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    RISC5 Description
    What's New in RISC 5 
    Key Features in RISC5 
    RISC5 System Requirements
    Additional Features of RISC5 

 RISC5  Description

RISC5 is a software package for performing fate and transport modeling, human health risk assessments and ecological risk assessments for contaminated sites. A unique feature of RISC5 is its ability to perform a backward risk calculation as well as the conventional forward risk calculation. The backward risk calculation in RISC5 refers to calculating a cleanup level for an input value of risk. Fate and transport models are available in RISC5 to estimate receptor point concentrations in groundwater and indoor and outdoor air. No other RISK package offers all this! RISC5 can be used to estimate the potential for adverse human health impacts (both carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic) from up to nine exposure pathways. Additional pathways and other non-human health impacts may be considered in future revisions of RISC.

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 What's New in RISC5 

New Features for RISC5:

·         Food web screening models for terrestrial and aquatic ecological risk assessments

·         Output tables and charts are now created directly in Excel

·         Particulate emission model added

·         New plant uptake model (Trapp and Matthies, 1995)

·         RISC5 model chemical database has been expanded to ~120 chemicals (from 80)

·         User can choose to use either reference concentrations and unit risk factors, or,  inhalation reference doses and inhalation slope factors

·         All chemical toxicity values updated to be current with USEPA values

·         Chemical database is much easier to edit and generate summary tables of chemical properties

·         Mass balanced, depleting source, added to indoor and outdoor air models

·         References provided (on-line and in Excel tables) for all chemical and receptor parameters

·         New databases: 

o       Ecological receptors and receptor-specific information

o       Mammalian and avian toxicity values

o       Worm and plant toxicity values

o       Soil and plant screening values

·         New human receptor profiles added (including ones for additive receptor cases)

·         User can add new receptor and soil profiles and/or may customize default values

·         Sediment was added as a media of concern for human health risk (dermal contact and ingestion exposure pathways)

  RISC 5 Model Surface Water Criteria Data Sets (expanded):

·         United States Environment Protection Agency National Recommended Water Quality Criteria (2004)

·         United Kingdom Environmental Quality Standards (statutory and proposed)

·         Australia and New Zealand Environment and Conservation Council, Guidelines for Fresh & Marine Water Quality (October 2000)

·         European Commission Water Quality Objective

·         Canadian Council of Ministers for the Environment Canadian Environmental Quality Guidelines (December 2003)

·         TCEQ (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) Guidance for Conducting Ecological Risk Assessment at Remediation Sites in Texas (December 2001)

·         MDEQ (Michigan Department of Environmental Quality) Rule 57 Water Quality Values (February 1, 2005)

·         GLWQI (Great Lakes Water Quality Initiative), Water Quality Guidance for the Great Lakes System 40 CFR 132 - Table 2 (March 23, 1997)

·         NYSDEC (New York State Department of Environmental Conservation) Ambient Water Quality Standards and Guidance Values - Table 1 (June 1998, updated January 1999, April 2000, & June 2004)

·         NCDENR (North Carolina Department of Environment & Natural Resources) 15A NCAC 2B or National Criteria per EPA (October 31, 2004)

·         ODEQ (Oregon Department of Environmental Quality) Guidance for Ecological Risk Assessment Level II Screening Level Values (12/2001)

·         WA Ecology (Washington State Department of Ecology), WAC 173-201A Water Quality Standards for Surface Waters of the State of Washington (Updated 7/1/03)

RISC 5 Model Sediment Criteria Datasets (expand ed):

·         ANZECC - Australia and New Zealand Environment and Conservation Council, Guidelines for Fresh & Marine Water Quality (October 2000)

·         ARCS - Assessment and Remediation of Contaminated Sediments Programme

·         CCME - Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment

·         FDEP - Florida Department of Environmental Protection

·         MDEP - Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, Technical Update: Freshwater Sediment Screening Benchmarks for Use Under the Massachusetts Contingency Plan (May 2002)

·         NOAA - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

·         ODEQ - Oregon Department of Environmental Quality Guidance for Ecological Risk Assessment Level II Screening Level Values (12/2001)

·         ORNL - Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee

·         OSWER - Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response

·         RIZA - Netherlands Institute for Inland Water Management and Waste Water Treatment

·         NAWQC - Derived by Equilibrium Partitioning from US EPA National Ambient Water Quality Criterion

·         WA Ecology - Washington State Department of Ecology, WAC 173-204-320 Table 1 (Standards apply to marine sediments located within Puget Sound as defined in WAC 173-204-200(19))

RISC 5 Model Soil and Plant Criteria (new):

·         Oregon - Oregon Department of Environmental Quality Guidance for Ecological Risk Assessment Level II Screening Level Values (12/2001)

·         Texas - TCEQ (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) Guidance for Conducting Ecological Risk Assessment at Remediation Sites in Texas (12/2001)

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Key Features in RISC5

• A customizable chemical database with 82 chemicals

• An Excel spreadsheet based on the RBCA algorithms that can be used to replicate the tiered RBCA process

• A detailed user's manual with three in-depth example problems

• The ability to determine risk-based TPH (total petroleum hydrocarbon) targets using the TPH fractions proposed by the U.S. Air Force led TPH Working Group

• The ability to calculate additive risk due to multiple pathways, compounds and receptors (such as a resident exposed as both a child and an adult)

• A Monte Carlo capability for probabilistic risk evaluation

• Fate and transport models that distinguish between presence and absence of phase-separated product (NAPL) in the source zone

• Ingestion of soil

• Dermal contact with soil

• Ingestion of groundwater

• Dermal contact with groundwater

• Inhalation in the shower

• Inhalation of outdoor air

• Inhalation of indoor air

• Ingestion of surface water

• Dermal contact with surface water

• Johnson and Ettinger indoor air model

• Vadose zone model

• Saturated zone model

• Volatilization from groundwater to indoor and outdoor air

• Outdoor box model

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RISC5 System Requirements

Hardware Requirements

• Windows XP/Vista/Win 7
• Office 2003 or higher (Excel 2003 or greater)
• A Pentium class chip
• 1024 x 760 monitor minimum

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Additional Features in RISC5 

 RISC5 has features that give it even greater flexibility in assessing risk for the following scenarios:

• Irrigation pathways, i.e. water used for gardening but not for indoor usage

• Vegetables grown in contaminated soil

• Two new vapor models , where the vapors are allowed to biodegrade during transport through the unsaturated zone

• Models for surface water and sediment contamination from impacted groundwater and direct comparison with relevant national standards for these media

• The use of groundwater MCLs (maximum concentration levels) and surface water concentrations in addition to acceptable risk levels as the criteria for back-calculating clean-up targets

• The ability to calculate a site-specific target level (SSTL) for a TPH mixture using the site-specific measured concentrations of the TPH fractions detected in the soil

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