[Federal Register Volume 63, Number 230 (Tuesday, December 1, 1998)]
[Notices]
[Pages 66168-66170]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 98-31963]
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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
[FRL-6196-2]
Science Advisory Board; Emergency Notification of Public Advisory
Committee Meetings
Pursuant to the Federal Advisory Committee Act, Pub. L. 92-463,
notice is hereby given that several Committees of the Science Advisory
Board (SAB) will meet on the dates and times described below. All times
noted are Eastern Time. All meetings are open to the public, however,
seating is limited and available on a first come basis. Documents that
are the subject of SAB reviews are normally available from the
originating U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) office and are
not available from the SAB Office. Public drafts of SAB reports are
available to the Agency and the public from the SAB office. Details on
availability are noted below.
1. Drinking Water Committee (DWC)
The Drinking Water Committee (DWC) of the Science Advisory Board
(SAB) will hold a public meeting beginning at 8:00 am Thursday,
December 10, 1998 and ending not later than 5:30 pm Friday, December
11, 1998. The meeting will be held at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City
Hotel, 2799 Jefferson Davis Highway, Arlington, VA 22202; telephone
(703) 418-1234. At this meeting, the Committee will receive briefings
on the status of various research efforts being conducted in support of
the Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments (SDWA) of 1996 and conduct a
review of the US EPA ORD comparative risk approach for balancing the
chemical and microbial risks from drinking water.
Background
In accordance with the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), regulations
have been promulgated or proposed by U.S. EPA to provide maximum
control of exposures to pathogenic organisms in water while minimizing
concomitant exposures to the disinfection byproducts (DBPs). The SDWA
Amendments of 1996 additionally require the Agency to conduct cost-
benefit analyses of the regulatory impacts in order to identify cost-
effective drinking water treatment options.
The National Center for Environmental Assessment-Cincinnati Office
(NCEA-Cin) has developed a methodology for risk analysis and comparison
that might assist the Agency in supporting its SDWA regulatory
activities. The Agency's document Comparative Risk Framework
Methodology and Case Study (Framework Document) presents a methodology
for such comparisons that applies the prevention-effectiveness approach
developed by the Centers for Disease Control for structuring and
analyzing this complex risk trade-off problem. Prevention-effectiveness
research combines tools of decision and economic analysis to look at
the cost-effectiveness of different public health interventions and
employs decision trees to explicitly and graphically structure the
problem. The document consists of a Comparative Risk Framework
Methodology (CRFM) and a Case Study. The application of this approach
explicitly recognizes disinfection and treatment of drinking water to
be a primary public health intervention and prevention measure designed
to minimize the transmission of microbial pathogens in drinking water.
Charge
The Drinking Water Committee is requested to review the strategy
proposed for structuring and analyzing this comparative risk/risk
tradeoff problem, including the overall concept, the use of population-
based probabilities for expressing both cancer and noncancer health
risks and mechanisms for arriving at these numbers, and the pros and
cons of the different common metrics/weights proposed for comparing
qualitatively and quantitatively different health risks. Specific
charge questions are available by contacting the Office of the Science
Advisory Board at the address noted below. Charge questions are
included for the following areas: overall approach; the comparative
risk framework methodology; the case study; engineering and water
treatment issues; risk characterization; microbial risks; chemical
dose-response assessment; exposure; health conditions; the common
health metric; the results of the methods application; and research
needs.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Single copies of the background
information for the review of the risk comparison framework can be
obtained by contacting Dr. Glenn Rice, US EPA
[[Page 66169]]
National Center for Environmental Assessment, 26 Martin Luther King
Drive, Cincinnati, Ohio 45268; or by telephone at (513) 569-7813.
Additional information for this meeting, or the meeting agenda, can be
obtained by contacting Mr. Thomas O. Miller, Designated Federal Officer
(DFO) for the Drinking Water Committee, Science Advisory Board (1400),
U.S. EPA, 401 M Street, SW, Washington, DC 20460; by telephone at (202)
260-5886; by fax at (202) 260-7118 or via the E-Mail at:
[email protected], or by contacting Ms. Dorothy Clark at (202) 260-
6555, by fax at (202) 260-7118, and by E-Mail at:
[email protected]. Anyone wishing to make an oral presentation to
the Committee must contact Mr. Miller, in writing (by letter, fax, or
E-mail) no later than 12 noon, Thursday, December 3, 1998, in order to
be included on the Agenda. The request should identify the name of the
individual who will make the presentation and an outline of the issues
to be addressed. At least 35 copies of any written comments to the
Committee are to be given to Mr. Miller no later than the time of the
presentation for distribution to the Committee and the interested
public.
2. Secondary Data Use Subcommittee of the Executive Committee
The Secondary Data Use Subcommittee of the Science Advisory Board's
(SAB) Executive Committee, will meet Tuesday and Wednesday, December 15
and 16, 1998 in the SAB Conference Room, Room 3709, U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency Headquarters Building, 401 M Street SW, Washington,
DC 20460. The meeting will begin at 9:00 am on December 15th and
adjourn no later than 5:00 pm on December 16th.
Purpose
The purpose of this meeting is to begin the SAB's project to
provide advice to the Agency on the appropriate secondary use of EPA
regulatory data bases. This review was requested by the Center for
Environmental Information and Statistics (CEIS) in EPA's Office of
Policy. The CEIS is in the process of reviewing 30 major EPA regulatory
databases for their potential use in secondary data analyses (i.e., for
uses other than that for which they were originally collected). The
Agency's regulatory data bases were designed to be used in making
enforcement, compliance, and standard setting decisions. The CEIS
reviews will try to determine the extent to which these observational
data bases can be used for other purposes such as assessment of
environmental conditions and trends, scientifically based studies of
cross-media relationships, and human health or environmental risk
assessment.
The tentative overall charge to the Secondary Data Use Subcommittee
is to: (a) provide consultations on the overall process of suitability
review; (b) review CEIS's reviews for technical quality,
comprehensiveness and clarity; (c) provide consultation on developing
minimum criteria or characteristics that a database should possess if
it is to be used for scientific purposes such as exposure assessment;
(d) make recommendations for areas where the CEIS should develop new
quantitative methods for the use of secondary EPA databases; and (e)
set up a workshop which brings together Agency and external experts to
discuss the various issues and concerns regarding the secondary use of
administrative and observational EPA databases.
On July 30, 1998, the Subcommittee held its first meeting which was
a consultation on the overall process of suitability review. At the
December 15-16, 1998 meeting, the Subcommittee plans to review CEIS's
initial descriptive reviews for technical quality, comprehensiveness
and clarity; provide consultation on the next round of case studies,
and receive a briefing on CEIS's approach to reviewing geographically
based environmental indices.
For Further Information
Copies of the review documents and background materials are
available from Dr. N. Phillip Ross, Chief Statistician, Center for
Environmental Information and Statistics (2163), U.S. EPA, 401 M Street
SW, Washington, DC 20460, telephone (202) 260-5244, fax (202) 260-5880,
or via E-mail at [email protected]. The review documents are also
available on the Internet at: http://www.epa.gov/ceisweb1/ceishome/
quality.html. Copies of the agenda are available from Ms. Betty
Fortune, Science Advisory Board (1400), U.S. EPA, 401 M Street SW,
Washington DC 20460, telephone (202) 260-4126, fax (202) 260-9232, or
via E-mail at [email protected].
Any member of the public wishing to present brief oral comments to
the Subcommittee must contact Mrs. Anne Barton, Designated Federal
Officer (DFO) for the Secondary Data Use Subcommittee, in writing, no
later than noon Tuesday, December 8 at Science Advisory Board (1400),
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington DC 20460; FAX (202)
260-9232; or via E-Mail at [email protected]. The request should
identify the name of the individual who will make the presentation and
an outline of the issues to be addressed. At least 35 copies of any
written comments to the Committee are to be given to the DFO no later
than the time of the presentation; these will be distributed to the
Subcommittee and the interested public. To discuss technical aspects of
the meeting, please contact Mrs. Barton by telephone at (202) 260-9280.
3. Radiation Advisory Committee (RAC)
The Science Advisory Board's (SAB's) Radiation Advisory Committee
(RAC) will conduct a public teleconference meeting on Tuesday, December
15, 1998. The teleconference meeting will convene at 11:00 a.m. and
adjourn at approximately 1:00 p.m. that day. At this meeting, the RAC
will review and discuss edits to their draft advisory concerning of
low-activity mixed radioactive waste. The RAC began this advisory at
their November 17-19, 1998 public meeting (See 63 Federal Register 207,
Tuesday, Oct. 27, 1998, pp. 57295-57298). The charge focused on
technical aspects of the Office of Radiation and Indoor Air (ORIA)
performance assessment analyses. The charge questions to be answered
include, but are not limited to the following: (a) Does the EPA dose
assessment reasonably cover the hydrogeologic and climatic settings
that might be used for the disposal of low-activity mixed waste? (b)
What modeling time frame does the Committee recommend be used to
project potential doses from disposal of low-activity mixed waste?, and
(c) Is it reasonable to assign a constant ``high'' release rate for the
duration of the simulation, or does the SAB advise an alternative
approach such as assuming a lower release rate at the start and
increasing it incrementally over the modeling period, thereby mimicking
the gradual deterioration of the concrete?
For Further Information
Any member of the public wishing further information concerning the
teleconference meeting, such as copies of the proposed meeting agenda,
information to connect to the teleconference, the current public draft
of the advisory, or who wish to submit written comments should contact
Mrs. Diana L. Pozun at Tel. (202) 260-8432; FAX (202) 260-7118, or via
E-mail at: [email protected]. Members of the public who wish to make
a brief oral presentation to the Committee must contact Dr. K. Jack
Kooyoomjian, Designated Federal Officer (DFO) for the Radiation
Advisory Committee, in writing no later than 12 noon Eastern Time,
Thursday, December 10, 1998 in
[[Page 66170]]
order to be included on the Agenda. Dr. Kooyoomjian can be reached at:
Science Advisory Board (1400), U.S. EPA, Washington, DC 20460, fax
(202) 260-7118; or via E-Mail at: [email protected]. Public
comments at teleconferences will be normally limited to three minutes
per speaker or organization. The request should identify the name of
the individual who will make the presentation, the organization (if
any) they will represent, and at least 35 copies of an outline of the
issues to be addressed or the presentation itself. For technical
information pertaining to the teleconference meeting please contact Dr.
Kooyoomjian at (202) 260-2560.
For questions pertaining to the advisory, as well as background
documents provided to the SAB's RAC, or to discuss any other aspects of
this review or any supporting or background information please contact
Dr. Mary E. Clark, ORIA, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (6601J),
401 M Street, SW, Washington, DC 20460, tel. (202) 564-9348; fax (202)
565-2043; or E-mail: [email protected].
Providing Oral or Written Comments at SAB Meetings
The Science Advisory Board expects that public statements presented
at its meetings will not be repetitive of previously submitted oral or
written statements. In general, each individual or group making an oral
presentation will be limited to a total time of ten minutes. For
teleconference meetings, opportunities for oral comment will usually be
limited to no more than three minutes per speaker and no more than
fifteen minutes total. Written comments (at least 35 copies) received
in the SAB Staff Office sufficiently prior to a meeting date (usually
one week before the meeting), may be mailed to the relevant SAB
committee or subcommittee; comments received too close to the meeting
date will normally be provided to the committee at its meeting, or
mailed soon after receipt by the Agency. Written comments may be
provided to the relevant committee or subcommittee up until the time of
the meeting.
Additional information concerning the Science Advisory Board, its
structure, function, and composition, may be found on the SAB Website
(http://www.epa.gov/sab) and in The Annual Report of the Staff Director
which is available from the SAB Publications Staff at (202) 260-4126 or
via fax at (202) 260-1889. Individuals requiring special accommodation
at SAB meetings, including wheelchair access, should contact the
appropriate DFO at least five business days prior to the meeting so
that appropriate arrangements can be made.
Dated: November 25, 1998.
John R. Fowle, III,
Acting Staff Director, Science Advisory Board.
[FR Doc. 98-31963 Filed 11-30-98; 8:45 am]
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