How the State Environmental Regulators View Worker Exposure

Johanshir Golchin, Iowa Department of Natural Resources

Site-specific cleanup criteria are developed based on the extent to which people are likely to come in contact with the contaminated area under remedial process. The state environmental regulatory agencies as well as the nations EPA commonly use risk-based cleanup criteria for direct human contact at hazardous waste sites. Chemicals detected by environmental contractors during different phases of site investigations are used for the development of these criteria. The role of the regulatory agencies is to develop an understanding of parameters that influences the criteria. The regulators use information collected by the contractors and reasonable estimates to help them with their evaluation of the chemical exposure data. The challenge that they are faced with is that different contractors use different methods of data collection and reporting formats. Also, the nature of the data collected is nor sufficient in terms of not including all the relevant factors needed to complete an official risk assessment. An environmental regulator usually prefers to see characterizations of the degree and extent of the contamination and site geologic and hydrogeologic conditions that may affect the workers' exposure. The ability to access specific data for a particular site for regulatory decision making or other purposes is therefore most desired.