The Risk Assessment Section provides a valuable resource to the Superfund Branch and the Division of Waste Management. Environmental Risk Assessments are reviewed and evaluated under this section, as well as review of risk-related calculations and proposals, to ensure that appropriate risk scenarios and parameters are employed in calculations. The section also serves to provide long-term review and oversight of sites that have reduced exposure risk to humans and the environment but where contamination may remain in place and therefore have property-usage restrictions and/or other controls in place that require periodic monitoring.
Risk Assessment Reviews
The Risk Assessment Section provides technical assistance to the Hazardous Waste Branch, Solid Waste Branch, and Underground Storage Tank Branch, in addition to their primary duties for the Superfund Branch. The section assists with a variety of technical issues including air dispersion modeling, vapor intrusion, statistical evaluation of groundwater parameters and constituents, and calculation of screening levels for constituents which lack them. This section also provides assistance to the Division of Water on recommendations for fish consumption, as well as assistance and technical oversight to businesses, state and federal agencies, local governments, and the general public on the development, interpretation, and implementation of environmental protection for human health and the environment.
Managed Sites
Sites that are closed as managed under 401 KAR 100:030 are required to maintain use restrictions, and submit to the division regular certifications and reviews, providing documentation as necessary and asserting that any institutional or engineering controls remain in place, function properly, and remain protective. The Risk Assessment Section, in concert with other sections in the branch, assists with the performance of routine field audits of managed sites.