Demonstration Applications of ARAMS for Aquatic and Terrestrial Ecological Risk Assessment

Abstract : The Adaptive Risk Assessment Modeling System (ARAMS) has been developed for the Army to provide the capability to conduct risk assessments associated with exposure to constituents of potential concern. ARAMS provides a reliable and repeatable methodology for conducting collaborative and comparative risk assessments, thus providing a savings in time and cost for conducting such assessments and potentially leading to significant remediation cost savings by providing more accurate risk-based cleanup targets. The objectives of this study were to describe and demonstrate the application of ARAMS for ecological risk characterization at two field sites, an aquatic site and a terrestrial site. Other purposes of the study were to identify errors and data/development gaps, and to validate methods and solutions of ARAMS and its components for ecological risk assessment. ERDC researchers through literature searches and communications with personnel at the Corps of Engineers Center of Expertise for Hazardous, Toxic, and Radiological Waste and Corps districts, identified potential demonstration sites. The candidate sites, which are or were owned or operated by the U.S. Army, Navy, or Air Force, were either components of Superfund projects or were Formerly Used Department of Defense Sites. Langley Air Force Base (LAFB) and Pueblo Chemical Depot (PCD) were selected among the identified sites to demonstrate the capabilities of ARAMS. The reported ecological risk assessments for LAFB and PCD sites were used to obtain data for conducting these demonstrations. At LAFB, risks were evaluated for benthic invertebrates, a fish (Atlantic croaker), a piscivorous bird (belted kingfisher), and a carnivorous mammal (mink).

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