Portland Harbor Community Advisory Group
February 11, 2009
Meeting Minutes by Jackie L. Calder
 
Present at meeting:
 
Jim Robison             jimrobison@aol.com                  Chairperson        
Robin Plance            rgplance@hotmail.com              Vice Chairperson, St. Johns   NA
                                                                          Education and Outreach Chair
Jackie Calder          cleanriveroregon@yahoo.com  Secretary,University Park NA
Darise Weller         dweller972@comcast.net          Treasurer, Linnton NA 
 
Environment:
Jane Harris             jane@oregon-health.org            Oregon Center for Environmental
Jan Secunda          tede@stephouse.net                                 Sierra Club
 
   Absent:
Recreation:
Bill Egan                  fishcrappie@yahoo.com        Oregon Bass and Panfish Club
 
Education:
Trish Graf                pgraf02@hotmail.com                 Portland State, PCC     
 
Environment:
Travis Williams     travis@willamette-riverkeeper.org Willamette Riverkeeper
 
At Large:
Bill MacCauley      503-253-2491                                 Retired longshoreman
Tom Chisolm         o2boutdoors@yahoo.com                      Citizen       
 
***********************************
ATTENDEES
 
Jim Robison                        Chair, PHCAG         jimrobison@jimrobison.org               
Bill Egan                              OBPC                         fishcrappie@yahoo.com
Barbara Smith                   LWG                          barbara@harrisandsmith.com
Jane Harris                          OCEH                        jane@oregon-health.org
Jackie Calder                      PHCAG, Sec             cleanriveroregon4@yahoo.com
Jan Secunda                        PHCAG, Sierra C.   tede@stephouse.net
Judy Smith                          EPA                            smith.judy@epa.gov
Heidi Bullock                     Landau Assoc.       hbullock@landauinc.com
Laura Kennedy                 LWG                          laurakennedy@kennedyjenks.com
Rachel Wray                       Port of Portland    rachel.wray@portofportland.com
Jim McKenna                     Port of Portland    jim.mckenna@portofportland.com
Jim Anderson                    DEQ                           anderson.jim@deq.state.or.us
Erich Wilhelm                    Wilhelm Trucking ewilhelm@wilhelmtruck.com
Jesse Starr                           ARCADIS                 jesse.starr@arcadis- us. com
Brooke Borkoski              ARCADIS                 brooke.borkoski@arcadis-us.com
Taku Fuji                                                                 norwind1@hotmail.com
Jeff Miller                            Miller-Nash             jeff.miller@millernash.com
Joan Rothlein                                                         rothlein@gmail.com
Greg Madden                     Neighbor                  gmadden@madfab.com
Chip Humphrey                EPA                            Humphrey.chip@epa.gov
Patti Howard                     A Fritz-Commissioner patti.howard@ci.portland.or.us
Cary Turkon                      A Fritz- Commissioner cary.turkon@ci.portland.or.us
Pamela Plance                   NPNS                         pamela@npnscommunity.org
Heather Brunelle                                  heatherjacob@earthlink.net
Marcia Danab                    DEQ                           Danab.marcia@deq.state.or.us
Steph. Heldt                        NW Pipe Co            sheldt@nwpipe.com
Le Ann Barky                     Attorney                  baileyle@ad.com
Mike McCabe                     State Lands             mike.mccabe@state.or.us
Anna St. John                     Maul Foster Palonci   astjohn@maulfoster.com
John Malek                          Parametrix              jmalek@parametrix.com
Ron French                         CDM                          frenchrd@cdm.com
Brad Hermanson             Parametrix              bhermanson@parametrix.com
Aron Borok                        ZI                               
Sue MacMillan                   URS                            susan_macmillan@urscorp.com
Sarah Munto
February 11, 2009
Human Health Risk Assessment and the
Portland Harbor Superfund Site
 
Jim Robison opened meeting at 6:05. He requested General Announcements.
 
Dana Devolley is here from EPA on Human Health Risk Assessment
Jim Anderson: DEQ Sediment Characterization is online.
Jackie: Marcia Danab has obtained the Dept of Environmental Quality the use of their auditorium for the PHCAG’s next meeting—March 1, 2009 located at
2020 SW 4th Avenue, 4th floor.
Toxicologist from DEQ Human Risk Assessment.
If you pollute then you must clean up because it may cause harm.
 
Risk---is the probability of harm.
Risk Assessment—technical advice—evaluates what risk is.
What are the elements of Risk Assessment?
1.     Hazard Identification
2.     Exposure assessment
3.     Toxicity assessment
4.     Risk Characterization
 
Risk Management—makes decisions, or how best to deal with the risk.
 
Hazard Identification—what are the chemicals of interest?
DATA
 Categorized into Two parts
   Exposure assessment—how do humans contact.
   Toxicity Assessment—How bad is the chemical. Done by EPA pathway?
 
Those combine into the Risk Characterization.
This is derived from DATA.
How much exposure?
How bad is the chemical?
What is the source of the chemical?
What is the pathway?
What are the Receptors—which are people. In addition, eco animals but that’s next time.
 
·        Kids on beach.
·        Anglers
·        Swimmers
·        Dockworkers
Options:
Remove pathway
Remove people from source and pathway
Remove source.
 
Jim R: What about a combination of chemicals? Is it worse than additive? Or synergistic—such as smoking and asbestos—they do not just add together, they multiply geometrically.
EPA tests combinations and how they affect fish.
And combinations of solvents—
Additive is their sort of worst-case scenario. Some chemicals compete for influence.
Worst is PCB’s, PAH’s.
Robin: Upland is a very important source for solvents because solvents have a tendency to attach and carry other things into pathways.
Jane Harris: The whole paradigm is sometime using old theories and now current science.
 
Dose Response: Ask the question how much of the chemical cause what level of sickness. 
       PAH’S might be more toxic to children. If exposed in youth then it is equal to a lifetime of exposure. EPA will look at those factors. Can be worse than for an adult.
            The effect of eating fish varies with how much fish are you eating and how concentrated is the chemical is the approach to evaluate on how the combination of effects will be detrimental.
Bill Egan: But you are not describing what is x amount of chemical is affecting which fish and what is the health risk. We have people fishing for sturgeon so what are the figures for sturgeon?
Jan: You know different cultures eat various parts of the fish like Vietnamese do eat the heads of fish, which is detrimental to their health. How are we going to communicate to them?
 
SEE EHAP studies.  
http://www.oregon.gov/DHS/ph/shine/phsite.shtml
After Round 2, they decided that the greatest impact would be from the fish that are local and nontransient. The lamprey was studied by the tribes (Siletz) back in 2005.
The concern with lead is with children.
Mercury is studied for fetuses’ susceptibility.
Robin: Are we including current studies into the Portland Harbor study?
Mike: We mostly examine the reference to rats who are used for testing rather than humans.
CARCINOGENS—The decisions will be based on any exposure to carcinogen is injurious in any case not like single chemicals that have threshold where there begins an effect.
One in one million is the least that is acceptable. Higher than one to one million is unacceptable exposure rate for humans.
If PCB’s in Harbor, what is the risk level for humans?
The Portland Harbor is looking at the effects of carcinogen but the health department is not.
Jim R: What about the terminal effects? Or the developmental effects?
They have some PBDE samples from sturgeon, salmon, and bass.
They have a cancer number for “Decca.
 
Jim McKenna—introduced Laura Kennedy from the LWG.
 
What are we doing here in the Portland Harbor…?
·        Using the Programmatic Health Plan 2004
·        Analyzed Data from Sampling
·        Studied literature that is pertinent
 
Baseline Risk Assessment will occur next summer
Looking at assessment made on the river as it is today.
·        Set up risked based rules
·        Sediment, water, biota
·        Sediment cleanup will be in Feasibility study.
 
Jim R: Are you looking at chemicals that evaporate and affect humans from the air?
Laura: No
Robin: What if there is an inversion and exposure to the river?
Laura: They determine how much volume water actually touches or affects a diver or an angler, beach user?
Jim R: Is it based on how many people are exposed?
Laura: Here is the chart of Exposure Assumptions.

• Used data from health department for salmon, sturgeon and lamprey.
• They assume that people ingest fish with the maximum toxicity.
• The next step is analyzing fish consumption.
• Review of bioaccumulation in fish. What can we do with sediment to reduce risk factors in the consumed fish?
• Risk base goals
• Ranges of risk levels
• Different receptors

100 micrograms per kilogram of pcb’s.
100 ppb to 1000 ppb
Robin: My concern is that because this harbor is so active that the tendency would be to err in the side of less clean, is that so? The final decisions on that will be made when the baseline study is complete and when the EPA makes their conclusions.
 
CHIP HUMPHREY
 
We will be taking the 800 tables to determine what levels to use for Human Risk Assessment.
Sometimes we take various levels and from different areas in order to prioritize them.
We will determine how much of the site can we actually remediate. We will select some of the worst spots and continue in descending order depending on cost and participation.
As managers, we analyze what can we reduce, and what are the constraints in order to achieve a good clean up level then we determine Preliminary Remediation Goals.
Our question is: Given this number x (level of toxicity), what needs to be done to achieve z (level of acceptable hygiene.)
We use National contingency criteria—to determine what needs to be done.
Jim announced that the time was up for the meeting. He thanked all of the speakers for coming and presenting. He thanked all those who came and contributed for their efforts. He thanked all the visitors and suggested that they return. Jim Robison adjourned the meeting.