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Introduction to Coastal and Estuarine Hazardous Waste Site Reports
The Coastal Hazardous Waste Site Reports are prepared by by a broad suite of scientists to assess and describe uncontrolled hazardous waste sites that pose a threat to natural resources for which NOAA acts as a trustee. NOAA is a Federal trustee for natural resources under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act(CERCLA) and the National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan. As trustee, CPR scientists identify sites that could affect natural resources, determine the potential for injury to the resources, evaluate cleanup alternatives, and carry out restoration actions. The CPR Program works with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to identify and assess risks to coastal resources from hazardous waste sites, and to develop strategies to minimize those risks. The Coastal Waste Site Reports are prepared soon after a hazardous waste site is proposed to the National Priorities List(NPL) [1].
Purpose of the Coastal Hazardous Waste Site Reports
The Coastal Hazardous Waste Site Reports are an initial evaluation of the potential for injury to NOAA trust resources resulting from recently identified hazardous waste sites. NOAA uses this information to establish priorities for investigating sites. Sites that appear to pose significant problems will be followed by a NOAA Regional Resource Coordinator (RRC) assigned to the EPA regional office. The RRC communicates concerns about ecological impact to EPA, reviews sampling and monitoring plans for the site, and helps plan and set objectives for remedial actions to clean up the site. In addition, the RRC coordinates with other trustees to help EPA develop a remedial action that protects all natural resources (not just those for which NOAA is a trustee). Other federal and state trustees can use the hazardous waste site reports to help determine the risk of injury to their trust resources. EPA uses the site reports to help identify the types of information that may be needed to complete an environmental assessment of the site.
Coastal Hazardous Waste Site Selection Criteria
The hazardous waste sites evaluated by ARD scientists are drawn from Federal Register updates to the NPL. EPA uses the Hazard Ranking System to select the worst sites across the country, including federal properties, for inclusion on the NPL. Not all sites in coastal states will affect NOAA trust resources. The Coastal Hazardous Waste Site Reports only evaluate sites in coastal counties, or sites bordering important anadromous or catadromous fish habitat, where the reported contaminants have the potential to harm trust resources.
Sites Reviewed to Date
Since 1984, NOAA has considered a total of 747 sites and has completed a total of 337 Coastal Hazardous Waste Site Reports, published on the following dates ([number] refers to reference citation). Please note these are large PDF files and may take time to download. They are best viewed when saved to your hard drive and opened in Adobe Acrobat.
The following table shows the number of reports produced each year.
Year | NPL Reports |
|---|
1984 | 74 | 1985 | 20 | 1986 | 15 | 1987 | 33 | 1989 | 71 | 1990 | 24 | 1992 | 8 | 1993 | 18 | 1995 | 21 | 1996 | 8 | 1997 | 11 | 1999 | 10 | 2002 | 8 | 2002 | 8 | 2003 | 16 | 2004 | 16 | 2005 | 6 | Total | 367 |
Content of Reports
NOAA's Coastal Hazardous Waste Site Reports contain four major sections:
- "Site Exposure Potential" describes activities at the site that caused the release of contaminants, local topography, and potential contaminant migration.
- "NOAA Trust Habitats and Species" describes the types of habitats and species at risk of injury from releases at the site. The life stages of organisms using habitats near the site are discussed, as are commercial and recreational fisheries.
- "Site-Related Contamination" identifies contaminants of concern to NOAA, the maximum concentrations of these contaminants in soil, water, and sediment, and where on the site the contaminants were found.
- "Summary" recaps the information that suggests there is a threat to NOAA trust resources.
Tables and Screening Values
Most Coastal Hazardous Waste Site Reports (WSRs) contain a table that focuses on the contaminants in different media that have potential to degrade natural resources. These site-specific tables highlight only a few of the many contaminants often found at hazardous waste sites. We compare the chemical concentrations reported in the tables against published screening guidelines for surface water, groundwater, soil, and sediment. Because contaminant releases from hazardous waste sites to the environment can span many years, we are concerned about long-term effects to natural resources. This is why we compare site contaminant levels against screening guidelines for chronic effects rather than for short-term effects.
For each site, the contaminant levels detected in surface water and groundwater are compared to the ambient water quality criteria (AWQC; USEPA 2002); contaminants detected in sediment are compared to the effects range-low (ERL) values (Long and Morgan (1991) and threshold effects concentrations (TECs; MacDonald et al. 2000a). Only when there is a soil pathway for the migration of contaminants to NOAA trust resources, do we examine contaminant levels in soil samples. Contaminants detected in soil are compared to ecological soil screening levels (USEPA 2004) and values from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory final preliminary remediation goals (ORNL-PRGs; Efroymson et al. 1997).
There are no national criteria for sediment comparable to the ambient water quality criteria (AWQC) established for water. In the absence of national criteria, we compare sediment concentrations to several published screening guidelines (Long and Morgan 1991; MacDonald et al. 1996; MacDonald et al. 2000a; MacDonald et al. 2000b). Studies that associate contaminant concentrations in sediment with biological effects provide guidance for evaluating contaminant concentrations that could harm sediment-dwelling aquatic organisms. These studies include Kemble et al. (2000); Long et al. (1998); MacDonald et al. (1996); Smith et al. (1996); Long et al. (1995); and Long and MacDonald (1992). However, screening guidelines are often based on effects from individual chemicals. Their application may be difficult when evaluating biological effects that could be attributed to combined effects from multiple chemicals, unrecognized chemicals, or physical parameters that were not measured.
NOAA's National Status and Trends Program has used chemical and toxicological evidence from a number of modeling, field, and laboratory studies to determine the ranges of chemical concentrations associated with toxic biological effects (Long and Morgan 1991; Long and MacDonald 1992):
- No Effects Range - the range of concentrations over which toxic effects are rarely observed;
- Possible Effects Range - the range of concentrations over which toxic effects are occasionally observed; and
- Probable Effects Range - the range of concentrations over which toxic effects are frequently observed.
Two slightly different methods (Long and Morgan 1991; MacDonald 1993) were used to determine these chemical ranges. Long and Morgan (1991; see also Long et al. 1995) compiled chemical data associated with adverse biological effects. The data were ranked to determine where a chemical concentration was associated with an adverse effect. The lower 10th percentile for only data set in which effects were observed or predicted was calculated as the ERL. Sediment samples were not expected to be toxic when all chemical concentrations were below the ERL values.
MacDonald (1993) modified the approach used by Long and Morgan to include both the "effects" and "no effects" data, whereas Long and Morgan used only the "effects" data. Threshold effects levels (TELs) were derived by taking the geometric mean of the 15th percentile of the "effects" data and the 50th percentile of the "no effects" data.
Although different percentiles were used for these two methods, their results closely agree (Kemble et al. 2000). We do not advocate one method over the other, and we use both screening guidelines to help focus cleanup efforts in areas where natural resources may be at risk from site-related contaminants.
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