EPA’ efforts to identify priority chemicals

  

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Two years ago, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) started to study commercial chemicals. The agency continues searching for priority chemicals using an intelligent and effective selection process.

The interest in chemical substances began in 2009 and the EPA came up with 11 action plans to address controversial chemicals or classes of substances including phthalates and perfluorinated compounds.

The EPA then went into detail to find other priority chemicals. Regulations may be created for these chemicals if necessary. EPA’s goal is to identify and select these new substances by the end of 2011 and to review and assess them in 2012.

To do so, the EPA created a two-step process.

                The first step aims at identifying substances that could become priority chemicals. To choose the substances to study, the EPA will first look if a chemical meets one of the “six factors”. These factors qualify chemicals according to their nature.

The six factors are:

• Is the chemical linked to adverse reproductive or developmental effects
• Is the substance persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic
• Is it a know or possible carcinogen
• Is it found in children’s products
• Is it found in consumer’s products
• Is it detected in human blood, urine, or tissue in biomonitoring programs

Then, the agency will use data from other government agencies such as the National Toxicology Program or the International Agency for Research or Cancer, as well as from its own Integrated Risk Information System and from chemical manufacturers.

                The second step will enable the EPA to examine in detail the substances found out in the first step. These substances will be ranked according to their risk – those with the greatest risk will be at the top- in order to keep the effort focused on chemicals of high concern.

The EPA felt the need to gather suggestions and advice from representatives of the chemical industry and health advocacy groups about the priority chemicals selecting process. Therefore the agency planned and conducted 7 webinars that were very useful.

The most relevant ideas that came out from these webinar were:

• To have a precise selection right at the first step by adding selecting factors. It will enable the EPA to identify more chemicals.
• To include substances that can cause damage to the nervous system.
• To consider the production volume of a substance in its exposure. In fact, studying production volumes may lead to better estimates of exposure. The two main things to know about a chemical are its hazard and its exposure information.
• To publish the criteria used in order to make this selection process easier for people to understand
• To work with other regulatory agencies involved in chemical assessment such as the European Chemical Agency
• To use what the state regulators have done on chemicals

The American Chemistry Council (ACC, a trade association of chemical manufacturers) suggested another methodology in selecting priority chemicals. This methodology is a tool that gives scores to chemicals based to their toxicity and their potential for exposure. It will enable EPA to evaluate the toxicity of a compound by studying its structure –activity relationship. If hazard data is lacking for a chemical, the ranking tool will automatically give it a high hazard ranking. If the EPA chooses to use this methodology, chemical manufacturers will have incentive to give the Agency the information relative to the toxicity of their products. The interest of this tool is to determine in an easiest way which substances should undergo review first.    

The ACC methodology could be an interesting and effective means for the EPA and its selection process for priority chemical. However, the agency has not given its opinion on ACC’s proposal yet.

If you have any question about priority chemicals, or need assistance with environmental exposures to chemicals, please call Brian Moran, P.E., LSP, at (508) 747 – 7900 x 189.

Information in this article taken from Sept 19, 2011 article by Cheryl Hogue, C&EN Washington