Waste and Cleanup Risk Assessment
Risk Assessment in EPA's Underground Storage Tank Program
EPA's Risk Assessment Programs:
Additional OUST Information:
OUST Regulations and Standards
View Waste and Cleanup Risk Assessment program-specific resources organized by topic:
Chemical Accident Prevention
Federal Facilities Restoration and Reuse
Underground Storage Tanks
Resource and Conservation Recovery Act
Superfund
Risk-based decision-making (RBDM) is
a process in which decisions are made about sites contaminated by
releases from underground storage tanks (USTs) according to the
actual risk each site poses to human health and the environment.
Agencies that implement the UST program can use RBDM to make determinations
about the extent and urgency of corrective action and about the
scope and intensity of their oversight of corrective action by UST
owners and operators. Where risk-based decision-making is incorporated
into the UST corrective action process, the result is usually called
risk-based corrective action (RBCA). The American Society for Testing
and Materials (ASTM) has issued a standard
for risk-based corrective action
(NOTE: this standard is copyrighted and ASTM charges a fee to print/buy it);
the ASTM standard provides a detailed scientific and technical framework
that can be adapted by Agencies that implement the UST program for
use in their corrective action programs.
RBCA is the integration of site assessment, remedial action selection, and monitoring with US EPA-recommended risk and exposure assessment practices. This creates a process by which corrective action decisions are made in a consistent manner that is protective of human health and the environment. The RBCA process is implemented in a tiered approach, involving increasingly sophisticated levels of data collection and analysis. The assumptions of earlier tiers are replaced with site-specific data and information. Upon evaluation of each tier, the user reviews the results and recommendations and decides whether more site-specific analysis is warranted.
Choose a topic at the top of the page to view OUST-Related Risk Assessment information.