Building Consensus Through Risk Assesment and Management of the Department of Energy's Environmental Remediation Program (1994) / Chapter Skim
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Risk Assessment as an Aid to the Decision-Making Process
Risk Assessment as an Aid to the Decision-Making Process
Pages 11-22
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From page 11... ...
These applications can be and have been applied to environmental risk assessment as well as human health risk assessment. Numerous treatises on the utility of risk assessment, its limitations, and needs for further methodological advances have been written (e.g., publications of the National Research Council, including Risk Assessment in the Federal Government: Managing 11
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From page 12... ...
This need not and probably will not be the end of the risk assessment process. Serial evaluations provide a mechanism for modifying possible remediation programs as new information on exposure and risk becomes available, exposures change, or standards of acceptable risk change.
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From page 13... ...
Risk assessment can estimate the likelihood and magnitude of different types of consequences, including acute and delayed effects, and can take into account different measures of exposure, including effective dose equivalent and dose to specific target organs. Its primary use might be in connection with human healtheffect end points, but it can also be used to gauge ecological and other environmental impacts.
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From page 14... ...
RESOURCE ALLOCATION USING RISK ASSESSMENT At several points during the workshop, participants discussed the appropriate roles of risk assessment in allocating financial resources. Two issues arose: (~)
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From page 15... ...
In particular, these participants expressed their unease that, because they are concrete, the numerical results of risk assessments would be given undue weight in decisions that will neec} to incorporate less quantifiable but nonetheless important factors, such as cultural values and socioeconomic impacts. During DOE's earlier effort to develop a pr~ority-setting mode!
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From page 16... ...
into the planning of risk assessments and the risk characterization that is the result of the risk assessment have led some to question its utility. However, the committee believes that the appropriate application of risk assessment can reduce these concerns.
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From page 17... ...
Thus, risk estimates need to be "characterized" properly because such estimates convey more than just the quantitative estimate of "the risk." This is a well-established concept in National Research Council and Office of Science and Technology Policy reports and is important in the application of risk assessment to DOE sites as well. Human-health risk assessment should include realistic estimates of risk for the exposed critical group.
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From page 18... ...
This lack of understanding and data is the bane of the risk assessment process and limits its utility. The overall processes and results of risk assessment are profoundly influenced by uncertainty.
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From page 19... ...
Thus, it can be argued that scientific uncertainty in the basic mechanisms and prediction of risk causes the invocation of valuebased judgment, they are directly related in the risk assessment process, which is harmed when made to function with these potential sources of bias. If the uncertainty is very high, as it often is, a risk assessor might be forced to choose a concomitantly high level of assigned risk.
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From page 20... ...
Rather, simultaneous research and risk assessment efforts can provide elucidation for both. Incorporation of these elements into the risk assessment process win lead to the appropriate application of risk assessment and to its becoming an integral part of building consensus for remediation activities.
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From page 21... ...
There will be a tension between the need for facility-specific risk assessment, which can involve stakeholders in a comprehensive fashion (see Section 3 for a more complete treatment of this topic) , and the need for general methodological guidelines that permit DOE facilities and stakeholders (which include regulators as well as citizen groups)
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From page 22... ...
In addition, DOE should continue to improve its working relationship with the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, so that appropriate populationbased exposure and health surveillance information are improved for affected or potentially affected workers and members of the general population. Stakeholders, in addition to DOE managers, need to be assisted in understanding the nature, workings, and limitations of risk assessment if they are to participate effectively in the risk-assessment process.
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