ESTIMATING ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE 



John Cairns, Jr. 



University Center for Environmental Studies and Biology Department 



Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University 



Blacksburg, Virginia 



INTRODUCTION 



Information Base 



The problem that has existed with almost all oil and hazardous substances 

 spills is the scarcity of data on: 



1. Environmental concentration—the actual or predicted concentrations 

 resulting from pollution sources as modified by the biological, 

 physical, and chemical processes acting on the chemical or its 

 weathered products in the environment; and 



2. The threshold concentration of the substance at which there is no 

 adverse biological effect. 



This information is usually generated by chemical engineers and bio- 

 chemists. Both kinds of information are badly needed in order to effect the 

 cleanup and restoration that have been discussed at this workshop. And the 

 information base must be far, far larger than any we have gathered in the 

 past. 



The following statistics illustrate the magnitude of the problem of 

 hazard assessment for chemicals. Over 4 million entities are registered in 

 the American Chemical Society's computer registry of chemicals. In addition, 

 there are approximately 6,000 new entities being produced in the United States 

 annually. It is obvious that the resources, in terms of funds and qualified 

 personnel, are inadequate to perform the laboratory work required to gather 

 all the information needed on each chemical. 



Identifying High-Priority Chemicals 



The first thing that should be established is a priority matrix to de- 

 termine the chemical substances that deserve the highest priority for testing. 

 Table 1 shows such an illustrative matrix. 



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