Is there such a thing as Environmental Risk Assessment?

Question

Are there environmental consultants that specialize in modeling and risk assessment when it comes to resource management and the environment? How does one get into such an industry? What undergraduate and graduate work is pertinent to a career such as this?

Answer 1

If you want to get into environmental consulting, you can major in one of the following: Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Geology, Chemical Engineering or others.

The best consultants I have worked with are either PGs or PEs in one of the above fields.

A Risk Assessment is where you have a known contaminated property and determine its "risk" to the environment (groundwater, drinking water aquifer, or soil).

It would entail a thorough assessment of a release to the soil and groundwater, a survey of sensitive receptors and then the preparation of a report to the state agency for review and consideration.

I have seen many consultants recommend and perform high dollar risk assessments for their clients that have had a release or spill. Most of the time (all but once), they are rejected and remediation activities have to be conducted.

On the one time I have seen it accepted: There was a bulk oil storage plant on the Mississippi River. The outcrop soil was a loess silt. Although free product was at the facility, the consultant proved that the hydrocarbons had not leached into the underlying aquifer. Because of the rising and falling of the Mississippi River, the plume was trapped on-site.

The consultant conducted a risk assessment and concluded that the was little potential for off-site impact or impact to the underlying drinking water aquifers.

The state agency agreed and the site was allowed to not have to spend $1-2 million to abate the release.

In the history of the state, it was the ONLY time a Risk Assessment was accepted (out of several hundred). We got to the point that we quit recommending them to our clients as they would only be dumping money down the drain that could be applied for remediation (unless it were blatantly obvious that it would succeed).

The only time we would forgo that rule was when we were trying to buy time for our client (a risk assessment could delay a project for up to a year) in order for them to find funds to budget for the projects or to arrange their affairs in order for them to declare bankruptcy.

Answer 2

ERA An environmental risk assessment (ERA) is a process of identifying and evaluating the adverse effects on the environment caused by a chemical substance. An environmental exposure to the chemical is predicted and compared to a predicted no-effect concentration, supplying risk ratios for the different media.

yes, there are environmental consultants companies such as: http://www.entrix.com/

You have to have a degree in environmental science, Natural Resource Planning,

I don't know if this would help: http://www.clay.net/conf.html
it's about some job openning but it can give u a clue of the qualifications.

i'm sorry, don't know much about the last question.

Good Luck

Answer 3

Yes. I used to do it for a living.

There's flexibility in your undergraduate program. One idea is to get a straight science degree, perhaps Biology or Chemistry. A strong background in math with statistics courses is a must. Graduate work will be Environmental Science, focusing on risk assessment.

Try to get your first job with the USEPA in Washington, DC. You'll get to work on the biggest, most important things. Then you can choose where you'd like to work long term.

Answer 4

Of course there is. I’m not sure what degree you’d want though. Environmental science maybe? A friend bought an old airforce base and had the soil tested (it passed) Good luck. I would think that would be an interesting job.

Answer 5

not something like a solid choropleth map to force abode a ingredient. Any grade 4 pupil might desire to be waiting to envision that and understand that lots of the darkest purple runs from Texas north to Nebraska. Any grade 4 4 pupil additionally should be waiting to tell you the value of that being your u . s .'s breadbasket. much less rainfall, much less glacial runoff and depleted aquifers is definitely not a solid ingredient. Alarming is hardly ever the be conscious for a u . s . with the inhabitants of the U. S.. Alarming replaced into ten years in the past. serious could be better. Disastrous is yet to return. you should to point that your GIS branch run those maps into Canada and notice what they think of will take place north of the 40 9th. there could be slightly land in Canada that could have the skill seize up on US loses in agriculture via 2050 by way of a protracted growing to be season, yet we additionally might desire to evaluate decreased rainfall over the prairies.

Answer 6

it is called EIA or environmental impact assessment. You are suppose to study the flora fauna and social implications of a proposed project. you are only supposed to study. what you do is write some 300 pages of general bullshit about the location and the project type, which you can gather from the internet easily

Answer 7

of course there is they go around and look at the trees to see if they are safe ........ say if you had a conker tree in a school field they would do a risk assesment as a conker could fall and hit a child in the eye ,, but i do not know how you would get into this type of career.......... they do risk assesments for everything