Ecological Risk Assessment

Lawrence Tannenbaum is a biologist/ecologist and a chemical exposure health risk assessor for human health and ecological concerns. He began his career in risk assessment when working in the Superfund Program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in its Region II office. For more than 20 years he has been employed by the U.S. Army, working on a diverse range of risk assessment applications. His areas of high interest include documenting the recurrent absence of impacts in ecological species contacting conventional hazardous waste sites, accounting for that phenomenon, and in illustrating that conventional ecological risk assessment methods are ineffectual. To his credit, Mr. Tannenbaum is the sole inventor of a patented field-based method for assessing the health of chemically exposed mammals, the only method of its kind. He is a senior editor (health and ecological risk assessment) for the SETAC journal, Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management. He is the author of Alternative Ecological Risk Assessment: An innovative approach to understanding ecological assessments for contaminated sites (Wiley-Blackwell, Sussex), presently housed in more than 500 university libraries in the U.S and in numerous other countries. He has published more than 40 papers on varied risk assessment topics in peer-reviewed journals.Mr. Tannenbaum holds Bachelors and Master’s degrees in biology from the City College of the City University of New York, and is a certified senior ecologist through the Ecological Society of America.

• Introduction. An Assessment of Studies that Relate to the Present Approach to ERA. An Assessment of Studies Designed to Observe, Establish, and Measure Compromised Health or Performance in Experimentally or Naturally Exposed Animals. An Assessment of Studies Designed to Investigate Rarer, Unique, and Specialty Topics in ERA. Discussion of Approaches, Cost Considerations, Timing, Scientific Collaboration, Presentation, and Implementation. Index.

"A much-needed iconoclastic exploration of an important field that, due to the need for regulatory consistency, too quickly became dependent on early conventions. Drawing on more than 25 years of experience, the author questions the soundness of current conventions in an honest and positive manner."— Michael C. Newman, College of William and Mary VIMS, Gloucester Point, Virginia, USA"Tanenbaum lays out an ambitious and worthwhile research agenda as a prescription for increasing realism and credence in assessing ecological risks for contaminated sites. The practice of ecological risk assessment will benefit in direct proportion to the number of Tannenbaum’s prescriptions that are transformed into active research."— Steven M. Bartell, Cardno, Inc., Greenback, Tennessee, USA