EPA WATCH Food quality implementation plan released EPA will have to double its output of pesticide tolerance reassessments over the next 10 years to meet the requirements of the Food Quality Protection Act, according to the agency's March 18 implementation plan for the law. The law amends the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to set a single, health-based standard for pesticide residii6s on T3.W and processed foods. The implementation plan lays out deadlines and procedures for how the agency will resolve key science issues concerning estrogenic compounds, aggregate risk, cumulative risk, and a tenfold uncertainty factor for pesticide residue risks. The agency has already proposed methodologies and will likely issue a final science policy this summer. The FIFRA science advisory panel is currently reviewing these methodologies. Daniel Barolo, director of the Office of Pesticide Programs, said the agency has started adding to its staff to complete about 900 tolerances per year to reach its goal of 9000 reassessments by 2006. Currently, the agency sets about 500 tolerances per year. The tolerance reassessments are a key element of the plan because they will determine the level of pesticides allowed on agricultural products going to market. A tenfold uncertainty factor, which the agency will apply to a tolerance when the evidence suggests a pesticide is a developmental toxin, is one issue addressed by the plan. To meet the requirement, EPA will factor in an additional tenfold margin of safety if the agency does not have "complete and reliable data" or postnatal toxicity Another key methodology due out this summer will apply to aggregate risk, or similarities in the way a compound affects the human body. The agency proposes the use of existing data to determine which chemicals have these similarities,
ORD chief Huggett leaves EPA for academia EPA Assistant Administrator for Research and Development Robert J. Huggett, who oversaw major changes in the agency's beleaguered research arm, has left EPA to return to academia. Huggett returned to the College of William and Mary as professor of marine sciences, effective June 1. In a May 14 agency-wide staff memo announcing Huggett's departure. Administrator Carol Browner said she wants to follow through on the changes Huggett introduced. "We expect each of [the changes] to continue and to provide the foundation for what the National Research Council has called 'some of the most important changes in the history of ORD [Office of Research and Development]'," she said. Since assuming the post in August 1994, Huggett made risk assessment and management ORD priorities, creating four national "megalabs" to look at exposure, health and ecological effects, environmental assessment, and the technology behind risk management. He also strengthened the peer-review process within the office. Huggett said his top two achievements at EPA were expanding the agency's extramural grants program and coming out with ORD's first strategic plan guiding EPA's research agenda, which was released in May {ES&T, November r196,492A)) Critics of Huggett's reorganization have charged that the external grants program was done at the expense of agency science. The agency had not yet named a successor or interim assistant administrator by press time.
also referred to as common mechanisms of toxicity. "We're not imposing new data requirements," said Stephen Johnson, director of the pesticide registration division. EPA staff will also use existing data to determine nondietary pathways, such as lawn and home use, when identifying cumulative risks of certain compounds. The implementation plan also lays out a process for revising registration for antimicrobial products and setting goals for reviewing registration actions.
Agency drafts performance measures EPA is working on a report that will assemble the various yardsticks it uses to measure progress in federal environmental programs. "Environmental Goals for America, with Milestones from 2005" lists a mix of science and administrative techniques that the agency says will fill the gap left by laws and agreements that do not specify measurable results. In April the agency started working through comments on the report from states and federal agencies. The
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report, which is scheduled to be released for public review this fall, contains 66 goals as well as different measuring techniques to assess whether the goals are being met. "Over the years we've developed ways to measure progress in different programs; we just have not put it all down in one report before," said Peter Truitt, manager of the goals report at EPA. Truitt cited wetlands acreage and children's blood-lead levels as examples of the indicators being used. The agency has divided these indicators into three categories: numerical indicators of environmental or human health, such as blood-lead levels; reductions of environmental pressures, such as lower utility pollution emissions indicated by monitoring; and administrative productivity, such as the number of chemicals the agency has managed to screen during the VC3X Truitt acknowledged that this third category is the weakest. "We want to be able to measure the environment itself." Truitt said the report came out of planning that began during the tenure of previous EPA Administrator William Reilly. "[The goals report]
0013-936X/97/0931-264A$14.00/0 © 1997 American Chemical Society
implies environmental priorities, but it does not set them," he said.
New proposal slated for hazardous waste rule In a joint consent decree filed with the D.C. District Court April 7 by EPA and groups opposed to certain measures in the industrial process Hazardous Waste Identification Rule proposal, the agency said it will release a revised version of the proposal for comment by October 1999 and a final rule by April 2001. The rule has been under development since 1992 and was supposed to be completed in October 1994. The proposed rule was designed to exempt some industrial process wastes from the stringent treatment and disposal requirements of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act's Subtitle C by setting safety levels for 400 listed hazardous constituents based on a "most limiting pathway" risk assessment. The agency's most limiting pathway approach would have required that only the pathway found to cause the greatest risk be used for the risk assessment. Agency staff said that mis method was most protective of human health. But in February 1996, EPA's Science Advisory Board (SAB) said the proposal limiting pathway risk assessment methodology was not scientifically valid and instead recommended 3. multiple pathway approach for the risk assessment (ES&T May 1996 p. 188A). Barnes Johnson, director of the economics methods and risk assessment division in the Office of Solid Waste, said the agency will also follow SAB's other recommendations, which include better integration of the groundwater model with the rest of the risk assessment and a change from a back-calculating to a forward-calculating approach to estimate safe levels.
Superfund incinerator safety faulted by GAO EPA should step up inspections of incinerators at Superfund sites and find ways for site project managers to share information on safe operating procedures, according to a General Accounting Office (GAO) report released in March. Republican leaders on the House Appropriations Subcommittee onVA, HUD, and Independent Agencies requested the report, citing public
concerns about safe operation of the incinerators. GAO studied three operating Superfund incinerators to develop the report, "Superfund, EPA Could Further Ensure the Safe Operation of On-Site Incinerators" (RCED-97-43). EPA has selected incineration as a Superfund cleanup remedy 43 times, which amounts to 6% of remedy decisions. And although the agency requires site-specific incinerator standards and built-in safety features, it has not followed through on its 1991 directive to conduct Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) inspections at Superfund hazardous waste incinerators according to die report In 1993 the agency issued interim guidance on how to perform these inspections But RCRA inspectors who visited sites in 1993 said they did not have a sitesoecific document containing the reauirements for each incinerator's oneratinns even though the interim miidanre rprneni7pH trip nppd for h H t thp rpnort said EPA ffi " 1 ld GAD that thpv did not develop this document because they had other priorities. The failure of Superfund site managers to compare notes about incinerator operations is a problem EPA has been unable to correct, the report said. Although the agency tried to help manage information by holding monthly conference calls with all incineration site managers and issuing detailed fact sheets about operating practices at the different sites, these measures did not take root GAO found.
Rural wastewater treatment grants available EPA is launching a $50 million grant program to help rural, disadvantaged communities with fewer than 3000 residents fund wastewater treatment projects. To qualify for a grant, a rural community must lack access to centralized wastewater treatment or collection systems; need improvements to on-site treatment systems; have a per capita income of less than 80% of the national average; and have an unemployment rate that exceeds the national average by 1% or more. States administer the hardship grants program in conjunction with the Clean Water State Revolving Fund loan program. For more information, call Stephanie von Feck at (202) 260-2268.
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