency Factor (RPF) are shown addressing the important question of how to assess a mixture containing some chemicals that share a common toxic mode of action and other chemicals that do not. The biostatistical methods developed in this report provide alternative methods to evaluate a mixture under three scenarios of varying degrees of uncertainty. The simple case occurs when there is certainty that a common toxic mode of action is operating, so a dose addition approach can be applied. The second case occurs when the mixture components can be divided into independent mode of action subclasses; dose addition and response addition can be integrated to make the assessment. The third case occurs when mode of action is uncertain, so a joint dose-response modeling procedure is used to create a range of risk estimates.

 

 
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