The overall goal of Project 4 is to better understand the relationship between the observed concentrations in air and sources of airborne PCBs and their breakdown products in ambient and indoor environments. Project 4 provides a path for significant and measureable reduction of human risk through exposure to PCBs and their breakdown products, through significant and measureable improvements in the ability to detect, predict, and attribute these compounds and to assess airborne exposure risks. We further propose to identify the ability of contemporary PCB mitigation methods to reduce population-scale airborne exposure to PCBs. The central hypothesis for Project 4 is that emissions of airborne PCBs and their breakdown products are a function of measureable and quantifiable characteristics of the compounds and environmental matrices on which PCBs reside. A corollary hypothesis is that the effectiveness of remediation efforts is dependent on the successful identification and quantitative characterization of emission sources.
The aims of Project 4 are organized around field studies, state-of-the-art analytical tools and environmental modeling in urban and rural ambient outdoor and indoor environments to quantify sources, emissions, chemical transport, exposure, and fate.
The aims of Project 4 are the following:
Aim 1 : Determine sources of airborne Aroclor and non-Aroclor congeners in urban air. Measurements of airborne PCBs and OH-PCBs; development of chemical transport models; and assessment geographic databases will be used to achieve this aim.
Aim 2 : Characterize the release of airborne PCBs in the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal. Measurements of PCBs and OH-PCBs in sediment, water and air; laboratory experiments that reproduce environmental conditions; and chemical mass balance modeling will be conducted.
Aim 3 : Identification of sources of PCB congeners in indoor air.
This aim i ncludes determination of PCB congeners in building materials and manufacturing processes that produce PCBs found in homes.
Aim 4 : Determination of physical-chemical properties of PCB breakdown products. Laboratory experiments and computational models will be utilized to determine equilibrium and kinetic constants of these compounds.
Project 4 will promote more scientifically-sound and effective action to reduce human exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and breakdown products by identifying major sources of these compounds in ambient and indoor air in urban and rural communities; by quantifying the emissions due to release of PCB mixtures historically produced commercially and now found in the sediments of industrial harbors, landfills, and electrical storage facilities; by quantifying emissions that originate with chemical manufacturing processes commonly used for household paint pigments and other contemporary building materials and commercial products; and providing alternatives to current practices that would cause significant reduction in PCB emissions. The major stakeholders include the Environmental Protection Agency (U.S.EPA) because of their management of the ban of commercial PCB production and their oversight of PCBs in consumer products, sediments, and the environment; the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) and the Center for Disease Control for their monitoring of human harm due to exposure to PCBs; and the Army Corps of Engineers, who is responsible for safe dredging of the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal in East Chicago, Indiana. Additional stakeholders may include: the cities of Chicago, East Chicago, Indiana, Columbus Junction, Iowa; the tribes and agencies affected by nonattainment of PCB water quality criteria due non-Aroclors in Spokane, Washington; suppliers of building materials for homes and schools; manufacturers of pigments and dyes; and organizations that promote sustainable materials free of harmful chemical (U.S. Green Building Council).
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