Hazardous Waste Site ERA

Hazardous waste sites are regulated under two separate legislative acts: the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Liability, and Compensation Act (CERCLA) or Superfund and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). In general, the former sites are usually no longer active whereas the latter are operating facilities. The likelihood for hazardous waste sites to cause harm to humans and/or the environment is largely evaluated via human health and ecological risk assessments, respectively.

Hazardous waste site ecological risk assessments (ERAs) have three main components: problem formulation, analysis, and risk characterization. The main purpose of ERAs is to evaluate the actual or potential impacts of site-related contaminants on non-cultivated plants, wildlife, and biotic communities and ecosystems. Such realized or potential impacts are referred to as ecological effects and one of the primary outputs of their assessment in ERA is to establish the likelihood that ecological effects are or could be caused by one or more site-related contaminant stressors.

The ERA assessment endpoints focus the evaluation on explicit expressions of environmental values to be protected. Operationally, these expressions consist of an entity and attribute, generally within a specified geographic context (USEPA 1998). An example assessment endpoint is the survival and reproduction of songbirds at CGT Superfund Site. A crucial part of the ERA is deciding which elements of the ecosystem will be selected for evaluation and potential protection. Environmental values are selected using three criteria: (1) ecological relevance, (2) susceptibility to site associated known or potential contaminants, and (3) relevance to management goals.

In 2003, the Risk Assessment Forum published Generic Ecological Assessment Endpoints (GEAEs) for Ecological Risk Assessment: Second Edition with Generic Ecosystem Services Endpoints Added. This document suggested guidelines for developing robust assessment endpoints and presented an example set of GEAEs applicable to a wide variety of assessment scenarios.

The Risk Assessment Forum expanded this document in July 2016 by publishing Generic Ecological Assessment Endpoints (GEAEs) For Ecological Risk Assessment: Second Edition with Generic Ecosystem Services Endpoints Added. This 2^nd edition augments the previous document by adding generic ecosystem services assessment endpoints (ES-GEAEs) intended to complement conventional GEAEs by extending ecological assessment endpoints to goods and services that benefit humans and may be economically valued by humans. Importantly, the expanded document also recommends explicit identification of the human stakeholders and beneficiaries. For example, an ES-GEAE for the above indicated CGT Superfund Site assessment endpoint could be re-stated as the survival and reproduction of songbirds at CGT Superfund Site, which are appreciated and recorded by the local Audubon Chapter. In addition to listing several generic ecosystem services assessment endpoints, the document explains how ecosystem services can be used as ecological assessment endpoints and provides examples of their uses and benefits such as support for cost-benefit analysis, assessment of risks to public welfare, articulation of specific values and benefits gained through environmental protection, and complement natural resource damage assessments.

Incorporating ecosystem goods and services into assessment endpoints provides ERA outputs society can readily appreciate and value. Generic ecosystem service assessment endpoints can help guide ERA planning when they are considered during problem formulation, by customizing the endpoints to the specific environmental and decision contexts. Ecosystem service assessment endpoints can complement conventional ecological assessment endpoints by clarifying to stakeholders and the public otherwise hidden benefits and costs a decision will have on society.

Incorporating ecosystem goods and services into the ERA process facilitates concurrent consideration of human and ecological health and well-being during the remedial decision-making process. This integrated evaluation can provide valuable information and insights on environmental, economic, and other societal factors needed to better inform decision-making. Models addressing ecosystem goods and services can greatly assist human/ecological integration throughout the ERA process from planning and problem formulation to analysis and risk characterization phases. For example, ecosystem goods and services can help to identify and articulate relevant environmental values during ERA planning. During risk characterization, they can also help provide means to qualitatively and/or quantitatively evaluate and compare impacts or risks influenced by the assorted remedial decision options under consideration.

This ESML filter provides hazardous waste site ecological risk assessors a guide to navigate the ESML. It will help to facilitate incorporation of ecosystem goods and services into ERA by enabling streamlined identification of applicable ecosystem services models. This will maximize ecosystem generated community benefits gained during cleanup activities.

Ecosystem services models can be used during any part of the ERA to quantify various environmental values selected to be important for an area containing a hazardous waste site. Such models are probably most useful during remedial options evaluation when decisions are made regarding how best to address human and ecological risks at the site.

Identifying and modelling existing or potential ecosystem goods and services in the area of a hazardous waste site prior to the remediation process can provide valuable insight to the remedial investigation and planning and can help in many ways. For example, it can help establish context to assist project managers and stakeholders in the creation of revitalization or reuse plans. It also can help to identify potential community benefits associated with, and created or enhanced by, some remedial options. Such benefits can complement cleanup protectiveness by providing cleaner water or air, recreational opportunities, protection of cultural resources, and other benefits.

The targeted users for this ESML filter are ecological risk assessors and risk managers at EPA Headquarters and Regions. It could also be useful to other federal and state environmental protection agencies as well as environmental consultants who serve as contractors to environmental agencies or responsible parties.

Crosswalk of Example Ecosystem Services Activities with Generic ERA Phases (from Maurice et al. 2019)

ERA Phases	Example Ecosystem Topics and Activities	Some Potential EPA Tools	Decision Questions
Planning and Scoping	Identify ecosystem services in site landscape	National Ecosystem Services Classification System (NESCS Plus) FEGS Community Scoping Tool	Who are the stakeholders and what are their relative standings and levels of impact? Do ecosystem services classification systems help with selection, completeness, and comparability across assessment endpoints? Would inclusion of ecosystem services facilitate broader conversation with stakeholders and include ecosystem structure, function and benefits they had not considered?
Problem Formulation	Describe ecosystem services benefits Estimate magnitudes of benefits Incorporate ecosystem services into conceptual site model (CSM)	EcoService Models Library National Ecosystem Services Classification System (NESCS Plus) Eco-Health Relationship Browser EnviroAtlas Decision Analysis for a Sustainable Environment, Economy, and Society (DASEES)	What resources have stakeholders indicated are important for protection? What health concerns do they have? Has there been prioritization by stakeholders? What do spatial data-layers tell us about the site and its surrounding area?
Analysis	Evaluate potential ecosystem services /site contaminants connectivity Evaluate potential effects of site contaminants on ecosystem services Evaluate ecosystem services condition (functionality, impairment level) Evaluate resilience/vulnerability to site contaminants Calculate ecosystem services cost savings and other benefits Assess ecosystem services capacity (type, temporal, seasonal) Assess ecosystem services importance to stakeholders Assess ecosystem services maintenance effort and cost Identify key features or parameters to protect ecosystem services benefits	EcoService Models Library EnviroAtlas EPA H2O Tool Rapid Benefit Indicators (RBI) Approach Visualizing Ecosystem Land Management Assessments (VELMA) Model Causal Analysis/Diagnosis Decision Information System (CADDIS)	Are ecosystem services attributes quantifiable (i.e., can they be measured or modeled)? Which indicators might serve as proxy for assessing classes of ecosystem services? What spatial and temporal factors need to be considered? Can ecosystem services -related ecological receptors be aggregated in space or across contaminants? What are the estimated differences in benefits between multiple future scenarios? How do upstream and downstream areas affect or are affected by the site? How might benefits be valued?
Risk Characterization	Compare costs and benefits of ecosystem services Characterize site contaminant threats to ecosystem services Characterize ecosystem services impairment level by site contaminants	EcoService Models Library EnviroAtlas EPA H2O Tool Rapid Benefit Indicators (RBI) Approach	Would ecosystem services help with risk characterization of aggregate and cumulative risk? Can costs and benefits be compared using similar units of measure? Where are the beneficiaries? Which beneficial uses might be impacted or restored?
Risk Communication	Articulate ecosystem services benefits and costs	All of the above	What ecosystem services do decision makers and stakeholders care about? How do ecosystem services contribute to human health and well being?

References:

USEPA,1998. Guidelines for Ecological Risk Assessment. EPA/630/R-95/002F. Washington, DC: Risk Assessment Forum. http://www.epa.gov/raf/publications/guidelines-ecological-risk-assessment.htm.

USEPA, 2003 Generic Ecological Assessment Endpoints (GEAEs) For Ecological Risk Assessment. EPA/630/P-02/004F. Washington, DC: Risk Assessment Forum.

USEPA, 2016 Generic Ecological Assessment Endpoints (GEAEs) For Ecological Risk Assessment: Second Edition With Generic Ecosystem Services Endpoints Added. EPA/100/F15/005. Washington, DC: Risk Assessment Forum.

U.S. EPA. 2017. Engineering Forum Issue Paper: Ecosystem Services at Contaminated Site Cleanups. EPA 542-R-17-004. Available: https://semspub.epa.gov/work/HQ/100000459.pdf

Maurice, C., B. Duncan, S. Mazur, AND M. Russell. Incorporation of Ecosystem Goods and Services into Ecological Risk Assessment. Annual Meeting of SETAC Midwest Regional Chapter, La Crosse, Wisconsin, March 21 - 23, 2019. https://cfpub.epa.gov/si/si_public_record_report.cfm?Lab=OSP&dirEntryId=347291