Risk Assessment

  • Environmental Risk Assessment (EES Diagram)

An Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA) is the evaluation of chemical agents (i.e., harmful chemicals), humans, and ecological resources.  In simpler terms, an ERA is a method to determine how the presence or release of a chemical will interact with the environment (i.e., soil, water, air) and ultimately affect humans.  For example, if a petroleum release occurs at a nearby gas station and enters the ground water that has a gradient toward a nearby residential area, how will this release affect the people living in those homes?  In order to perform an ERA, one must have an understanding of 1) the amount or concentration of the chemical in the given environmental medium, 2) the amount of contact a person or ecological receptor will have with the chemical, and 3) the inherent toxicity of the chemical.  These factors are then entered into fate and transport modeling programs to predict the future risk.

For the past 15 years, EES has been employing our expertise and state of the art modeling programs to perform ERAs.  The ERAs have been performed for legal, local, state, and federal entities to provide sound solutions to environmental health and safety issues.