The Superfund Dermal Risk Assessment Guidance was published in the Federal Registrar in December 2001 and solicited public comment and additional data. The guidance was a refinement and application of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research and Development 1992 Dermal Exposure Assessment: Principle and Applications report. The intent of this guidance was to present a concise description of the dermal pathway for exposures to soil and water with an evaluation of the exposure parameters such that in the Superfund program there could be a more consistent evaluation of this pathway. The dermal pathway is a routinely questioned exposure route by community members around Superfund sites and is often only qualitatively evaluated.

The release of this guidance was after several rounds of internal peer review, external peer review and a peer workshop where several policy questions were discussed. Questions on the strength of the science, correct application of the principles and the ability to extrapolate the principles outside of experimental data were addressed. In this presentation, some of these policy issues will be presented along with the practical implications for routine evaluation of this pathway in Superfund risk assessments.