The primary objective of this study was two-fold: (1) to assess home owners awareness about issues pertaining to their septic systems; (2) and to determine the effect climate, proper care and maintenance have on septic tank performance in rural Benton County. Participants in this study were randomly selected by Benton...
In this study the impact of episodic events on levels of bioavailable trace metals Zn,
Cu, Cr, Cd, Pb, and As (III) were determined for the lower Willamette River in Oregon.
In addition, a comparison among three alternative methods for estuary sampling was
conducted. Potential adverse human health risk associated...
Asthma prevalence in children under age 18 has risen steadily in the U.S. since the mid-1970s. Most researchers attribute this increase to air pollutants, socioeconomic status or urban residence. This study examined asthma prevalence in Lane County, Oregon, using children's asthma hospital discharges (1990-1995), and data from 10 of 16...
In 1992, hundreds of buildings in Taiwan were discovered to have ⁶⁰Co contamination in the structural rebar. The contamination resulted from improper handling of ⁶⁰Co contaminated scrap metal in 1982 and 1983 that was subsequently recycled and used throughout Taiwan. One example was the Hsin-hsin Kindergarten (HHK) school which had...
The Mt. Scott watershed in northern Clackamas County, Oregon is an urban watershed that lies inside the Portland metropolitan urban growth boundary. Urbanization of the watershed began in the early 1970s and has recently accelerated. A landscape level analysis of the urbanization process was combined with the results of a...
Two research studies at the U.S. Department of Energy's Hanford Site and Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site (RFETS) explore the quantitative relationship between surface contamination, airborne radioactivity, worker intakes, and subsequent dose. In the first study, resuspension factors are developed and evaluated at the U.S. Department of Energy's (U.S. DOE)...
With congressional passage of the BEACH Act in October of 2000, Coastal and Great Lakes states were mandated to assess coastal recreation waters for the application of ambient water quality standards. This research encompasses two components involved in applying the BEACH Act statues to Oregon. The first component was to...
In 1994, the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) implemented a new audit tool developed by the US Department of Defense (DOD) called "The Environmental Assessment and Management Guide" (TEAM Guide). The TEAM Guide uses an extensive menu of checklists to determine compliance. In November 1994, the USACE Portland District...
Two methods of radiation dose assessment were evaluated for the Cs-137 in soil ⇒ leafy vegetable ⇒ human consumption exposure pathway at three fictitious contaminated sites in California, Colorado, and Florida. An annual dose equation was developed and per USEPA risk assessment guidelines, traditional, single point annual dose estimates were...