US EPA

2953168 

Technical Report 

ATSDR Tox Profile 

The priority list of hazardous substances that will be the subject of toxicological profiles 

Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry :: ATSDR 

2013 

CDC Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry 

Atlanta, GA 

10 

English 

http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/SPL/index.html
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The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) section 104 (i), as amended by the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA), requires ATSDR and the EPA to prepare a list, in order of priority, of substances that are most commonly found at facilities on the National Priorities List (NPL) and which are determined to pose the most significant potential threat to human health due to their known or suspected toxicity and potential for human exposure at these NPL sites. CERCLA also requires this list to be revised periodically to reflect additional information on hazardous substances.

This substance priority list is revised and published on a 2-year basis, with a yearly informal review and revision. (No list was published in 2009 while ATSDR transitioned to a new agency science database.) Each substance on the list is a candidate to become the subject of a toxicological profile prepared by ATSDR. The listing algorithm prioritizes substances based on frequency of occurrence at NPL sites, toxicity, and potential for human exposure to the substances found at NPL sites.

It should be noted that this priority list is not a list of "most toxic" substances, but rather a prioritization of substances based on a combination of their frequency, toxicity, and potential for human exposure at NPL sites.

Thus, it is possible for substances with low toxicity but high NPL frequency of occurrence and exposure to be on this priority list. The objective of this priority list is to rank substances across all NPL hazardous waste sites to provide guidance in selecting which substances will be the subject of toxicological profiles prepared by ATSDR.