[Federal Register Volume 71, Number 179 (Friday, September 15, 2006)]
[Notices]
[Pages 54481-54482]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E6-15335]
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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
[FRL-8220-2; EPA-HQ-Docket ID No. EPA-ORD-2006-0666]
Approaches To Estimating the Waterborne Disease Outbreak Burden
in the United States: Uses and Limitations of the Waterborne Disease
Outbreak Surveillance System; External Review Draft
AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
ACTION: Notice of public comment period.
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SUMMARY: EPA is announcing a 30-day public comment period for the draft
document titled, Approaches To Estimating the Waterborne Disease
Outbreak Burden in the United States: Uses and Limitations of the
Waterborne Disease Outbreak Surveillance System (EPA/600/R-06/069). The
document was prepared by the National Center for Environmental
Assessment (NCEA) within EPA's Office of Research and Development.
EPA is releasing this draft document solely for the purpose of pre-
dissemination peer review under applicable information quality
guidelines. This document has not been formally disseminated by EPA. It
does not represent and should not be construed to represent any Agency
policy or determination. EPA will consider any public comments
submitted in accordance with this notice when revising the document.
DATES: The 30-day public comment period begins September 15, 2006, and
ends October 16, 2006. Technical comments should be in writing and must
be received by EPA by October 16, 2006.
ADDRESSES: The draft Approaches To Estimating the Waterborne Disease
Outbreak Burden in the United States: Uses and Limitations of the
Waterborne Disease Outbreak Surveillance System (EPA/600/R-06/069) is
available primarily via the Internet on the National Center for
Environmental Assessment's home page under the Recent Additions and
Publications menus at http://www.epa.gov/ncea. A limited number of
paper copies are available from Ms. Donna Tucker, Technical Information
Manager, NCEA-Cincinnati; telephone: 513-569-7257; facsimile: 513-569-
7916; e-mail: [email protected]. If you are requesting a paper copy,
please provide your name, your mailing address, and the document title,
Approaches To Estimating the Waterborne Disease Outbreak Burden in the
United States: Uses and Limitations of the Waterborne Disease Outbreak
Surveillance System (EPA/600/R-06/069).
Comments may be submitted electronically via EPA's E-Docket, by
mail, by facsimile, or by hand delivery/courier. Please follow the
detailed instructions provided in the Supplementary Information section
of this notice.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For information on the public comment
period, contact the Office of Environmental Information Docket;
telephone: 202-566-1752; facsimile: 202-566-1753; or e-mail:
ORD.[email protected].
For technical information, contact Glenn Rice, NCEA; telephone:
513-569-7813; facsimile: 513-487-2539; or e-mail: [email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Information About the Project/Document
Information about waterborne disease outbreaks (WBDOs) in the
United States is voluntarily reported by State, territorial and local
public health agencies to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC). CDC and EPA jointly maintain a WBDO database. The
database describes outbreak attributes including, among other things,
the drinking water system deficiency, the etiologic agent, and the
number of individuals who became ill. Underreporting of such events is
assumed but the magnitude of underreporting is unknown.
This draft document presents an approach for estimating the
epidemiologic and economic burden of disease associated with 665 WBDOs
reported in the U.S. between 1971 and 2000. The term disease burden
broadly refers to the magnitude of the impact incurred by society as a
consequence of disease in the community (e.g., decrements in a
population's health or the associated economic effects) and there are
various metrics that can be employed by analysts to quantify burden. In
order to capture some of the benefits of drinking water regulations,
EPA has typically expressed waterborne disease impacts in terms of
epidemiologic and monetary measures; this WBDO burden analysis employs
those same measures. Because not all WBDOs in the United States and
associated cases of illness are reported, the WBDO database on which
this draft document is based is not comprehensive. The extent to which
WBDOs are not recognized is unknown and is not examined in this
analysis. This draft report develops several quantitative sensitivity
analyses to characterize some of the uncertainty in the burden
estimates but does not provide an evaluation of the potential impact of
under- or overreporting of WBDOs or their associated severity
characteristics. The draft report includes recommendations for the
collection and reporting of additional outbreak information that would
improve the usefulness of the WBDO database for future disease burden
estimates.
II. How To Submit Technical Comments to EPA's E-Docket
Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-ORD-2006-0666
by one of the following methods:
www.regulations.gov: Follow the on-line instructions for
submitting comments.
E-mail: ORD [email protected].
Fax: 202-566-1753.
Mail: Office of Environmental Information (OEI) Docket
(Mail Code: 2822T), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1200
Pennsylvania Ave., NW., Washington, DC 20460. The phone number is 202-
566-1752.
If you provide comments by mail, please submit one unbound original
with pages numbered consecutively, and three copies. For attachments,
provide an index, number pages consecutively with the comments, and
submit an unbound original and three copies.
Hand Delivery: The OEI Docket is located in the
Headquarters EPA Docket Center, EPA/DC; EPA West Building, 1301
Constitution Ave., NW., Washington, DC. The EPA Docket Center Public
Reading Room is open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through
Friday, excluding legal
[[Page 54482]]
holidays. The telephone number for the Public Reading Room is 202-566-
1744. Such deliveries are only accepted during the Docket's normal
hours of operation, and special arrangements should be made for
deliveries of boxed information.
Instructions: Direct your comments to Docket ID No. EPA-ORD-2006-
0666. EPA's policy is that all comments received will be included in
the public docket without change and may be made available online at
www.regulations.gov, including any personal information provided,
unless the comment includes information claimed to be Confidential
Business Information (CBI) or other information whose disclosure is
restricted by statute. Do not submit information that you consider to
be CBI or otherwise protected through www.regulations.gov or e-mail.
The www.regulations.gov Web site is an ``anonymous access'' system,
which means EPA will not know your identity or contact information
unless you provide it in the body of your comment. If you send an e-
mail comment directly to EPA without going through www.regulations.gov,
your e-mail address will be automatically captured and included as part
of the comment that is placed in the public docket and made available
on the Internet. If you submit an electronic comment, EPA recommends
that you include your name and other contact information in the body of
your comment and with any disk or CD-ROM you submit. If EPA cannot read
your comment due to technical difficulties and cannot contact you for
clarification, EPA may not be able to consider your comment. Electronic
files should avoid the use of special characters, any form of
encryption, and be free of any defects or viruses. For additional
information about EPA's public docket visit the EPA Docket Center
homepage at http://www.epa.gov/epahome/dockets.htm.
Docket: All documents in the docket are listed in the
www.regulations.gov index. Although listed in the index, some
information is not publicly available, e.g., CBI or other information
whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Certain other material, such
as copyrighted material, will be publicly available only in hard copy.
Publicly available docket materials are available either electronically
in www.regulations.gov or in hard copy at the OEI Docket in the EPA
Headquarters Docket Center.
Note: The EPA Docket Center suffered damage due to flooding
during the last week of June 2006. The Docket Center is continuing
to operate. However, during the cleanup, there will be temporary
changes to Docket Center telephone numbers, addresses, and hours of
operation for people who wish to make hand deliveries or visit the
Public Reading Room to view documents. Consult EPA's Federal
Register notice at 71 FR 38147 (July 5, 2006) or the EPA Web site at
www.epa.gov/epahome/dockets.htm for current information on docket
operations, locations and telephone numbers. U.S. mail and the
procedures for submitting comments to www.regulations.gov are not
affected by the flooding and will remain the same.
Dated: September 7, 2006.
Peter W. Preuss,
Director, National Center for Environmental Assessment.
[FR Doc. E6-15335 Filed 9-14-06; 8:45 am]
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