Environmental Research Foundation  [Printer-friendly version]
August 29, 2006

ANNOTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ON CUMULATIVE RISK (DRAFT 1.7)

By Peter Montague (peter@rachel.org)

[Introduction: The latest version of this bibliography can be found
online with live links: http://tinyurl.com/rhggf. Important items
are marked with a double asterisk.

"Cumulative risk" is the term EPA uses for what I call "multiple
stressors" -- many stresses impacting a person or a community or an
ecosystem simultaneously. In California, CalEPA has committed itself
to taking "cumulative risk" into account when making decisions,
especially decisions with an environmental justice aspect to them. New
Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) has indicated an
interest in this subject as well. This raises at least two questions:
how to evaluate multiple stressors, and how to factor the result into
decisions. This bibliography lists articles that provide background
for thinking about "cumulative risk" and decision-making.]

** Arnold, Craig Anthony (Tony). "Planning Milagros: Environmental
Justice and Land Use Regulation." Denver University Law Review Vol.
76 (1998), pgs. 1-152. [Describes a new "land use planning model of
environmental justice" in which "residents of minority and low-income
neighborhoods identify not only the activities they wish to exclude
from their neighborhoods, but also their visions for what they wish to
include in their neighborhoods; in other words, their visions of the
public good." The main argument can be found in Section IV ("Land Use
Planning & Regulation: Another Vision of Environmental Justice," pgs.
89-106), and Section V ("Land Use Regulatory Mechanisms," pgs.
106-140.)]

Bennett, Ruth. "Risky Business; The Science of Decision Making
Grapples with Sex, Race, and Power." Science News Vol. 158, No. 12
(September 16, 2000), pg. 190 and following pages. [White males
differ from non-whites and from women in how their perceive risk. So
how can we determine what is an "acceptable risk"?]

Corburn, Jason. "Bringing Local Knowledge into Environmental Decision
Making: Improving Urban Planning for Communities at Risk." Journal of
Planning Education and Research Vol. 22, Part 4 (2003), pgs. 420-433.

Corburn, Jason. "Combining Community-Based Research and Local
Knowledge to Confront Asthma and Subsistence-Fishing Hazards in
Greenpoint/Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York." Environmental Health
Perspectives Vol. 110, Supplement 2 (April 2002), pgs. 241-248.

Corburn, Jason. "Environmental Justice, Local Knowledge, and Risk: The
Discourse of a Community-Based Cumulative Exposure Assessment."
Environmental Management Vol. 29, No. 4 (April, 2002), pgs. 451-466.

Corburn, Jason. "Urban planning and health disparities: Implications
for research and practice." Planning Practice & Research Vol. 20 No. 2
(May 2005), pgs. 111-126.

Council on Environmental Quality, "Definition of cumulative impact" in
40 CFR Section 1508.7.

** Council on Environmental Quality. Considering Cumulative Effects
Under the National Environmental Policy Act. Washington, D.C.:
Council on Environmental Quality, 1997. [5 Megabyte PDF] Very
useful. Contains an Appendix titled "Summaries on Cumulative Effects
Analysis Methods."

** Dannenberg, Andrew L. and others. "Growing the Field of Health
Impact Assessment in the U.S.; An Agenda for Research and Practice."
American Journal of Public Health Vol. 96 No. 2 (February 2006), pgs.
262-270. [Links within this article can connect the reader to a rich
collection of documents on health impact assessment (HIA), a technique
for analyzing human health impacts of proposed projects or actions.]

** Environmental Law Institute. Opportunities for Advancing
Environmental Justice; An Analysis of U.S. EPA Statutory Authorities.
Washington, D.C.: Environmental Law Institute, November, 2001. Just
as the title says, an evaluation of opportunities in existing statutes
for EPA to advance environmental justice.

Fox, Mary A., John D. Groopman, and Thomas A. Burke. "Evaluating
Cumulative Risk Assessment for Environmental Justice: A Community Case
Study." Environmental Health Perspectives Vol. 110 Supplement 2
(April 2002, pgs. 203-209. ["Cumulative risk assessment adds a health
dimension to simple pollutant concentrations and will produce a more
comprehensive understanding of environmental inequities."]

** Kearney, Gavin. "Minnesota's Call to Action." In Richard
Hofrichter, editor, Health and Social Justice, subtitled "Politics,
Ideology and Inequity in the Distribution of Disease -- a Public
Health Reader" (San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 2003) with new and updated
links. [The Minnesota Department of Health has adopted modern public
health goals, embodied in Goal 18: to "foster the understanding and
promotion of social conditions that support health" and health equity.
This is the story of Goal 18 and the "Call to Action" report that it
provoked.]

MacDonald, Lee H. "Evaluating and Managing Cumulative Effects: Process
and Constraints," Environmental Management Vol. 26, No. 3 (2000),
pgs. 299-315.

Montague, Peter. "Getting Beyond Risk Assessment." Rachel's Democracy
& Health News #846 (March 16, 2006). [Criticizes traditional
quantitative risk assessment and briefly describes a few other
techniques for involving citizens in decision-making.]

Montague, Peter. "Health and 'Environmental Health:' Expanding the
Movement." Rachel's Democracy & Health News #843 (Feb. 23, 2006).
[Argues that environmental health advocates could find new allies by
expanding their definition to include three environments -- the
natural, the built, and the social.]

Montague, Peter. "Reducing the Harms Associated with Risk
Assessments." Environmental Impact Assessment Review Vol. 24 (2004),
pgs. 733-748. [Describes some shortcomings of traditional
quantitative risk assessment and suggests remedies.]

Montague, Peter. Selected Bibliography on the Social Determinants of
Health. New Brunswick, N.J.: Environmental Research Foundation, 2006.
[The social determinants of health -- inequalities, social exclusion,
social isolation, pyramids of status, racism, low income, stress, job
loss, lack of control over one's circumstances -- are major
determinants of health and could be considered in health impact
assessments and in cumulative risk assessments, though usually they
are not.]

Montague, Peter. "The Emperor of Risk Assessment Isn't Wearing Any
Clothes." Rachel's Democracy & Health News #831 (Dec. 1, 2005). [By
focusing on the "most exposed individual," and not on cumulative
releases and exposures, traditional quantitative risk assessments have
inadvertently contributed to the contamination of the entire planet
with industrial poisons.]

** National Environmental Justice Advisory Council. Ensuring Risk
Reduction in Communities with Multiple Stressors: Environmental
Justice and Cumulative Risks/Impacts. Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, Dec., 2004. Recommendations to U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency from its National Environmental
Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC); results of an 18-month study by a
subcommittee of NEJAC.

Slovic, Paul. "The Risk Game." The Journal of Hazardous Materials
Vol. 86 (Sep. 14, 2001), pgs. 17-24. ["Trying to address risk
controversies primarily with more science is, in fact, likely to
exacerbate conflict.... Danger is real but risk is socially
constructed."]

** U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. EPA's Framework for
Community-Based Environmental Protection. EPA 237-K-99-001.
Washington, D.C.: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, February,
1999. [This document describes a new approach to environmental
protection, which includes consideration of "all elements of an
ecosystem" (pg. 9), plus many of the elements of a precautionary
approach.]

** U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Framework for Cumulative
Risk Assessment. EPA/630/P-02/001F. Washington, D.C. U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, May, 2003. [This framework document
describes how EPA plans to develop cumulative risk guidelines.]

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Framework for Ecological Risk
Assessment. EPA/630/R-92/001. Washington, D.C. U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency, February, 1992. [This framework document describes
how EPA planned in 1992 to develop ecological risk assessment
guidelines.]

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Guidance on Cumulative Risk
Assessment of Pesticide Chemicals That Have a Common Mechanism of
Toxicity." Washington, D.C.: Office of Pesticide Programs, U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency. Jan. 14, 2002.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Guidelines for Ecological Risk
Assessment. EPA/630/R-95/002F. Washington, D.C. U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency, April, 1998. [This is the "final" document guiding
ecological risk assessments within EPA.]

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Environmental
Publications Information System [NEPIS]. List of EPA Report Titles.
April 9, 2006. [All of the reports listed here can be downloaded from
the web by searching for the document number in the "simple search"
box at the nepis.epa.gov web site.]

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Preliminary Cumulative Risk
Assessment of the Organophosphorous Pesticides. Washington, D.C.:
Office of Pesticides programs, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,
December 2, 2001. [This is an example of what EPA/630/P-02/001F, EPA's
Framework for Cumulative Risk Assessment (pg. 9), terms an "aggregate
risk assessment" and NOT a "cumulative risk assessment."]

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Risk Assessment Forum.
"Documents available from the U.S. EPA Risk Assessment Forum." April
10, 2006.

Wenzel, Lauren. Environmental Risk in Indian Country. U.S. National
Environmental Publications Information System [NEPIS] Environmental
Protection Agency, undated [1992?]. NEPIS document number 171R92014.
[Emphasizes the importance of cultural and social factors in
predisposing a group of people to particular risks.]