This workshop will discuss and demonstrate recent advances in the development and use of spatially explicit techniques applicable to terrestrial and aquatic ecological risk assessments.
Synopsis Agenda Presenters Registration Venue More information Related links
When assessing risks posed by chemical contaminants, ecological risk assessors must estimate a receptor’s level of exposure to contaminants in either abiotic (soil, water, etc.) or biotic (tissues, prey items) media. Such assessments are typically performed at state or federally regulated hazardous waste sites or for agro-ecosystems. The scientific and regulatory communities generally recognize that the relative spatial positions of receptors and contaminated media can strongly influence estimates of exposure and hence of risk. Traditional exposure estimation methods fundamentally assume that receptors have equal and random access to all areas of an exposure unit, thus allowing their exposure to be represented by the mean concentration in that unit. That receptors and contaminants may not occur evenly throughout the exposure unit or that receptors may not move completely at random (i.e., unconstrained by landscape features such as habitat) are not considerations. This “averaging” assumption may lead to false positive or false negative outcomes, either of which are potentially misleading to risk managers. These issues may be avoided or minimized if “averaging” assumptions were replaced by the explicit consideration of the heterogeneous distribution of receptors, their habitats, and contamination. Tools for incorporating such spatial considerations in ecological risk assessments are becoming increasingly available but have yet to gain wide acceptance or use. This workshop will discuss recent advances in this field and demonstrate several spatially explicit techniques that may be practically applied to both terrestrial and aquatic environments and to abiotic media. The goal of this workshop is to further the use of these techniques in typical ecological risk assessments. An additional goal is to increase risk managers' willingness to consider results based on these methods when making remedial and other types of risk-based decisions.
Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, 503.229.6251, fax -6977, hope.bruce@deq.state.or.us
Bruce Hope has been with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) since 1995, where he currently serves as a senior environmental toxicologist for the Land Quality Division. Current projects include preparation of sediment evaluation guidance for use by DEQ project managers and work on the Willamette River TMDL, including development of an aquatic food web biomagnification model for mercury target analysis and mercury source loads analysis. In 2000-01, he was an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) risk policy fellow at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington DC. Prior to joining DEQ, he was a consultant in the private sector managing human health and ecological risk assessments for commercial and government clients. He has served on a number of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency national advisory and review panels addressing cumulative risks, wildlife risk assessment, and probabilistic risk methodologies. He has written peer-reviewed and technical publications on toxicology, risk assessment, and geochemistry, and has a special interest in spatially-explicit exposure modeling. He holds M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in biology (aquatic toxicology) from the University of Southern California and a B.A. degree from the University of California.
ICF Consulting, 33 Hayden Avenue, Lexington, MA 02421, USA, 781-676-4053, fax -4072, ILinkov@icfconsulting.com, www.icfconsulting.com
Igor Linkov, Ph.D., a Senior Risk Assessor with ICF, has more than 12 years experience managing human health and environmental risk assessment, as well as expertise in communicating risk to public and public education. He received his PhD in environmental and occupational health from University of Pittsburgh, MS equivalent in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University. His educational experience also includes Post-Doctoral Fellowship at Harvard University. Dr. Linkov's skills include project management, assessment of human health and environmental risks from chemical and biological agents, basic research on chemical carcinogenicity, toxicology and advanced modeling. He is also developing software for environmental modeling, risk assessment and policy support. He is currently supporting Army Natick Laboratory in a large-scale risk assessment of site-related contamination and communication site risks to local communities and stakeholders. His current interests include developing of risk-based protocols for developing reuse options for military sites. Dr Linkov has organized four international conferences on risk-related issues for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and managed two research projects. Most recently, he was invited speaker at the NATO conference on social and psychological consequences of terrorism where he proposed the use of risk-based approaches as an efficient communication and evaluation tools.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (8623-D), 1200 PA Ave. NW, Washington DC 20460, 202-564-3246, fax -565-0079, norton.susan@epa.gov
Sue Norton, Ph.D., has worked for EPA’s Office of Research and Development on issues associated with Ecological Risk Assessment since 1988. She was a co-author of EPA's 2000 Stressor Identification Guidance document, the 1998 Guidelines for Ecological Risk Assessment, the 1993 Wildlife Exposure Factors Handbook, and the 1992 Framework for Ecological Risk Assessment, and Assessment. She is currently active in developing quantitative methods to assess risks associated with contaminated sediments and in attributing causes of biological impairment in streams. She received her BS in Plant Science from Penn State, her MS in Natural Resources from Cornell University, and her Ph.D. in Environmental Biology and Public Policy from George Mason University.
Menzie-Cura & Associates, Inc., 477 Congress Street, Fifth Floor, Portland, ME 04101-3406, 207-773-0881, fax -8597, wickwire@menziecura.com, www.menziecura.com
W. THEODORE WICKWIRE, M.F.S., is an ecologist and senior scientist with experience in aquatic and terrestrial ecological risk assessment at Menzie-Cura & Associates, Inc. He is leading the effort to incorporate geographic information system (GIS) applications in risk assessments at Menzie-Cura. In this role, he manages the collection of geospatial data and the preparation of mapping and spatial analytical products in a GIS. He researches issues in ecology as they relate to ecological risk assessment such as population assessment, spatial exposure assessment and the incorporation of habitat analyses into ecological risk assessment. Prior to joining Menzie-Cura, Mr. Wickwire worked for the United States Forest Service and ICF Kaiser International. Mr. Wickwire holds an A.B. in Biology and Environmental Studies from Bowdoin College and a M.F.S. (Masters of Forest Science) from Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Sciences. Mr. Wickwire is a member of the Ecological Society of America (ESA), the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC), the New England Chapter of the Society of Risk Analysis, and the Society of American Foresters.
Larry Kapustka, Ph.D., is President and Senior Ecotoxicologist with ecological planning and toxicology, inc., a firm he founded in Corvallis, Oregon in 1990. In addition to managing the business, Larry provides technical leadership in the areas of ecological risk assessments, plant ecotoxicology, and other aspects of ecological applications. He is Certified as a Senior Ecologist by the Ecological Society of America, co-chair of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) Ecological Risk Assessment Advisory Group (ERAAG), and an active member of ASTM’s Biological Effects and Environmental Fate Committee (E47). After receiving a Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma, Norman in 1975, he was on the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Superior and Miami University, Oxford, Ohio for 13 years. From 1988-1990 he was with the US EPA Environmental Research Laboratory-Corvallis as Research Ecologist and Team Leader of the Plant Toxicology and Hazardous Waste groups. Currently, in addition to providing a range of consulting services in the areas of toxicology, natural resource injury, and ecological risk assessment, Dr. Kapustka is engaged in research on phytotoxicology, terrestrial food web analysis, and wildlife habitat suitability models.
Neptune and Company, Inc., 1505 15th Street, Suite B, Los Alamos, NM 87544, 505-662-0707 x12, fax -0500, rryti@neptuneandco.com
Randy Ryti, Ph.D., did his dissertation on invertebrate ecology in California’s Colorado Desert. Randy is the Chair-elect of the Ecological Risk Assessment Specialty Group in the Society for Risk Analysis. He has over twenty years of experience in basic and applied environmental problems, including providing ecological risk assessment support to the Los Alamos National Laboratory and other clients. He routinely works with risk managers to develop conceptual models and interpret findings from risk assessments.
Syracuse Research Corporation, Environmental Science Center, Salina Meadows Office, 301 Plainfield Rd, Suite 350, Syracuse, NY 13212, 315-452-8413, fax -8440, goodrum@syrres.com
Philip Goodrum, Ph.D., received his B.S. in Environmental Technology from Cornell University and Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. He is a senior scientist at SRC, with 13 years of experience in environmental consulting. Phil manages SRC’s program area in probabilistic modeling and he is a co-director of the Central New York Probabilistic Risk Assessment Center. He has assisted regulatory agencies at all levels in developing guidance on PRA as well as in developing and applying probabilistic models to a wide variety of human health and ecological risk assessments. He also teaches a graduate level course and a continuing education short course in Quantitative Uncertainty Analysis.
U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center, Waterways Experiment Station, EP-R, 3909 Halls Ferry Road, Vicksburg, MS 39180, 601-634-3626, fax -3120, Todd.S.Bridges@erdc.usace.army.mil
Todd S. Bridges, Ph.D., currently serves as Director of the Center for Contaminated Sediments located at the Waterways Experiment Station (WES) in Vicksburg, Mississippi. He received his B.A. and M.A. in Biology/Zoology from California State University, Fresno in 1985 and 1988, respectively. Following completion of his Ph.D. in Biological Oceanography at North Carolina State University in 1992, Dr. Bridges joined the staff of the Environmental Laboratory at WES as a Research Biologist. His research program includes study of the nature of chronic and sublethal toxicity in freshwater and marine organisms, developing assessment methods for contaminated sediments in support of the Corps’ civil and military environmental missions, and developing and applying methods and modeling approaches in risk assessment. He currently chairs a working group in the International Navigation Association tasked with crafting guidance for conducting biological assessments of contaminated sediments. Dr. Bridges is a member of the Ecological Society of America, the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, and the Society for Risk Analysis.
Syracuse Research Corporation, Environmental Science Center, Salina Meadows Office, 301 Plainfield Rd, Suite 350, Syracuse, NY 13212, 315-452-8424, fax -8440, thayer@syrres.com
William C. Thayer, P.E., received his B.S. and M.S. in Environmental Engineering from the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Bill had 10 years of experience in environmental remediation and compliance prior to joining SRC in 1998. Since joining SRC, Bill has worked on human health risk assessments for Superfund sites, primarily mining and smelter sites, contributed to the development of EPA PRA guidance for human health risk assessment, and the development of EPA guidance for risk management at lead-contaminated Superfund sites. His main area of interest is in developing methods for incorporating spatial statistics in human health and ecological risk assessment, and in spatial data analysis. Bill is the lead scientist in the development of software at SRC that integrates spatial statistics in exposure assessment (GeoSEM).
The registration fee is $250 before 10 November, or $310 on site. You do not need to register for the Annual Meeting to attend the workshop. Registration will be handled by
The event will be held 7:30am-4:15pm on Sunday, 7 December 2003, at
The room for the event has not yet been determined; check with the hotel concierge. To reserve a room at the hotel, call 800-468-3571 before 10 November 2003. Be sure to identify yourself as a SRA Annual Meeting attendee to receive the SRA group rate of $135 per night (single or double occupancy) plus 12.5% tax. Cancellations must be made at least 48 hours in advance. See a description of the hotel at http://www.marriott.com/dpp/PropertyPage.asp?MarshaCode=BWISH.
More information can be obtained from Bruce Hope hope.bruce@deq.state.or.us, telephone 503.229.6251, fax 503.229.6977.
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