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EPA Announces Experts Selected to Peer Review Computer Model Used for the Hudson River PCB Superfund Site

Release Date: 01/11/1999
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(#99004) NEW YORK, N.Y. -- A group of international experts charged with reviewing the scientific work contained in two reports developed as part of EPA's Reassessment of the Hudson River PCBs Superfund site the Phase 2 Data Evaluation and Interpretation Report and Phase 2 Low Resolution Coring Report will meet today for the first time to receive the reports under review. The experts will attend a series of presentations given by EPA designed to familiarize them with the Hudson River site and the Reassessment project.

Peer review is conducted to ensure that the science upon which EPA makes its decisions is sound and credible. It addresses only the science on which decisions are based, not the decisions themselves. Under EPA's national policy, major scientific and/or technical work products such as those that are part of the Hudson River PCB Reassessment are subject to peer review.

Today's meeting is being held at the Holiday Inn Turf, located at 205 Wolf Road in Albany, New York, from 12:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.. A follow-up meeting is planned at the same location for tomorrow, January 12, 1999, from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. This is the second group of experts empaneled to review the science of the Hudson River PCB Reassessment. The first peer review group gave their recommendations on EPA's Modeling Approach in September 1998. That report is available at information repositories throughout the area, which can be located on our Web site at www.epa.gov/hudson.

The members of the panel meeting today are:
Reinhard Bierl, Ph.D., Senior Lecturer and Laboratory Manager, Department of Hydrology, University of Trier, Trier, Germany
Per Larsson, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Ecology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
Keith Maruya, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Skidway Institute of Oceanography, University System of Georgia
Ronald Mitchell, Ph.D., President, Data/Analysis Technologies, Inc., Dublin, Ohio
Kenneth Reimer, Ph.D., Professor, Royal Military College, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
James Risatti, Ph.D., Senior Organic Geochemist, Illinois State Geological Survey

Members of the Peer Review panel were selected by Eastern Research Group Inc., (ERG), a contractor specializing in this type of work. The Peer Review panel is made up of individuals with expertise in the subject matter under review. Each panel member has been screened for conflicts of interest and has been determined to be unbiased and independent of the project under review.