Decontamination issues for chemical and biological warfare warfare agents:how clean is clean enough?

摘要

The objective of this assessment is to determine what level of cleanup will be required to meet regulatory and stakeholder needs in the case of a chemical and/or biological incident at a civlian facility.A literature revier for selected,potebtial chemical and biological warfare agents shows that dose infromation is often lacking or controversial.Environmental regulatory limits or other industrial health guidelines that could be used to help establish cleanup concentration levels for such agents are generally unavailable or not all present challengs to effective planning,several decontamination approaches are to available.Such approaches should be combined with risk-informed decision making to establish reasonable cleanup goals for protecting health,property,and resources.key issues during a risk assessment are to determine exactly what constitutes a safety hazard and whether decontamination is neccessary or not for a particular scenario.An important conclusion is that cleanup criteria are site depedent and;;stakeholder specific.The results of a modeling exercise for two outdoor scenarios are presented to reinforce this conclusion.Public perception of risk to health,public acceptance of recommendations based on scientific criteria,political support,time constraints,and economic concerns must all be addressed in the context of a specific scenario to yield effective and acceptable decontamination.