Meeting of the Scientific Review Panel for Toxic Air Contaminants on December 5, 2008

The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) is required to develop guidelines for conducting health risk assessments under the Air Toxics Hot Spots Program (Health and Safety Code Section 44360(b)(2)). 

Revised guidelines for noncancer risk assessment were approved by the Scientific Review Panel for Toxic Air Contaminants (SRP) on June 18, 2008.  The SRP has also been reviewing revised Reference Exposure Levels (RELs) for acetaldehyde, acrolein, arsenic, formaldehyde, manganese and mercury derived using this updated methodology.  This review will continue at the meeting on December 5, 2008.  These documents are available for download below.  The draft documents for acetaldehyde, acrolein, formaldehyde and manganese contain revisions, visible in underline, pursuant to the discussion at the October 30th SRP meeting and other comments from Panel members.  The other two documents (those describing the RELs for arsenic and mercury) are unmodified from the versions that were presented at the October 30th meeting.

Also at the December 5, 2008 meeting the SRP will give further consideration to the revised Technical Support Document for Cancer Potency Factors.  This describes updated methodology for estimation of cancer potency factors for use in the Air Toxics Hot Spots program, including consideration of the impact of early in life exposures.  This document is a revision of the draft which we presented at the October 30th SRP meeting.  The document is available for download below. 

The agenda, timing and location of the meeting are given on the California Air Resources Board’s web site at www.arb.ca.gov/