IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/riskan/v21y2001i1p53-62.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Evaluation of the Physical Hazards Associated with Two Remedial Alternatives at a Superfund Site

Author

Listed:
  • Paul K. Scott
  • Alex Pittignano
  • Brent L. Finley

Abstract

This study presents an evaluation of the risks due to the physical hazards associated with two remedial alternatives for a former chemical manufacturing facility in New Jersey. Both the on‐site and off‐site risk of work‐related fatalities during remedy implementation and the risks of accident or accident‐related fatalities during the off‐site transport of site‐related materials were evaluated. The two remedial alternatives evaluated were on‐site containment and excavation with off‐site incineration. The risk of at least one fatality due to a work‐related accident was estimated for on‐site activities associated with each remedial alternative, and for off‐site incineration. The risks of at least one accident and of one accident‐related fatality were calculated with accident and fatality data from the U.S. Department of Transportation. In addition, the risk of at least one accident that might potentially affect a natural resource (e.g., river, lake, or national park) was evaluated. This evaluation indicates that the risk of a work‐related fatality is over an order of magnitude higher, and the risk of an accident or accident‐related fatality is over three orders of magnitude higher, for the excavation/off‐site incineration remedial alternative than for the on‐site containment alternative. Overall, this study indicates that the physical hazards associated with excavation and off‐site incineration are much greater than those associated with on‐site containment for this site. Therefore, if a choice between the two remedial alternatives were to be made based solely on physical hazards and accident risk, the on‐site containment alternative would be more protective of human health and the environment than the excavation/off‐site incineration alternative.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul K. Scott & Alex Pittignano & Brent L. Finley, 2001. "Evaluation of the Physical Hazards Associated with Two Remedial Alternatives at a Superfund Site," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 21(1), pages 53-62, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:riskan:v:21:y:2001:i:1:p:53-62
    DOI: 10.1111/0272-4332.211089
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/0272-4332.211089
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/0272-4332.211089?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:riskan:v:21:y:2001:i:1:p:53-62. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1539-6924 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.