American Petroleum Institute

Primer for Evaluating Ecological Risk at Petroleum Release Sites
 N PUBL 4700

Annotation

PREFACE: To assist site or facility managers, this primer provides brief, simplified guidance for "screening" petroleum release sites for ecological risk to local plants, animals, and/or natural habitats. This project was undertaken to provide an elementary companion to the human health component of the Decision Support System for Exposure and Risk Assessment (DSS software program, API, 1999). The DSS model estimates site-specific human health risks, assists in determining the need for site remediation, and evaluates the uncertainties of model input parameters.

This document focuses on "downstream" facilities (refining and marketing, including retail gas stations) and on petroleum products (versus crude oil), although the concepts in this primer could be modified and usefully applied to other petroleum industry sites. In this primer, the goal of the screening process presented is a documented determination of the likelihood of adverse ecological effects. A low probability of adverse effects indicates that no further ecological assessment is warranted; whereas a high probability of adverse effects—or analytical uncertainty—indicates that more detailed analyses may be appropriate.

Every effort has been made to focus on a few critical ecological risk assessment elements, use existing information/data, and simplify instructions for a preliminary evaluation of ecological risk. When relevant information is unavailable, or when the site investigator is uncertain in an evaluation, an expert should be consulted. Internal company environmental staff, or subject-area consultants with relevant experience, should be able to complete and document the evaluation process presented in this primer in less than one work week, even for complicated sites with documented soil/groundwater impacts. For sites where impacts are localized and limited to surface/subsurface soils, the analysis should require less than one work week.