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 Recommendations
The research recommendations of the workgroup are ambitious, and perfect
information will never be available. Recognizing this dilemma, workgroup
members developed practical, short-term recommendations for improving risk
characterization of dredged material management projects. Figure 1 depicts a
risk-based framework proposed by the workgroup for integration into the existing
USACE four-tier framework. It begins with conservative screening phases
followed by increasingly complex levels of analysis. Screening steps include use
of sediment quality values that should be used only for screening, not for risk
estimation. Regulators must be explicit about the uncertainty in identifying and
using sediment quality values and other benchmarks. Higher phases, reserved for
complex projects, should include use of probabilistic methods. More work is
needed to integrate the proposed framework into the existing USACE framework.
The working group recommends that the USACE field staff be instrumental in
performing this task, consulting with risk assessors to complete the task.
Early framework phases could be automated after the USACE considers how
risk assessment could augment the less complex decisions that the USACE staff
must make. Interested individuals and groups should be included in this process.
No criteria were developed for advancing to higher phases; however, the group
recommended that analytical and remedial costs should be balanced against
expected reductions in risk.
The risk assessment framework should be used and sources of uncertainty
made transparent for physical and chemical effects of dredged material operations
and disposal. Risk assessment must be consistently applied, not used just when
permitting decisions have become controversial. However, uncertainty tools are
most useful when there is a great deal of uncertainty about potential risk and less
useful when there is clearly very low risk or very high risk. One beneficial use of
risk assessment and probabilistic analysis would be to segregate sediment that
requires special management from sediment that does not require special
management.
To fulfill these recommendations, the USACE should initiate training of field
staff in ecological risk assessment of dredging operations and analytic tools for
evaluating uncertainty. This training should distinguish between risk assessment
for cleanup dredging and for navigation dredging.
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Chapter 4 Risk Characterization Workgroup Summary
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