Risk implications of approaches to setting soil remediation goals.

摘要

A framework has been developed to evaluate and compare the carcinogenic risk implications of two approaches to establishing soil remediation goals at hazardous waste contaminated sites. The approaches considered are (1) site-specific risk assessment to achieve a specified level of carcinogenic risk and (2) the use of uniform, concentration-based soil quality guidelines. Uncertainty in site-specific risk assessments and variability in site conditions when a uniform approach is used are taken into account. For each approach, cumulative distribution functions representing the regional variability in risk across sites are developed using a soil risk model. The two approaches are then compared based on these distributions. This paper describes the evaluation framework and presents some preliminary results of ongoing research to apply the framework to sites contaminated with trichloroethylene (TCE). Preliminary work in applying the framework to sites contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) is also described.