Model Standards and Techniques for Control of Radon in New Buildings

1994 ◽  
Vol 56 (1-4) ◽  
pp. 5-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
D.M. Murane

Abstract In response to a requirement in the Indoor Radon Abatement Act of 1988, The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been developing 'Model Standards and Techniques for Control of Radon in New Buildings'. A draft of the Model Standards was developed in close co-operation with the building industry and disseminated for public comment in April 1993. A final Standard will be published by the end of 1993. This paper describes the recommended construction techniques and implementation procedures contained in the draft. Use of the recommended standards and techniques is linked to the potential for elevated radon levels that is predicted for different geographical areas of the United States. The paper emphasises the cost-effectiveness of building-in-radon-resistance in new homes, and highlights the use of construction techniques that many builders already use as standard building practice.

1992 ◽  
Vol 20 (3-2) ◽  
pp. 523-525
Author(s):  
Penelope Fenner-Crisp

The US Environmental Protection Agency, under 2 of its legislative mandates, has the authority to require the testing of industrial and pesticide chemicals. Among the testing requirements, particularly in chronic studies, are those relating to hematology, clinical chemistry, and urinalysis. Some of these requirements will be discussed in detail. Comments on the usefulness of the current requirements and recommendations for changes will be solicited from the meeting participants.


1988 ◽  
Vol 24 (1-4) ◽  
pp. 483-485
Author(s):  
R.J. Guimond (INVITED)

Abstract Indoor radon levels in excess of 100,000 Bq.m-3 have been measured in homes in various areas in the United States. Thousands of homes have been identified with radon levels exceeding 1000 Bq.m-3. To respond to this serious public health problem, the United States has initiated a programme to assess the health risks posed by radon throughout the country and reduce unnecessary exposures from indoor radon. This paper provides an overview of the key elements that make up the strategy as implemented by the US Environmental Protection Agency. Some of the critical projects are described. These include national and regional surveys, health studies, geological mapping and characterisation studies, land evaluation activities, mitigation and prevention activities, and issuing health guidelines. The paper also reviews the recent legislation passed by the US Congress regarding indoor radon.


2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Crook ◽  
R.Y. Surampalli

Water reuse is well established in the United States, with uses ranging from pasture irrigation using reclaimed water that has received a low level of treatment, to augmentation of potable water supplies with highly treated reclaimed water. There are no federal regulations governing water reuse and criteria are developed at the state level. Criteria differ between states that have adopted regulations or guidelines, but criteria among states where water reuse is prevalent are similar and tend to be conservative, with public health protection being the most important consideration. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has published guidelines for water reuse that include recommended criteria for various reclaimed water applications.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 136-158
Author(s):  
Kate Lewis Hood

Abstract This article offers an account of “toxic infrastructures” as mutually material and discursive arrangements operating in the postwar, postcrash, and settler colonial landscapes of the United States. It specifically responds to Jennifer Scappettone’s multimodal poetic work The Republic of Exit 43, developed after the author’s discovery that the industrial landfill site she grew up alongside in New York had been classified by the US Environmental Protection Agency as requiring federal intervention. Tracing Scappettone’s poetic geographies from the “corporate dump” of Syosset Landfill to the more (in)famous waste site Fresh Kills, the article argues that Scappettone exposes the ways that certain bodies and ecologies are rendered physically and conceptually toxic and implicates readers in the uneven social, embodied, and ecological conditions of composition and response. It suggests that Scappettone’s practices of collage, salvage, and collaborative performance destabilize lyric subjectivity to address a “garbage arcadia” compounding the material accumulations of US consumerism and neoliberal financialization with longer processes of dispossession and displacement. Reading this text with feminist materialisms and Julian Talamantez Brolaski’s queer Indigenous poetry, the article considers how poetics might reckon with the material conditions and residues of uneven wasting and generate situated, critical, and relational approaches to toxic infrastructures.


1984 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory A. Daneke

AbstractDespite all the rhetoric, efforts to reform environmental regulation in the United States offer little promise of relief. Incapacitating the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and shifting responsibilities to the states hardly insures a less burdensome situation for the business community. At best, basic reform strategies merely add on various efficiency devices (bubbles, cost-benefit analyses, etc.) without addressing issues of overall regulatory performance. Moreover, none of the reform strategies, thus far, get at the underlying statutes and processes of environmental regulation which tend to generate a highly combative milieu. This discussion explores these weaknesses, and forwards an alternative approach, which is similar to regulatory processes in Europe and Canada (involving reduced litigation and increased negotiation).


Minerva ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 535-558
Author(s):  
Jack Wright ◽  
Tiago Mata

Abstract The agencies of the government of the United States of America, such as the Food and Drug Administration or the Environmental Protection Agency, intervene in American society through the collection, processing, and diffusion of information. The Presidency of Barack Obama was notable for updating and redesigning the US government’s information infrastructure. The White House enhanced mass consultation through open government and big data initiatives to evaluate policy effectiveness, and it launched new ways of communicating with the citizenry. In this essay we argue that these programs spelled out an emergent epistemology based on two assumptions: dispersed knowledge and a critique of judgment. These programs have redefined the evidence required to justify and design regulatory policy and conferred authority to a new kind of expert, which we call epistemic consultants.


Author(s):  
J. R. Millette ◽  
R. S. Brown

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has labeled as “friable” those building materials that are likely to readily release fibers. Friable materials when dry, can easily be crumbled, pulverized, or reduced to powder using hand pressure. Other asbestos containing building materials (ACBM) where the asbestos fibers are in a matrix of cement or bituminous or resinous binders are considered non-friable. However, when subjected to sanding, grinding, cutting or other forms of abrasion, these non-friable materials are to be treated as friable asbestos material. There has been a hypothesis that all raw asbestos fibers are encapsulated in solvents and binders and are not released as individual fibers if the material is cut or abraded. Examination of a number of different types of non-friable materials under the SEM show that after cutting or abrasion, tuffs or bundles of fibers are evident on the surfaces of the materials. When these tuffs or bundles are examined, they are shown to contain asbestos fibers which are free from binder material. These free fibers may be released into the air upon further cutting or abrasion.


1989 ◽  
Vol 21 (6-7) ◽  
pp. 685-698
Author(s):  
J. J. Convery ◽  
J. F. Kreissl ◽  
A. D. Venosa ◽  
J. H. Bender ◽  
D. J. Lussier

Technology transfer is an important activity within the ll.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Specific technology transfer programs such as the activities of the Center for Environmental Research Information, the Innovative and Alternative Technology Program, as well as the Small Community Outreach Program are used to encourage the utilization of cost-effective municipal pollution control technology. Case studies of three technologies including a plant operations diagnostic/remediation methodology, alternative sewer technologies and ultraviolet disinfection are presented. These case studies are presented retrospectively in the context of a generalized concept of how technology flows from science to utilization which was developed in a study by Allen (1977). Additional insights from this study are presented on the information gathering characteristics of engineers and scientists which may be useful in designing technology transfer programs. The recognition of the need for a technology or a deficiency in current practice are important stimuli other than technology transfer for accelerating the utilization of new technology.


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