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Topic:
Refinery Sector Rule Benzene Fenceline Monitoring in Texas - A Toxicology Perspective.

Summary:
In December 2015, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued the Refinery MACT (maximum achievable control technology) Rule to further control toxic air emissions from petroleum refineries and to provide important information about refinery emissions to the public and neighboring communities. Identified refineries were required to install passive diffusive tube monitors around the facilities’ fenceline and near sources to allow for continual monitoring of benzene concentrations around the entire plant. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) reviews this data as it becomes available, with the TCEQ staff in the Office of Compliance and Enforcement reviewing the fenceline monitoring data for compliance with the Refinery MACT rules. The staff of the TCEQ Toxicology, Risk Assessment, and Research Division also reviews the benzene fenceline monitoring data with a specific focus on evaluating the potential for the measured benzene to present a risk to human health. For this evaluation, the toxicology staff identified samplers of interest around each refinery that could represent sites of community exposure, and we compared annual average benzene fenceline concentrations from individual sample sites to the TCEQ long-term air monitoring comparison value for benzene.

Bio
Dr. Sabine Lange is the section manager for the Toxicology, Risk Assessment, and Research Division at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). Dr. Lange’s responsibilities include overseeing health effects risk assessments of air permit applications, ambient air monitoring projects, and hazardous waste sites; overseeing the development of chemical toxicity factors; coordinating and conducting research activities; and conducting and overseeing systematic reviews and independent analyses of risk assessments. Dr. Lange serves as a technical resource for the State and citizens of Texas for human health and environmental risk assessment, especially related to air and water quality. She is also a member of the US EPA’s chartered Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC). Dr. Lange’s research interests include the toxicology of criteria air pollutants, and risk assessment methods used for derivation of toxicity factors.
Dr. Lange received a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Western Ontario in Canada, and completed a Ph.D. and post-doctoral training in biochemistry and molecular carcinogenesis at the University of Texas at Houston and MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Lange is a Diplomate of the American Board of Toxicology.