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What is RACER? RACER© is an innovative approach developed by Risk Assessment Corporation (RAC) to facilitate and enhance decision making and communication about risks from chemicals and radionuclides in the environment. A primary objective of RACER is the evaluation of these risks in the context of human exposure to these materials along with associated potential financial, social, and political risks. This is accomplished through the implementation of customer-specific processes and tools with a focus on stakeholder interaction and sustainability.
Overview
RACER consolidates key data and provides efficient access to information in support of consistent, transparent, and timely analyses of chemical and radioactive materials in the environment. The source of these materials may include preexisting areas of contamination, operational releases, multi-media release points, potential future releases, or accident situations. RACER facilitates the real-time use of environmental and related information to estimate human health and ecological impacts from these materials in the environment. RACER advocates an iterative process for decision making where inputs are flexible and can readily be modified to evaluate the potential impacts of different assumptions. Complex environmental fate and transport modeling is abstracted so results can be obtained rapidly. The process is entirely portable and can be applied at any facility with a need to efficiently understand and manage its potential impacts on the environment. Implementing the RACER approach involves:
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Defining objectives |
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Identifying and engaging stakeholders |
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Organizing and consolidating needed data and information |
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Making data accessible and useful for decision-making |
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Conducting iterative analyses that are transparent and flexible |
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Presenting decision-makers with clear results and available alternatives |
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Implementing an action and tracking its impacts |
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Evaluating and communicating the outcomes of an action against the objective |
Tools
The RACER approach is supported by software and other tools designed to efficiently implement the RACER process. These tools can be tailored to a client’s specific needs.
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RACER Database: A driving principle of RACER is the importance of consolidating data and establishing consistency rules to facilitate rapid, real-time use of environmental information. Following an evaluation of data needs and management goals, existing databases can be used to extract, transform, and load available environmental data into the format needed by RACER. Routines can be developed to automatically update the database as new data are collected.
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RACER Data Analysis Tool (DAT): Regardless of the format of environmental data and other related information, easy access to these data and information should be provided. The web-based DAT allows the user to readily view the data, evaluate trends in concentrations, compare measured concentrations to standards and guidelines, and select and download data for estimating human health impacts or other more detailed analyses. The DAT also serves as a communication tool that can help establish and maintain credibility with stakeholders.
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RACER Risk Calculation: The Risk Calculation Tool (RCT) uses environmental data extracted from the DAT or other sources to characterize conditions in the environment and assess the human health impacts for the present-time and into the future. It uses a consistent, repeatable methodology and an approach for abstracting complex transport modeling that allows calculations to be rapidly updated as new information or environmental measurement data become available. Input data, including toxicity data and exposure parameters, can be reviewed and modified to quickly evaluate the impacts of different assumptions. Output can be compared directly to regulatory standards and dose or risk limits.
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RACER Decision Support Tool (DST): Results from the Risk Calculation Tool are combined with other information important to the decision process by a Decision Support Tool (DST) to support a detailed evaluation of the results, assess potential remedial actions, communicate and document decisions, and track performance. The DST provides the capability to rank multiple sources of risk to focus resources on critical areas, as well as options to compare remedial action alternatives based on attributes such as cost, reliability, risk reduction, and stakeholder preferences. |
Case Study
RACER Implementation at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)
RACER has been implemented by Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and its regulators for data management, communication, and decision support. There were two primary objectives identified for this project.
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Data Access. The first objective was to provide access to environmental data collected at LANL to a wide range of stakeholders along with tools to help them understand and interpret those data. The DAT is now being used by state regulators, the public, and LANL to access and analyze the environmental measurement data for the LANL facility and surrounding environment. Currently, data are provided by both LANL and the state regulator, with other data sources expected to be included in the future. Each data gathering organization provides routine updates to the RACER database which currently contains over 6 million records. The DAT is accessible via the internet and in addition to the environmental measurement data, contains comparison values like site-specific regulatory standards and background concentrations that help provide perspective on the measured concentrations. See www.racernm.com for more information and to view project reports, or click below to access the DAT directly.
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Source Ranking. The second objective was to prioritize areas or sources of radionuclides and chemicals in the environment based on the potential human health impacts that they pose. This was accomplished by developing an application, the Ranking Tool, which uses information directly from the DAT to characterize the sources and calculate potential human health impacts based on selected exposure scenarios. The results are presented graphically and allow the user to view the source ranking as well as the significance of different factors such as analytes, exposure routes, exposure medium, health impact type, background contribution, and confidence in the source characterization. |
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