Taming Your Data: A Look at Streamlining Data Collection for the Cross Connect and EPCRA Programs

Do you feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data collection that must be done for your programs? Attend this session to hear about how Sacramento County’s Environmental Management Department streamlined their data collection mandates for the Cross Connect and Hazardous Materials Chemical Inventory Reporting (EPCRA) programs. When faced with processing thousands of pages of test report data from over 14,5000 cross connect devices and a recent law mandating that the Hazardous Materials Chemical Inventory reporting (EPCRA) be uploaded into a statewide California State Environmental Reporting Database (CERS), Sacramento County’s Environmental Management Department not only managed to overcome these overwhelming data obstacles but saved in staff time and cut costs.
The presentation will:

1. Review EMD’s efforts to improve their Cross Connect and Hazardous Materials Business Plan Program processes by streamlining how data is captured. This includes outreach to the regulated business community.
   
2. Evaluate the use of a web portal and it’s application strategies of data collection in two environmental program examples.
   
3. Understand a web portal can save time and costs to both staff and the regulated public industry.

How much health risk exists from dioxin in Food Grown for Human Consumption? [POSTER]

“Dioxin” refers to a group of persistent chlorinated chemical compounds that have similar chemical structures and toxicities, and are ubiquitous in the environment. Dioxins and furans are unwanted by-products of incineration, uncontrolled burning and certain industrial processes. Industrial sources of dioxin to the environment include incinerators, metal smelters, cement kilns, the manufacture of chlorinated organics, and coal burning power plants. Dioxin is also produced by non-industrial sources (now considered by the EPA to be the greatest source in the U.S.), like residential wood burning, backyard burning of household trash, oil heating, and emissions from diesel vehicles. Dioxin, as a general term, consists of two chemical groups, called polychloro-dibenzo-p-dioxins and polychloro-dibenzofurans. Of the 210 dioxin and furan cogeners, only 17 are considered to pose risk to human health.

In 2000, the EPA estimated that the lifetime cancer risk associated with the average person’s body burden of dioxin is between 1 in 1000 and 1 in 100. If true, this estimate of risk would represent a very significant public health concern. Routine monitoring of dioxin levels in foods or animal feed had not been conducted by the FDA, the EPA, or the FSIS until 1999 when the FDA’s Total Diet Study added Dioxin to the list of analyzed chemicals in its Market Basket Surveys. While efforts of the FDA, the United Nations, and others have monitored dioxin exposure, these efforts have shied from equating these exposures to health risk.

This poster uses food consumption data and dioxin exposure estimates from the Food and Drug Administration Total Diet Study to calculate the health risks of the US diet. Using the Superfund risk assessment methodologies, carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic health effects were estimated for several age group receptors in the general population. Risk calculations show that background dioxin concentrations in food can represent a significant contribution to total chemical risk in the US diet. These risk calculations can be used as estimates of contributions to total risk from background dioxins to aid in determining the extent of environmental remediation in an area suspected of a dioxin release.

Principles and applications of nanoinformatics in environmental health: Five key tools to support health and safety oversight in nanomaterials applications

The manipulation of matter at a near-atomic and molecular scale has resulted in the production of new structures, materials, and devices. In essence, this process is called nanotechnology - a promising scientific and technological advancement - which has applications in many areas of consumer and industrial products, including medicine, cosmetics, energy, sensors, and in manufacturing. Although no formal definition for nanotechnology, generally it involves engineered nanoparticles, nanostructures, nano-devices, nanomaterials and systems with various sizes that range from 1 to 100 nanometers. At this size, materials begin to exhibit unique properties that impact on their physical, chemical, and biological behavior that may not be similar to counterpart bulk materials. With recent advances in research to synthesize and characterize engineered nanoparticles and nanomaterials, concerns have emerged for their impact on safety and human health. The principles and application of nanoinformatics are reviewed to further understand how to prevent and minimize exposures to engineered nanoparticles, and hence, prevent potential injuries and illnesses associated with exposures. Five nanoinformatics tools are presented and illustration given on how the tools can support occupational and environmental health oversight in nanomaterials applications.

Tox Town US Southwest Scene [POSTER]

Tox Town (http://toxtown.nlm.nih.gov/index.php), an interactive Web site from the National Library of Medicine (NLM), uses graphics, sounds and animation to introduce students, educators, and the general public to environmental health risks encountered in our everyday life. Tox Town’s new Southwest scene was developed collaboratively with Diné College, a tribal college for the Navajo Nation in Arizona and New Mexico, to highlight concerns faced by people living in this region. Lessons learned from collaboration include balancing the unique surroundings of the Shiprock area while at the same time trying to reflect the region as a whole. While some environmental health concerns in the US Southwest are the same in any neighborhood, there are many issues that are specific to this region. New Tox Town locations found in this scene include: Abandoned Mines, Sheep Ranching, Uranium Tailings, Water Wells, Windmills, Coal-Fired Power Plants, Dust Storms, Hydraulic Fracturing, and Oil and Gas Fields.

Suicide Rates and Coal-Fired Electricity Plants by County in North Carolina [POSTER]

Suicide, strongly associated with psychiatric conditions, also correlates with environmental pollution, likely due to quality of life factors which impact mood disorders. This ecological study evaluated the effect of the presence of a coal-fired electricity plant in a county on county suicide rates in North Carolina. Data from the 2000 US Census, 2001-2005 mortality rates from the North Carolina State Center for Health Statistics and the US Environmental Protection Agency were used in multivariable linear regression. Twenty coal plants existed in North Carolina during this study’s period. Only about one third of the population of North Carolina lived in urban areas. Seventy four percent of the population was white, and the mean population per county was nearly 48,000. About 13% of the population lived at or below the poverty level. The median household income of counties was approximately $34,000. County-level suicide rates were higher in North Carolina (12.4/100,000 population) compared to the US population (10.8/100,000). The linear regression model indicated that percent white race, median age of county population and number of coal plants per county explained 25.8% of the variance of county suicide rates. For coal plants, the linear regression model suggests that for each additional coal plant in a given county, there would be an additional 1.96 suicide per 100,000 population. The presence of a coal plant correlated with airborne levels of nickel, mercury, lead, chromium, cadmium, beryllium and arsenic. This is the first study to show that the existence of coal electricity plants is related to population-level suicide rates. Because suicide might be associated with environmental pollution, this study may help inform regulations not only of air pollutants, but also of coal electrical power plant emissions.

Emerging Contaminants: Pharmaceuticals in the Environment

Pharmaceuticals are emerging contaminants in water and, to date, cannot be removed as part of waste water treatment options. So what can be done to mitigate their effects upon the environment, yet maintain their efficacy for human and animal use? This presentation will present research about the nature and scope of these contaminants, which ones are the most pervasive, and will consider a lifecycle approach to mitigating and reducing the effects of unwanted, unused, or expired medications. Three recommendations will be discussed through context of pilot research projects conducted in the Southeastern Pennsylvania region: public education about medications as universal waste; the nature of switching medications within a short period and the prospective effects of short cycling on prescribing medications through economic modeling; and the potential implementation of an ecotoxicity model similar to the Swedish model in closed medical systems. Public education about treating medications as universal waste through a campaign in community pharmacies has increased public knowledge about this option by more than 33%. Examining electronic medical records in the Veterans Administration is showing that switching medications within a three-month period is common (>30%) among some classifications of pharmaceuticals and the implementation of short cycling can save healthcare costs as well as limiting the wasting of medications. Lastly, an analysis of ecotoxicity models implemented in Europe has suggested the possibilities of replication in the U.S., especially within closed systems like the Veterans Administration. As the population continues to gain weight, with its associated chronic diseases and continues to age with many health concerns requiring medications, pharmaceuticals will no longer be emerging but become a reality that environmental health and public health officials will need to grapple with in order to insure the perception of safe, viable drinking water.

Evalution of the Quality of Drinking Water Sources and Obstacles to Potable Drinking Water in West Point and Suburban Monrovia, Liberia

The assessment of drinking-water quality in West Point and areas of suburban Monrovia in January 2011 determined that a public health hazard existed for persons drinking and cooking with contaminated water. The well-water sample results for nitrates, nitrites, total coliforms and E. coli suggested that most West Point drinking-water wells were adversely affected by human and animal waste contamination. The consumption of contaminated well water is of particular public health concern for infants who consume formula made from this water. 

During sampling, well characteristics and environmental conditions, including whether a well was “open” or “covered”, the depth of the well (less or greater than 9 meters deep), the soil type (sandy or mixed soils), the population density, whether latrines were used in the area, and the distance to nearby waste sources, were observed and recorded. Several of these environmental characteristics were statistically significantly associated with elevated levels of nitrates, nitrites, total coliforms and E. coli in drinking-water wells.
 
Infrastructure and cultural analysis suggests that the most reasonable strategy for risk management of current public health hazards and for improved potable water and sanitation in West Point is through a policy of incrementally implemented interventions. Residents of West Point have few resources and little political power, so the community can benefit from participating in an advocacy coalition with active non-government organizations and government agencies that not only plans for the provision of sustainable interventions, but looks for windows of opportunity to increase the awareness and the involvement of the Liberian government and the international community.