A quantitative risk assessment was conducted to estimate the national risk from transporting (a) six toxic-by-inhalation (TIH) chemicals that account for more than 90 percent of total TIH transportation-related risk, (b) liquefied petroleum gas, (c) gasoline, and (d) explosives. For TIH materials, highway and rail transportation and two classes of incidents are examined, those occurring (a) during a traffic accident or train derailment and (b) en route from origin to destination but not during an accident or derailment. For the other toxic materials, only accident-related incidents in highway transportation are considered, because these materials are dominated by highway incidents. An overview is provided of the hazardous materials and their consequences, the risk assessment method, the databases used to determine hazardous materials commodity flow and incident rate, and study results. To illustrate the method used, the risk assessment for ammonia is discussed. Risk distributions and quantitative risk measures for additional materials as calculated in the study are also presented, and conclusions drawn from these results are discussed. This study has demonstrated the capability to evaluate the national risk of transporting certain hazardous materials. The risk distributions provide valuable information on the probability of certain effects in a given time period, whereas risk measures provide a convenient way to compare relative risk for different commodities, transportation modes, and incident types.
2,3,7,8‐tetrachlorodibenzo–p–dioxin (2,3,7,8–TCDD) is known to be most toxic among congeners of polychlorinated dibenzo–p–dioxins (CDD), and is known to cause cancer to humans upon prolonged exposure—even at extremely low dosag. The municipal waste incinerator is one of the combustion devices where literature test result have shown the presence of 2,3,7,8‐TCDD or CDDs in flue gas or ash. A recent report compiled by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [13] also lists other combustion devices such as smelters, sewage sludge incinerators, wire reclamation incinerators, and drum and barrel furnaces. In addition, Sheffield [11] mentions forest fires and several types of chemical production facilities as sources. Des rosier and Lee [2] cite PCB transformer fires as a potential source of 2,3,7,8–TCDD formation. The primary focus of this paper is to present the potential of environmental contamination due to emissions of 2,3,7,8‐TCDD and disposal of fly ash generated from the incineration of municipal waste. Example assessments for municipal incinerators presented in this paper are based on presently available estimation techniques and hence represent estimates for environmental concentrations. exposures and health risks. Although actual emission data are used, uncertainties associated with the estimates cannot be fully assessed until these estimates are compared with some monitoring data, especially concerning environmental concentrations related to indirect exposure pathways.
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