82 FR 6546 - Request for Nominations for Peer Reviewers and for Public Comment on Peer Review Materials To Inform the Derivation of a Water Concentration Value for Lead in Drinking Water

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

Federal Register Volume 82, Issue 12 (January 19, 2017)

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is announcing the release of materials for public comment that relate to the expert external peer review of documents intended to support the EPA's Safe Drinking Water Act assessment of lead in drinking water. EPA invites the public to nominate scientific experts to be considered as peer reviewers for the contract-managed peer review. Nominations of peer review candidates will be accepted by EPA's contractor, Eastern Research Group, Inc. (ERG). EPA also requests public comment on the draft report entitled ``Proposed Modeling Approaches for a Health Based Benchmark for Lead in Drinking Water'' and the draft charge questions for the expert peer review panel. These materials will be reviewed by an expert peer review panel and public comments will be made available to the peer reviewers for consideration in their review.

[Federal Register Volume 82, Number 12 (Thursday, January 19, 2017)]
[Notices]
[Pages 6546-6548]
From the Federal Register Online  [www.thefederalregister.org]
[FR Doc No: 2017-01228]


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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

[EPA-HQ-OW-2016-0686; FRL-9958-49-OW]


Request for Nominations for Peer Reviewers and for Public Comment 
on Peer Review Materials To Inform the Derivation of a Water 
Concentration Value for Lead in Drinking Water

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

[[Page 6547]]


ACTION: Notice; request for nominations for peer reviewers and request 
for public comment.

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SUMMARY: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is announcing the 
release of materials for public comment that relate to the expert 
external peer review of documents intended to support the EPA's Safe 
Drinking Water Act assessment of lead in drinking water. EPA invites 
the public to nominate scientific experts to be considered as peer 
reviewers for the contract-managed peer review. Nominations of peer 
review candidates will be accepted by EPA's contractor, Eastern 
Research Group, Inc. (ERG). EPA also requests public comment on the 
draft report entitled ``Proposed Modeling Approaches for a Health Based 
Benchmark for Lead in Drinking Water'' and the draft charge questions 
for the expert peer review panel. These materials will be reviewed by 
an expert peer review panel and public comments will be made available 
to the peer reviewers for consideration in their review.

DATES: The nominations for expert peer review candidates must be 
received by ERG on or before February 21, 2017. Comments on the draft 
lead modeling report and draft peer review panel charge questions must 
be received by EPA on or before March 6, 2017.

ADDRESSES: Any interested person or organization may nominate 
scientific experts to be considered as peer reviewers. Nominations 
should be submitted to ERG no later than February 21, 2017 by one of 
the following methods:
     Email: [email protected] (subject line: Lead in Drinking 
Water Peer Review)
     Mail: Eastern Research Group, Inc. (ERG), 110 Hartwell 
Avenue, Lexington, MA 02421, ATTN: Laurie Waite (must arrive by 
nomination deadline).
    Nominations should include all nominee information outlined in 
section III of the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section of this document.
    Submit your comments on the draft lead modeling report and draft 
charge, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2016-0686, to the Federal 
eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov. Follow the online 
instructions for submitting comments. Once submitted, comments cannot 
be edited or withdrawn. EPA may publish any comment received to its 
public docket. Do not submit electronically any information you 
consider to be Confidential Business Information (CBI) or other 
information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Multimedia 
submissions (audio, video, etc.) must be accompanied by a written 
comment. The written comment is considered the official comment and 
should include discussion of all points you wish to make. EPA will 
generally not consider comments or comment content located outside of 
the primary submission (i.e., on the web, cloud, or other file sharing 
system). For additional submission methods, the full EPA public comment 
policy, information about CBI or multimedia submissions, and general 
guidance on making effective comments, please visit http://www2.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Questions concerning nominations of 
expert peer reviewers should be directed to Eastern Research Group, 
Inc. (ERG), 110 Hartwell Avenue, Lexington, MA 02421; by email at 
[email protected] (subject line: Lead in Drinking Water Peer Review); 
or by phone: (781) 674-7362 (ask for Laurie Waite).
    For additional information concerning the draft lead modeling 
report and draft peer review charge questions, please contact Erik Helm 
at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Ground Water and 
Drinking Water, Standards and Risk Management Division, (Mail Code 
4607M), 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue NW., Washington, DC 20460; by phone: 
202-566-1049; or by email: [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. Information on EPA's Lead in Drinking Water Modeling

    EPA's Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water is in the process 
of considering National Primary Drinking Water Regulations for Lead and 
Copper: Regulatory Revisions (LCR) to improve public health protection 
by making changes to rule requirements under the Safe Drinking Water 
Act (SDWA). EPA has engaged with stakeholder groups and the public to 
inform revisions to the LCR. As part of this work, the EPA's National 
Drinking Water Advisory Committee (NDWAC) Lead and Copper Rule Working 
Group was established to inform NDWAC advice to the Administrator on 
recommendations to strengthen public health protections of the Lead and 
Copper Rule. In December 2015, the NDWAC provided specific 
recommendations to the EPA Administrator for LCR revisions related to 
lead service line replacement, public education, corrosion control 
treatment, copper, tap sampling, and the establishment of a ``household 
action level.'' The NDWAC recommended that water systems be required to 
notify the consumer and the local public health agency if this level 
was exceeded, with the expectation that individuals and local health 
officials will use this information to take prompt actions at the 
household level to mitigate lead risks.
    While EPA has not yet determined the specific role of a household 
action level in the revised LCR, the Agency has developed potential 
scientific modeling approaches to define the relationship between lead 
levels in drinking water and blood lead levels, particularly for 
sensitive life stages such as formula fed infants and children up to 
age seven. EPA is using the terminology ``health based benchmark'' to 
refer to this concept. EPA is conducting an expert peer review of 
alternative approaches to inform future consideration of a health based 
benchmark for the LCR revisions. The purpose of this review is to 
obtain feedback on various lead modeling methods that can be used to 
characterize the relationship between lead in drinking water and 
children's blood lead levels.
    EPA has developed three approaches that model how lead in drinking 
water influences blood lead levels (BLLs) of children. All the 
approaches use the Integrated Exposure Uptake and Biokinetic (IEUBK) 
Model for Lead in Children. Approaches 1 and 2 assess the relationship 
between water lead concentration and potential BLLs at different points 
in the IEUBK predicted distribution of BLLs. Approach 3 uses EPA's 
Stochastic Human Exposure and Dose Simulation model for multimedia, 
multipathway chemicals (SHEDS-Multimedia), coupled with IEUBK, to 
determine the drinking water lead concentrations that would result in 
BLLs at particular percentiles of a simulated national distribution of 
BLLs for children at various ages.

II. How To Obtain the Draft Lead Modeling Report and the Draft Peer 
Review Charge Questions

    EPA's draft lead modeling report entitled ``Proposed Modeling 
Approaches for a Health Based Benchmark for Lead in Drinking Water'' 
and the draft charge for the peer review panel are available 
electronically and can be accessed using the Public Docket at http://www.regulations.gov (Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2016-0686). All written 
comments must be submitted during the public comment period.

III. How To Submit Nominations for Peer Reviewers

    Expertise sought: EPA is seeking candidates who are nationally and/
or

[[Page 6548]]

internationally recognized scientific experts to serve as external peer 
reviewers for the draft report regarding approaches to modeling 
children's BLL associated with lead in drinking water. The review is 
not intended to provide EPA with advice on the public health 
implications of alternative BLLs. As such, EPA is seeking nominees who 
possess a strong background and demonstrated expertise in one or more 
of the following areas: (1) Physiologically Based Pharmacokinetic 
modeling, particularly with regard to lead, (2) environmental lead 
exposure analyses, particularly with regard probabilistic modeling.
    Selection criteria: Selection criteria for individuals nominated to 
serve as external peer reviewers of the draft report include the 
following: (1) Demonstrated expertise through relevant peer reviewed 
publications; (2) professional accomplishments and recognition by 
professional societies; (3) demonstrated ability to work constructively 
and effectively in a committee setting; (4) absence of financial 
conflicts of interest; (5) no actual conflicts of interest or 
appearance of lack of impartiality; (6) willingness to commit adequate 
time for the thorough review of the draft report; and (7) availability 
to participate in-person in a one-day or two-day peer review meeting in 
the Washington, DC metro area, projected to occur in June 2017 (exact 
date will be published in the Federal Register at least 30 days prior 
to the external peer review meeting). Further logistical information 
regarding the external peer review meeting will be announced at a later 
date in the Federal Register.
    Required nominee information: To receive full consideration, the 
following information should be submitted to ERG at [email protected] 
(the subject line should read: Lead in Drinking Water Peer Review): (1) 
Contact information for the person making the nomination; (2) contact 
information for the nominee; (3) the disciplinary and specific areas of 
expertise of the nominee; (4) the nominee's curriculum vitae; and (5) a 
biographical sketch of the nominee indicating current position, 
educational background, past and current research activities, recent 
service on other advisory committees, peer review panels, editorial 
boards or professional organizations, sources of recent grant and/or 
contract support and other comments on the relevance of the nominee's 
expertise to this peer review topic. Compensation for non-federal peer 
reviewers will be provided by ERG.
    Selection process: EPA's contractor, ERG, will notify nominees of 
selection or non-selection. ERG may also conduct an independent search 
for candidates to assemble a balanced group representing the expertise 
needed to fully evaluate EPA's draft report, entitled ``Proposed 
Modeling Approaches for a Health Based Benchmark for Lead in Drinking 
Water.'' ERG will consider and screen all nominees against the criteria 
previously listed. Following the screening process, ERG will narrow the 
list of potential reviewers to approximately 10-16 candidates. Prior to 
selecting the final peer reviewers, a Federal Register document will be 
published (exact date to be determined) to solicit comments on the 
interim list of candidates. In that document, the public will be 
requested to provide relevant information or documentation on the 
nominees within 30 days of the announcement of the interim list of 
candidates. Once ERG has considered the public comments on the interim 
list of candidates, ERG will select the final list of peer reviewers, 
based on who, collectively, will best provide expertise spanning the 
disciplines previously listed and (to the extent feasible) best provide 
a balance of perspectives.

    Dated: January 10, 2017.
Joel Beauvais,
Deputy Assistant Administrator, Office of Water.
[FR Doc. 2017-01228 Filed 1-18-17; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 6560-50-P