Focus on Sediments:
The “National Sediments Dialogue”

Richard J. Wenning¹ and Greg Planicka²

¹ The Weinberg Group, One Market, Steuart Tower, Suite 1450, San Francisco, California USA 94105  TEL 415-357-1123 / FAX 415-357-3660 / E-MAIL riwe@weinberggroup.com

² National Environmental Policy Institute, 1401 K Street NW, Washington, D.C. USA 20005  TEL 202-857-4784 / FAX 202-833-5977 / E-MAIL gplank@nepi.org

* Richard J. Wenning is the Practice Director for Environmental Management & Risk Services at The Weinberg Group in San Francisco, CA.  Greg Planicka is Director of Programs at NEPI in Washington D.C. and is responsible for the National Sediment Dialogue project.

Contaminated sediment problems represent a complex and multifaceted science, economic, and public policy challenge in the United States and abroad.  Issues of health and ecological risk; the efficacy, risks and high costs of assessment and treatment technologies; appropriate and efficient use of resources; public concern; intricate and sometimes inconsistent statutory authorities, and, overlapping governmental jurisdiction represent some of the complexities.

These complex and interrelated issues are important elements of any decision-making landscape.  And like many other environmental policy challenges, there is no panacea or single remedy for resolving what the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) has characterized as potentially costing hundreds of millions of dollars in future remediation and management costs in the U.S. over the next decade.

The environmental and economic stakes are high, and the level of public concern is increasing.  The presence of contaminated sediments poses a significant barrier to waterway maintenance at many U.S. ports.  The USEPA has identified 96 watersheds containing over one billion cubic yards of contaminated surface sediments.  In addition, there are at least six different federal statutory regimes that provide authority to address sediments.  There are at least as many federal agencies with some responsibility for regulating water resources, including wildlife and sediment.  And, there are many more state and local environmental authorities and transportation, marine / coastal, and economic development agencies with sediment management part of their portfolios.

A Need to Coordinate Science and Policy

Several national and regional organizations, and a countless number of companies and academic institutions have initiated projects and research programs to develop testing methods, assessment tools, management technologies and decision-making matrices for addressing contaminated sediments.  From these efforts, the concept of risk assessment and risk-based decision-making has often emerged as a potentially unifying principle.

Still, consensus on a risk-based approach for prioritizing water bodies, performing the assessments, and selecting remedies for these sites remains an elusive goal.  There is currently no national integrating body for technical and policy experts to debate and reach consensus on appropriate sediment characterization and management techniques.  The process is often made difficult by technical uncertainties or competing objectives.

In the midst of the widely divergent efforts currently underway, the National Environmental Policy Institute (NEPI) has stepped forward.  NEPI intends to bring as many stakeholders as possible together to establish a national framework that encompasses the issues surrounding the management of sediments in the nation’s ports, harbors and waterways.  In particular, NEPI has identified the need for a well-accepted, integrated conceptual risk analysis model (which includes risk assessment, risk management, and risk communication) for managing sediment; as well as a forum for information exchange and education among diverse technical experts and policy makers with sediments decision authority.

The NSD Project

In January 2001, NEPI convened the National Sediments Dialogue (NSD) to address these problems and advance a more integrated, coherent national approach to managing contaminated sediments.  The NSD Working Group is composed of federal, state and local government decision-makers, scientists, economists and public policy professionals drawn from academia, government agencies, industry, and NGOs with expertise in sediments.

The NSD Working Group includes representation from several U.S federal agencies, including USEPA, Navy, Army Corps of Engineers, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Fish & Wildlife Service, and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.  At present, participating state agencies include California, Louisiana, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, and Oregon.  Other participating organizations with a special focus on sediments include the National Academy of Sciences, the Sediment Management Work Group, the Remediation Technology Development Forum and the Water Coalition.

National Sediment Dialogue

The goal of the NSD is to identify and facilitate the actions needed to create more uniform, science-based policies for addressing contaminated sediments in the United States.  To support this goal, the NSD has committed to:

• Facilitate a deeper, more substantive context for sediment management decision-making by integrating and building upon the significant work of the many institutions and technical experts involved in the current policy and technical debates;

• Serve as a forum to share concerns and solutions among diverse stakeholders with regulatory, technical, and policy responsibilities at a variety of contaminated sediments sites and assist in the development of consensus approaches to remediation; and,

• Develop common ground for a national risk analysis framework that addresses contaminated sediments by involving key technical experts and policy makers from a diverse array of public and private stakeholders and engaging elected officials, their staffs and key leadership at both the federal and state levels.

A Risk-Based Framework

Agreement on the construct of a consensus-based risk analysis framework is certainly the first and, perhaps, most daunting challenge facing the NSD.  The purpose of this framework is not to supplant the protocols and requirements of specific statutes or regulatory initiatives; but to provide stakeholders with a unified, tiered approach for addressing complex remediation issues.  NSD participants acknowledge while sediments sites are complex and defy a one-size-fits-all approach, a unified framework can ensure that the best science and policy information is brought to the attention of decision-makers.

The three main components of the framework envisioned  are risk assessment, risk management, and risk communication.

The first component, risk assessment, embodies environmental characterization and the considerable debates over appropriate procedures for conducting screening-level and detailed assessments and how those efforts might vary depending upon the regulatory context and management purposes.  Sediment testing methods, identifying background conditions, selecting endpoints, defining reasonable ecological and human exposure models, and addressing scientific uncertainties are at the core of this debate.

The second component, risk management, poses similar challenges but embodies the remediation and restoration process.  Some stakeholders believe dredging may be the preferred remedy for resolving most contaminated sediment problems and represents a sound strategy for reducing environmental impacts in some waterways.  Other stakeholders caution that ecosystems are much too complex, distinct and varied to predict whether a single remedy will reduce, exacerbate or have no impact at all on ecology.  Still other stakeholders focus on the overall size of the sediments problem, the potential costs involved, and the need to combine a variety of management strategies (e.g., natural attenuation, dredging, in situ capping, and containment).

The third component, risk communication, is a challenge focused squarely on public policy.  The initial efforts of the NSD will focus on depoliticizing environmental issues by focusing stakeholders on the underlying ecological and engineering principles, establishing common ground on the state-of-the-science, and defining the important technical areas requiring further improvements.  While final decision-making often rests on nonscientific reasons, regulatory and policy decision-making should incorporate a strong science base.

The NSD working group embraces risk communication as a key agenda issue.  A large measure of the NSD’s success will rest on  identifying and building consensus on good decision-making models for assessing potential remedies, best practices for validating and monitoring different options, and evaluating the effectiveness of past and present options.  Working towards consensus will demand the involvement of appropriate policy makers and their staffs at the federal and state levels.  A closely related second measure of NSD’s success will entail public involvement and understanding of the benefits and risks of different remedies.

Progress Thus Far

NSD planning meetings in 2000 and early working group meetings in 2001 indicated that the NSD should cover key issues across the spectrum of sediment decision-making from initial site evaluation and risk assessment to public communication and remediation / management.  Over the next year, the NSD Working Group will proceed in a step-wise fashion to tackle each element in the spectrum.

Since its inception last year, the NSD Working Group has identified and discussed a draft set of key issues, in which clarification or greater consensus would substantially advance sediment management decision-making.

Most recently, the NSD Working Group has focused on defining initial screening-level assessments, relevant threshold questions and problem formulation.  In tandem, the working group has begun reviewing existing frameworks and conceptual models, and has begun the daunting task of building a national risk analysis framework for contaminated sediments.  These developments will be captured in an NSD white paper.  NEPI anticipates release of the first draft of NSD’s risk analysis framework as a white paper later this summer, and publication of a final framework document before the end of the year.

In addition to a coherent risk analysis framework, two activities are contemplated as part of the NSD which could provide critical support to risk managers and help meet their future needs.  These include critical evaluation of past and on-going remediation and restoration activities using a technical peer-review forum; and, coordinating and encouraging field trials for technically sound, innovative technologies to determine their appropriateness under field conditions and evaluate long-term effectiveness.

About the National Sediments Dialogue Project

The National Environmental Policy Institute (NEPI) is a non-profit organization that seeks to achieve advances in environmental policy through nonpartisan, consensus-based dialogue.  NEPI has been at the forefront of developing policy recommendations for expediting the cleanup of contaminated sites through its “How Clean is Clean?” projects, Bioavailability Policy Project, and Democratizing Environmental Policy series of regional and national conferences.

Led by NEPI Chairman and former Congressman Don Ritter, Project Director Marianne Lamont Horinko (Clay Associates, Inc.), and NEPI Director of Projects Greg Planicka, the NSD is intended to draw upon the leadership and experience of a wide array of stakeholders in the sediments cleanup debate to foster consensus, information-sharing, and improved cleanups to enhance our nation’s health and environment.

To learn more about the NSD and other NEPI activities, contact Greg Planicka at NEPI or visit their web site at www.nepi.org.

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