OR&R Staff Receive NOAA Administrator's Award for Hudson River Modeling Work
AUGUST 3, 2017—OR&R’s Jay Field and Lisa Rosman have been awarded the NOAA Administrator's Award for conducting new and innovative model emulation work to predict the rate of recovery for fish in the Hudson River. This modeling showed that after dredging, fish from the river will remain contaminated with PCBs and unfit for human consumption for decades longer than initially predicted. The Hudson River Superfund site has been contaminated with millions of pounds of PCBs since the 1940s and 50s. With contamination found along 200 river miles, it is one of the largest natural resource damage assessment (NRDA) cases pursued by NOAA to date. In 2002, U.S. EPA chose a dredging remedy that would remove some, but not all, of the PCBs in river sediment. The chosen remedy was based upon limited sediment sampling data available at the time. From 2002-2005 EPA collected additional sediment data to better determine where and how much sediment to dredge. Analysis of this new dataset revealed that the PCB sediment contamination of the Hudson was two-three times higher and more widespread than initially estimated to develop the remedy and that rate of natural recovery of the river had been greatly overestimated. Despite this new information, the remedy was not changed. Using updated surface sediment PCB data and decay rates, the model emulation was run to update predictions of when PCBs in fish would be lowered to reach risk-based thresholds chosen by EPA to protect human health.
In spring of 2016 a manuscript describing these results was peer-reviewed and published in Science of the Total Environment. NOAA and its U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and New York State co-trustees are using the new findings as a basis to update and significantly increase the Hudson River NRDA damages.
In addition, application of emulation modeling to determine the fate and transport of complex pollutants in a large riverine system is novel and opens the door to apply this approach at other complex Superfund sites that NOAA is working on around the country. It will improve the timeliness and scientific and legal strength of NOAA’s trustee mission to protect and restore injured trust resources.
For further information, contact Diane.Wehner@noaa.gov.
