EOH FINAL @

29%

38%

31%

17%

49%

98%

41%

48%

82%

42%

43% to 97.351 trillion btu

By 111% to 235 million

151% to 2.8 trillion miles

175% to $10.381 trillion

Asbestos

~10,000 dies from diseases related to asbestos

The sun

1.3 million cases

7,800

500

Alcohol consumption

3%

2%

• Size of risk
• Sources of a risk
• Possible risk management options

• Representativeness
• Availability
• Anchoring and adjustment
• (these are the qualitative aspects of risk)

• Part of qualitative decision making in the face of uncertainty
• Places likelihood of object in general class
• Cons: leads people to pay too much attention to specific details (engineer example)
• Cons 2: people are insensitive to sample size (hospital female baby births)

• Part of qualitative assessment includes:
• -Ease of recall similar events (old people and heat attacks; young people car accidents;
• - Retrievability (list of men and women if have more famous men ppl think there are more men in the list)
• - Salience – stonger memory or recent events found more available (common R as first letter or third letter in word)

• - Def: ppl form quantitative judgements starting with a first value that is adjusted with supplementary info
• - Con: anchors are biased
• - Con: adjustments are too small
• - Examples: estimating UN Membership, multiplication math problems

Combines familiarity and dread

public familiarity with the threat is low and public dread of threat is high

• - fatal
• - Global impact
• - Involuntary
• - Uncontrollable
• - Unfair
• - Catastrophic
• - Future generations
• - Increasing
• - Not easily reduced

• - observable
• - known to exposed
• - immediate effect
• - old risk
• - known to science

• - man made v. natural
• - children v. adults at risk
• - Untrustworthy institutions v. trustworthy institutions
• - Media focus v. neglect
• - Identifiable victims v statistical victims
• - Suppressed data v. accessible data

• - only organisms that could recognize and respond to danger survived and evolved
• - our brain is designed for fear first and then think

• - perception factors are like seesaws
• - several factors are usually involved; importance varies over time
• - factors are universal across cultures, ages, and gender

• - Control is imposed or voluntary risk factors – CHOICE
• - More afraid: driver on cell phone; nuclear waste repository – no control; air plane (physical)
• - Less afraid: using a cell phone ourselves while driving; inviting a nuclear waste repository into your town; driving a car (physical)

• - the more we trust the institutions which are supposed to protect = less afraid
• - the less we trust institutions = more afraid we will be
• - More Afraid: industry (only out for own good); when govt says something is okay and then turns out not okay; closed decision making
• - Less Afraid: consumer groups; risk govt warned us about; open decision making process

• - more afraid: industrial chemicals; air/water pollution; hazardous waste; technology
• - less afraid: solar radiation; organic food; herbal remedies

people have difficulty making judgements under uncertainty and use heuristics to help

- Many factors have been suggested to influence perception but prediction is difficult

• - doesn’t account for the psychological basis for perception of risk
• - refuses to accept irrational behavior is how ppl are programmed
• - has counterproductive goal of making everyone see the risk as communicator sees it

• - accept that people react emotionally
• - provide info about risk based on psychological/emotional factors

• - we make decisions about risk every day
• - public views on risk influence social risk mgmt. decisions
• - real public health consequences for “risk perception gap”

• - EPA does not manage at household level
• - EPA does regulate landfills

• - 1970s Russell Bliss hired to spray oil onto dusty roads
• - oil contained dioxin
• - EPA declares health emergency - town evac and 265,000 tons of soil burned
• - Lead to RCRA “resource conservation and recovery act”

• - RCRA – Resource Conservation and recovery act
• - Solid and hazardous waste

domestic waste, fossil fuels, mining wastes, oil, and gas refining waste; hydrofracking

• - Solid waste – any discarded material from industrial, commercial, govt, mining & agriculture
• - Includes: solid, liquid, semi-solid, or contained gaseous materials

• - listed or characteristic solid waster
• - listed includes non specific sources (toluene, MEK, Etc) and specific sources (toxicity, reactive, ignitable, corrosive)
• - charactertistic: toxicity, reactive, ignitable, corrosive
• - subtitle C: “cradle to grave” tracking

• - domestic waste
• - fossil fuels
• - mining wastes
• - oil and gas refining waste
• - hydrofracking

Hazardous Waste “cradle to grave” tracking

non-hazardous wastes (municipal landfills, etc)

fed responsibilities (waived sovereign immunity)

underground storage tanks

medical waste (now its Medical Waster Mgt Act)

• 1. Use
• 2. Recycled in Process (if recycled goes back to use)
• 3. Solid Waste
• 4. After no longer being used, becomes either hazardous or non-hazardous waste
• 5. If deemed a RCRA hazardous waste, waste must go to RCRA landfill
• 6. If deemed a RCRA non-hazardous waste, waste goes to other landfill

• a.manifest tracking begins with waste generators
• b.then manifest goes to waste transporter
• c. then manifest tracks treatment, stoarage, and disposal facility (TSDF)
• d. manifest with tracking to grave returns to waste generator

Waste generator must keep manifests forever and is forever liable for payout (think Times Beach oil spraying incident)

One drop

• - Must have double liner with welded seams,
• - packed clay layers,
• - leachate collection

as waste breaks down without oxygen releaseing methane, we generally collect landfill gas and flare it or use for energy

1 million or 30% of storage tanks were leaking

• Gas stations required to have:
• - spill and overflow protection
• - corrosion protection
• - double walled tanks with leak detection btw
• - exluded home heating oil, famrs, and residential tanks

1980

- because of love canal and valley of drums which were poorly managed or abandoned waste sites

• - b/w 1930s-1950s Hooker Chemical dumped 21000 tons of toxic waste
• - 1953 land is sold to the city for $1
• - 1960s deed restriction reversed and 100s homes built on site
• - 1978 waste found oozing from the site

• -17,000 openly dumped drums were removed from 13 acres
• -1986 several barrels burned for weeks – still ignored
• -1979 EPA issues an emergency cleanup
• -1980 CERCLA legislation passed

CERCLA stands for Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act aka SUPERFUND

• -for abandoned or uncontrolled waste sites
• - National Priorities List (NPL) hazardous waste sites (based on health hazard ranking system)
• - 1600 NPL sites in country
• - government or responsible party mus clean up
• -very tough law (retroactive, strict, joint and several)

• If they are a past or current owner (Retroactive)
• Owners are liable regardless of the laws of the day (strict)
• Even one small waste generator can be liable for all (strict)

30 NPL sites in VA

• ~1500 sites in 2004
• ~800 construction completions

~325 million between 1997 – 2000

~50 million

• Union carbide pesticide plant (now Dow Chemical)
• Worst industrial accident in history
• 42 million tons of Methyl Isocyanate (MIC) reacts with water overpressurizes
• killing 3000 immediately

• 3000 immediately
• 1000s more in weeks later
• 20,000+ with long term health effects

Dec 3, 1984

• released red sludge 700,000 cubic meters (185 million gallons)
• 4 killed
• 120+ burned

8 people

• Created Emergency Planning and Community “Right to Know” Act (EPCRA)
• Citizens right to know about chemicals in their community
• Req emergency planning for spills and releases
• Established Toxic Release Inventory (TRI)

• must report all chemical releases, storage, usage, disposal (above threshold)
• publically available

Shift thinking from end of pipe to up the pip

Source reduction

disposal

4.5 pounds

double

about 1/3

33%

Rocky Mountain and ~85%

Northeast ~35%

The west ~38%

~65% landfill, ~7% incinerated, ~18% recycled

In 2006 ~2.5 billion

~1/2 billion

72%

~1.5 years