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Federal Facility Response Awards Underground Storage Tanks Awards Superfund Awards Emergency Management Awards Regional Science Awards Environmental Justice Superfund Enforcement Awards RCRA Corrective Action Awards Resource Conservation Challenge Awards Cross-Program Revitalization Awards Brownfields
United States Environmental Protection Agency

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2005 National Notable Achievement Awards
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Regional Science Award Recipients

Individual
Ghassan Khoury, Region 6

Ghassan Khoury has combined the EPA Integrated Exposure Uptake Biokinetic Model and an International Commission of Radiological Protection model to simulate blood-lead concentrations in children. The new model was used to estimate the risks associated with airborne lead at two sites in Region 6. Ghassan’s modeling of airborne lead contamination during the dismantling of smelter buildings indicated that children living in the area and workers on the site would not be affected by lead contaminated particles generated during the demolition of the buildings. He also used the model to assess the impact of exceeding the National Ambient Air Quality Standard for lead.

Ghassan’s work at the Tar Creek site showed that models can be developed to extrapolate data associated with contaminant deposition and characterize the losses of contaminants over time. Ghassan modeled the losses from the total deposition of lead, cadmium, and zinc from mining and milling operations at the Tar Creek site. He estimated that 91% of the total metals deposited on surface soil from 1917 to the present have been removed by losses from soil runoff and erosion and metals leaching into the soil.

The models Ghassan developed can be used at any site to predict: 1) the short-term impact of airborne metal contamination generated by construction activities at a site; 2) airborne contamination generated during construction activities relative to the National Ambient Air Quality Standards; and 3) the fate of metal contamination deposited on surface soil over time. Ghassan’s work will provide EPA with a mechanism to verify to a community near a site that remedial construction activities are not creating releases of airborne substances that would have an impact on community health and to explain that historical concentrations of metals in soils may have been significantly higher than at the present time. When combined with other air transport models, Ghassan’s models will allow EPA to estimate the risks associated with historical exposures at metals-contaminated sites. A monograph treatise on his work was published in the Journal of Exposure Analysis and Environmental Epidemiology (Volume 13, 2003).


Team
RCRA Cumulative Risk Team, Region 6
Jeffrey Yurk, Steven Thompson, George Setlock, and Clint Rachal

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Over 23 million tons of hazardous air pollutants are emitted each year by the 680,750 sources in EPA’s National Toxic Inventory, resulting in as many as 50,000 premature deaths. With the Region 6 Cumulative Risk Team’s development of the new Regional Air Impact Modeling Initiative (RAIMI) modeling tool, EPA and state and local agencies can now respond with appropriate actions based on effective risk modeling. RAIMI is a “risk assessment-based” tool that enables the evaluation of the cumulative health impact on local communities of virtually an unlimited number of emission sources. Its power lies in its ability to both predict potential risk to individual neighborhoods and differentiate from hundreds of pollution sources to a few where attention will yield the greatest health benefit. In addition, results from RAIMI are generated in a fully transparent fashion such that risk levels are traceable to each source, each exposure pathway (e.g. inhalation, ingestion), and each contaminant, allowing for prioritization of remedial action based on the potential impact of a contaminant or source on human health.

The Cumulative Risk Team completed the first phase of the development of this new tool in 2003 with the release of the Regional Air Impact Modeling Initiative: Pilot Study - Initial Phase. In the pilot study, the RAIMI model was able to evaluate approximately 1,500 point sources and 82 area and mobile source categories in Port Neches, Texas. These sources emitted over 188 different hazardous air pollutants. Using RAIMI, EPA was able to identify two facilities as well as five point sources, one area category, and two mobile source categories to prioritize for emission reductions. In another initial modeling effort, the team evaluated 18 major facilities and 2,500 point sources in and around Calcasieu, LA. The results were used to validate the location of air monitors and to track air pollution back to individual sources.

The team has responded to requests for more information about this innovative risk modeling tool by conducting workshops in Regions 3, 4, and 5 for EPA and state officials, posting the pilot study on an Agency web page, presenting papers at several key conferences, and making a presentation to the Executive Committee of the Agency’s Science Advisory Board.

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Page Last Modified: May 17, 2005