Health and Environmental Risk Assessment

305 Pages·1985·7.361 MB·English

by  P. F. Ricci and M. D. Rowe (Eds.)

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'Sample copies available on request
Health And
Environmental
Risk Assessment
Paolo F. Ricci
Energy Analysis and Environment Division
Electric Power Research Institute
Michael D. Rowe
Biomedical and Environmental Assessment Division
Brookhaven National Laboratory
EPRI EA-4114-SR prepared for the Electric Power Research Institute
PERGAMON PRESS
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OF GERMANY D-6242 Kronberg-Taunus, Federal Republic of Germany
Copyright © 1985 Electric Power Research Institute, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Health and environmental risk assessment.
"EPRI EA-4114-SR prepared for the Electric Power
Research Institute."
Based on a workshop held at Brookhaven National
Laboratory, Dec. 1981, organized by the Laboratory
and the Electric Power Research Institute.
Includes index.
1. Energy development-Hygienic aspects-Congresses.
2. Energy industries-Hygienic aspects-Congresses.
3. Health risk assessment-Congresses. I. Ricci,
Paolo F. II. Rowe, M.D. (Michael D.) III. Electric
Power Research Institute. IV. Brookhaven National
Laboratory. [DNLM: 1. Energy-Generating Resources-
congresses. 2. Environmental Health-congresses.
WA 30 H4343 1981]
RA568.5.H4 1985 363.1Ί9621042 85-12309
ISBN 0-08-031578-X
NOTICE
This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored in part by the Electric Power Research
Institute, Inc. (EPRI). Neither EPRI, members of EPRI, nor any person acting on their behalf: (a) makes
any warranty, express or implied, with respect to the use of any information, apparatus, method, or
process disclosed in this report or that such use may not infringe privately owned rights; or (b) assumes
any liabilities with respect to the use of, or for damages resulting from the use of, any information,
apparatus, method, or process disclosed in this report.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means:
electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Printed in Great Britain by A. Wheaton & Co. Ltd., Exeter
FOREWORD
Assessing the health impacts of different enerqy sources requires synthesizing
research results from many disciplines into a rational framework. Information is
often scanty; qualitatively different risks or energy systems with substantially
dissimilar end uses must be put on common footing. Historically, institutional
constraints have inhibited agencies from making the incisive intercomparisons
necessary to formulate energy policy; this situation has exacerbated controversy
over appropriate energy sources.
A need for consistent studies that support comparisons among alternative energy
sources has generated a variety of research activities and assessments, often with
little basis for comparison among them. The striving for breadth of coverage and
completeness of assessment has caused a lack of consistency and comparability. We
now understand better the effects of including ever greater portions of the human
and natural environments in our assessments. Most of the available methods have
been identified and used with various degrees of success. The time has come for a
convergence. Methods should be standarized with respect to fundamentals;
assessments should be made to facilitate comparing the work of different groups.
This book attempts to promote convergence by outlining in detail the two principal
methods of assessing health impacts of energy technologies: process analysis and
input-output analysis. Correct application of the methods is presented; and sources
of error, uncertainties, data limitations, and some solutions to common problems are
discussed. A basis for standardizing energy risk assessments and for comparing
results from the methods is presented through theory and applications. This book
represents a significant step toward an ultimate goal for producing reliable, useful
data for energy policy analysis.
Leonard D. Hamilton, M.D., Ph.D.
Head, Biomedical and Environmental
Assessment Division
Brookhaven National Laboratory
Upton, New York
VII
PREFACE
Health risk analysis is both art and science; it requires knowledge of the sciences
and the scientific method, yet it often includes policy criteria that require
subjective judgments. Use of scientific judgment often helps analysts when methods
fail, theories become outdated, and analyses require forecasts into a poorly
understood future. The art is in making proper use of less than perfect data and
methods.
Nevertheless, health risk analysis and evaluation of energy technologies are essen­
tial to government and industry planning. They provide information for a number of
decisions, including those related to planning national or regional energy
alternatives, technology development, allocation of research expenditures, and needs
and priorities for safeguards. They are essential components of the analysis,
evaluation, and management of energy development.
A fundamental difference between health assessments at the local and national levels
is in requirements for specific details. A proper assessment of a new technology
requires knowledge of the processes involved in producing and operating the
technology, details on the location of the plant, and characterization of the
populations at risk. For a new technology, these data are usually not available,
especially at the national level. Assessments of such technologies must rely on a
belief that although absolute accuracy may often be unattainable, it is possible to
generate relative information with sufficient accuracy to allow competing tech­
nologies to be compared with respect to health risks. One can then understand the
nature of the likely risks and which technologies appear to be more risky.
This book is the natural outcome of a workshop on methods of analyzing health risks
of energy technologies at the regional or national level, organized by Brookhaven
National Laboratory and the Electric Power Research Institute. Participants in the
workshop included scientists from a broad range of engineering, economics, and
health disciplines.
These disciplines are important factors in health risk assessments. The workshop
was initially conceived to convene most of the health risk analysts in the United
HERA-A* 1 X
States who were using input-output analysis to quantify health risks of energy
technologies, to compare theoretical and practical difficulties and data bases, and
to discuss results. As plans for the workshop progressed, it became apparent that
an important contribution of the workshop could be to compare the input-output
method with the more common process analysis method. The workshop thus included
these two methods as they are now used for health risk assessments, with discussion
of data availability and quality, comparisons of strengths and weaknesses of each of
the two approaches, and comparisons of results obtained by researchers from several
institutions throughout the United States.
From the workshop, this book has evolved into a methodology handbook that describes
the two principal methods of health risk assessment, the process and the input-
output methods. Process analysis is an adaptation of fuel cycle analysis in which
fuels, materials, and activity cycles are traced from extraction to decommissioning
and end use of the energy produced, and health risks are assessed for each stage of
the cycles. It usually includes only first-order impacts, although in theory it
could include higher-order impacts as well. This method is limited, however, by
practical restrictions on the number of materials included, how deeply into the
economy the technology extends, and inclusion of higher-order effects. Another
method was therefore developed using well-established economic input-output methods
that trace all of the activity generated by production and use of energy technolo­
gies throughout the entire U.S. economy. The input-output method uses data on
interindustry transactions to trace the flows of money generated in the economy.
These are then converted to estimates of direct and indirect occupational health
risks.
Both the process and the input-output methods have strengths and weaknesses, and
both can provide important information for a health risk analysis. It is one of the
tasks of this book to examine these methods in light of theoretical and practical
considerations.
Although both methods have been described elsewhere, this book is unique in pro­
viding a uniform setting for comparing the methods' strengths and weaknesses as well
as the results obtained by researchers actively engaged in risk analysis. It
attempts to look beyond the rivalry that naturally develops among proponents of
methods in early stages of development. It provides detailed discussions of the
problems associated with use of these methods and some of the ways analysts have
solved them, and develops linkages between the process and the input-output methods.
x
The book has two primary purposes and therefore two audiences. The first purpose is
to acquaint makers of public policy, other decision makers, and government and
industry planners with the methods, their applications, limitations, and differ­
ences, as well as the practical significance of those differences. We hope that
this aids the audience in selecting appropriate methods for energy analysis and in
evaluating the results. The second purpose is to provide a handbook of methods that
can serve as a useful text for students of public policy, decision analysis, eco­
nomics, energy analysis, and risk analysis.
This book consists of five sections. The first introduces risk analysis and
develops issues that are common to both the process method and the input-output
method. The second is concerned with data bases, and the third introduces methods
through which models of various types are used to generate environmental data not
normally provided by national statistics or networks of environmental monitors. The
fourth section describes applications of the process method and the input-output
method to several case studies. This section includes discussion on data bases,
methodological difficulties, and theoretical issues as viewed from the perspective
of each research effort. The last section discusses the state of the art of
applications of the process and input-output methods in risk analysis.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The editors gratefully acknowledge the invaluable assistance and support of the
Electric Power Research Institute and Brookhaven National Laboratory in sponsoring
the workshop and making possible the publication of this book.
xi
The book has two primary purposes and therefore two audiences. The first purpose is
to acquaint makers of public policy, other decision makers, and government and
industry planners with the methods, their applications, limitations, and differ­
ences, as well as the practical significance of those differences. We hope that
this aids the audience in selecting appropriate methods for energy analysis and in
evaluating the results. The second purpose is to provide a handbook of methods that
can serve as a useful text for students of public policy, decision analysis, eco­
nomics, energy analysis, and risk analysis.
This book consists of five sections. The first introduces risk analysis and
develops issues that are common to both the process method and the input-output
method. The second is concerned with data bases, and the third introduces methods
through which models of various types are used to generate environmental data not
normally provided by national statistics or networks of environmental monitors. The
fourth section describes applications of the process method and the input-output
method to several case studies. This section includes discussion on data bases,
methodological difficulties, and theoretical issues as viewed from the perspective
of each research effort. The last section discusses the state of the art of
applications of the process and input-output methods in risk analysis.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The editors gratefully acknowledge the invaluable assistance and support of the
Electric Power Research Institute and Brookhaven National Laboratory in sponsoring
the workshop and making possible the publication of this book.
xi
Section 1
INTRODUCTION
Paolo F. Ricci*
WHY RISK ANALYSIS?
Technology produces benefits such as energy, employment, increased standards of
living, and better health, but in so doing it adds to the existing burden of risks
and distributional inequities.** Risk-benefit assessment studies the trade-offs
that society makes between risks and benefits. In this paper, we limit the dis­
cussion to the issues that arise when one analyzes public and occupational health
risks, for a technology per se, at the regional and national level. The focus is on
energy-producing technologies and the fuel, activity, and material cycles that
create and maintain technology. These cycles result in routine releases of liquid,
solid, and gaseous pollutants and, thus, frequent and infrequent accidents with both
small and large consequences.
Risks may be encountered long before they are recognized. Once they are recognized
and quantified with some certainty, it may be too late to control or limit them.
The question of whether to wait for irrefutable evidence about an adverse effect or
to take what may be a costly course of action is a policy question that cannot be
answered by the analyst. Yet it is necessary to know what the likely risks and
benefits are, even though there is considerable "fuzziness" about the causes and
effects of many health risks. Finally, common sense propels the need to analyze and
evaluate risks to human health, the costs of controlling these risks, and the
possible benefits of technology, which are uncertain. Thus, it makes good sense to
not only account for the beneficial or adverse effects a technology imposes on
society but also to characterize and reduce the uncertainty about each of these.
Moreover, as laws, regulations, and court decisions increasingly rely on estimates
of risks and benefits to set standards for protection of health or the environment,
*Electric Power Research Institute, Palo Alto, California.
**Hazard is defined as "a danger"; risk is defined as "exposure to chance of
injury" (jj.
1
there is a pressing need to develop methods that are quantitative and reliable. We
suggest here that the analysis of risk consists of determining a hazard, the
likelihood that the hazard may occur, and the associated adverse consequences. The
assessment extends the analysis to include private and societal evaluation of
risk. Risk analysis is the systematic accounting of risks and thus provides the
assessment with much information. Nevertheless, the knowledge of risks, costs, and
benefits is not sufficient for an assessment. A principal ingredient is the
acceptance of a technology by the public and the decision makers. Ultimately,
political resolution is inevitable, since decisions about what level of health risk
is acceptable by society are resolved by society through its institutions (_2).
The fundamental question within which health risk analysis finds its reason to be,
and may find its ultimate damnation, is in helping to determine whether energy or
environmental policies (and, one might add, institutional arrangements) achieve
minima in total health risks from a given set of technological options. Admittedly,
this is a single objective that, of itself, does not necessarily justify the choice
of a particular policy. Yet, health risk still performs a much needed function
(3,4).
It is becoming increasingly apparent that "'safe1 is not equivalent to risk-free"
and that, as the U.S. Supreme Court noted,
the mere possibility that some employee somewhere . . . may confront
some risk of cancer is a sufficient basis for . . . expenditures of
hundreds of millions of dollars to minimize the risk. (Industrial
Union Dept., AFL-CIO, v. American Petroleum Institute, 100 S.Ct.
2844, 66 L. Ed. 2d. 268, 1980)
However, judicial decisions indicate that the scientific evidence under which
risks are determined should be subjected to careful scrutiny (5). Moreover, the
precise meaning of de minimi's, the often-found wordings of "reasonable risk,"
"ample margin of safety," and similar phrases found among the environmental
statutes enacted by Congress, have had a profound impact on the analysis of
risks. The key point is that an analysis must be made, so that what does and what
does not constitute reasonable or de minimi's risk can be assessed from scientific
evidence.
Risk to human health is a cost. Its units are not monetary; rather, they are man-
days lost, injuries, or deaths. Of course, there may also be direct monetary
2