Understand the concepts, methods, and special considerations for human health and ecological risk!
Understanding the logic and importance of Risk Assessment as a technical decision tool in today’s environmental project planning may make the difference between success or failure to your proposed project or recommended action or approach. This two-day course is specifically designed for permit writers and corrective action specialists, but is also useful to those more generally involved in environmental planning and management, particularly of large scale public projects where various stakeholder considerations and issues are considered as part of the planning, review and permitting process.
The course provides guidance and instruction for conducting baseline human health and ecological risk assessments, as well as conducting risk assessments for specific facility types.
Topics covered in the course include:
- Components of a Risk Assessment
- EPA Guidance
- Hazard Identification
- Toxicology
- Dose-Response
- Exposure Assessment
- Risk Characterization
- Overview of Ecological Risk Assessment
- Risk Communication
Students will be provided with actual case study guidance, and technical discussion will be complemented by examples of project specific risk perception and communication issues that required effective explanation of risk assessment methodologies in order to gain regulatory and community support for technical recommendations.
Travis Kline is Vice President of TechLaw’s Toxicology and Risk Assessment Group, with nearly 20 years of experience providing technical support and management of multiple projects encompassing human health risk assessment for the US EPA, state agencies and private clients. He has overseen the national external peer review of EPA’s Human Health Risk Assessment Protocol for Hazardous Waste Combustion Facilities (HHRAP) and authored the Risk-Based Corrective Action Program Manual for the Puerto Rico Environmental Quality Board (PREQB). He regularly provides risk assessment training for the EPA, individual states and municipalities.
Stan Pauwels has served as TechLaw’s Lead Biologist at more than 60 Superfund and RCRA sites throughout EPA Region 1 (New England) to assess effects of heavy metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls, dioxins and furans, chlorinated solvents, and other compounds on aquatic and terrestrial receptors. He has also prepared and reviewed more than 100 screening-level ecological risk assessments (SLERAs) and baseline ecological risk assessments (BERAs) at Superfund sites and RCRA sites nationwide.
Estelle Shiroma has more than 25 years of experience in environmental science and public health projects involving the assessment of human health and ecological effects from exposure to chemicals in soil, groundwater, surface water, and air. Her experience includes data evaluation, exposure assessment, risk characterization, and development of remedial cleanup goals for soil and groundwater. She has also evaluated risk associated with human health exposures to volatile organic compounds (VOCs), polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), metals, pesticides, and radionuclides.
John Calanni has extensive risk assessment experience under CERCLA, RCRA and several other EPA and state environmental programs. He has developed and implemented aquatic toxicology experiments, performed statistical data analysis, developed and reviewed ecological and human health risk assessments, and developed standard operating procedures for aquatic toxicity testing.