Dear Vapor Intrusion Community Member,
Please consider joining the upcoming hybrid (virtual and in person) 2023 EPA (RCRA/ORD) VI Science Workshop within the AEHS conference: Selecting Sampling Strategies for Efficient & Economical Vapor Intrusion Site Assessment & Long-Term Management – forming Soil Gas Safe Communities, on Tuesday March 21, 2023 from 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM PST. The workshop has been planned by U.S. EPA’s Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery and Office of Research and Development.
Background
The typical Vapor Intrusion site assessment approach uses a very small number of ‘randomly-timed’ samples to characterize indoor air exposure point concentration (EPC) distributions. This practice continues after more than a decade of widely presented studies that highlight how it can result in false-negative decisions and poor characterization of long-term exposures.
ObjectivesEWe want to better understand the most important social and technological barriers/challenges we need to overcome for the routine practice of VI site assessment to ensure health protectiveness. For example, access to sample the indoor air exposure point is often limited, which places a major constraint on the accuracy of indoor air based VI exposure assessments given building-specific variability. Even when given a reasonable amount of repeated access to personal living spaces for sampling (from some buildings), data rich studies of VI ‘research buildings’ have shown how difficult it is to measure the most important periods of exposure, such as the reasonable maximum exposure (RME).
Well-established tools that can improve VI assessments will be discussed, including:
· Building pressure cycling (BPC)/controlled pressure method (CPM) [discussed in previous workshops see (www.iavi.rti.org) for recordings] · Field portable GC/MS systems, and real-time on-site continuous GC systems
· Long-term passive samples
· Use of Indicators & tracers to help schedule VOC sampling or interpret results
In summary, we want to stimulate the needed and ongoing re-evaluation of the state of the practice for verifiably reducing VI exposures nationally. This will be covered in both feature and invited presentations and panel discussions. We will discuss:
· Improved site assessment and management strategies
· Ways to incentivize their adoption
· Specific proposals for increasing the transparency of the level of protection provided
As a key member of the VI community, we value your input on these questions and invite you to submit feedback during our open discussion periods at the conference or by submitting feedback directly to our workshop email address, indoorairvaporintrusion@rti.org.
There is no cost to attend this virtual webinar*. To receive a free enrollment voucher, please fill out this form (https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/7105452487017058133). Attendees may choose to listen using computer or web conferencing audio. As webinar participants you will have the opportunity to submit questions online through the webinar software or directly to our conference email address, indoorairvaporintrusion@rti.org.
Thanks for your interest and feedback,
Henry Schuver, (schuver.henry@epa.gov)
AJ Kondash, (akondash@rti.org)
*To attend in person, please register for the AEHS West Coast Conference and Workshop 4: U.S. EPA State of Vapor Intrusion Sciencehttps://www.aehsfoundation.org/West-Coast-Conference.aspx