Tolerable Risk Workshop


U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Reclamation	U.S. Department of Energy Federal Energy Regulatory Commission	U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Risk assessment methodologies have been used in various industries around the world to provide decision makers information on the likelihood of an adverse outcome and the resulting consequences. Of particular interest to the management of risks for dams and levees is risk assessment’s ability to assess potential failure modes that are not amenable to deterministic analytical solutions and to capture the affects of uncertainty in the analysis parameters on the results of the analysis.

Reclamation has utilized a risk informed decision process in its dam safety program for many years. Reclamation intended to take advantage of advances in risk management strategies to more consistently implement tolerable risk concepts. USACE and FERC in cooperation with Reclamation are working to develop guidance for incorporating risk informed decision making into their dam and levee safety programs. USACE’s Actions for Change initiative is an over-arching program designed to manage the Corps' portfolio of dams and the nations portfolio of levees in a risk informed framework. The FERC is looking to extend the benefits realized from their Potential Failure Modes Analysis program so that the probability of failure and the resulting consequence are captured in a more consistent and credible manner and so that decisions are made in a risk informed framework.

In order for the three agencies to move forward in a consistent manner, a common understanding of tolerable risk as it applies to dams and levees is necessary.

As part of this effort the three agencies co-sponsored this workshop on tolerable risk. The agencies’ interest in tolerable risk was driven by a common desire to:

Make better decisions
Better determine, prioritize, and justify risk reduction actions
Better communicate risks to decision makers and the public
Better understand and evaluate public safety risks in an environment of shared flood risk management responsibilities

The workshop was developed in order for the agencies to learn:

How tolerable risk is defined by other federal agencies and selected international organizations (see attached list of presenting and participating agencies and organizations).
How tolerable risk is being used to evaluate risks and to justify risk reduction measures
What problems have been encountered in implementing a tolerable risk policy and how the problems have been addressed
How the invited agencies and organizations assess their success in achieving the intended purposes of using tolerable risk.

Purpose of the Workshop
Eric Halpin, Special Assistant for Dam and Levee Safety, Headquarters, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Government, Legal and Insurance Context

Kevin Geiss, Office of Science & Technology Policy, “OMB Updated Principles for Risk Analysis”
Edward A. Thomas, Michael Baker Corporation, Paying for Risky Behavior
Clive Goodwin, Assistant Vice President, Manager, Flood Underwriting / Engineering, FM Global Insurance Company, “Insurance Company Prospective”

Dams and Levees

Bruce Muller, Deputy Director, Security, Safety, and Law Enforcement, Bureau of Reclamation, "Dam Safety - Managing Risk"
Len McDonald, Australian National Committee on Large Dams (ANCOLD), “Tolerable Risk Criteria: The ANCOLD Guidance”
Alex Roos, Programme Manager on Flood Risk, Rijkswaterstaat, The Netherlands, "Tolerable Risk in the Netherlands, focus on Flooding"
Andy Zielinski, Manager, Technology and Dam Safety Manager, Ontario Power Generation , “Risk in Dam Safety – Canadian Perspective”
Len McDonald, New South Wales Dam Safety Committee, “Dam Safety and Tolerable Risk: A Regulator's Perspective from the NSW DSC”

Tolerability of Risk Principles

Jean LeGuen (Retired) - UK Health and Safety Executive Tolerability of Risk Framework, “UK Principles and Practice for Controlling Work Activities”
Alan Krupnick, Senior Fellow and Director, Quality of the Environment, Resources for the Future, “Cost-Benefit Analysis, the VSL and Tolerable Risk”

Environment and Agriculture

Rita Schoeny, Senior Science Advisor, Office of Water, US Environmental Protection Agency, “Acceptable Risk Levels at EPA”
Kerry Dearfield, Scientific Advisor for Risk Assessment, US Department of Agriculture , "Risk Assessment at USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service"

Other Infrastructure

John Monninger, Deputy Division Director for Probabilistic Risk and Applications, Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, "Development and Use of Risk Information to Support Decision-Making at the U.S Nuclear Regulatory Commisssion"
Greg Keeports, Risk Assessment Subcommittee of the Center for Chemical Process Safety of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, "Risk Guidelines in Chemical Industry"
Derek Stirling, UK Offshore Operators Association /UK Oil and Gas Industry, "A Risk Based Decision Support Framework"
Ann Azevedo, Chief Scientist & Technical Advisor, Safety Analysis, US Federal Aviation Administration, “FAA Aviation Safety Tolerable Risk Principles”
Jo Strang, Federal Railroads Administration, US Department of Transportation, “Federal Railroad Administration Risk Reduction Programs”
Homayoon Dezfuli, Manager, System Safety, Headquarters, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, "Achieving a Holistic and Risk-informed Decision-making Process at NASA"

Food, Drug, Consumer and Product Safety

Robert Buchanan, Senior Science Advisor, Center for Food Safety & Applied Nutrition, HHS Food & Drug Administration, "Reaching Decisions on “Tolerable Level of Risks” – Observations of FDA’s Approaches for Foods"
Adam Finkel, Executive Director, Penn Program on Regulation, University of Pennsylvania Law School, “Tolerable Decisions: Beyond Population Risk to a Sensible Approach to Benefits, Costs, Values, and Solutions”

Summary Presentation: Workshop on Tolerable Risk Evaluation

Summary White Paper: Workshop on Tolerable Risk Evaluation

Last Updated: 09/02/2011
For site maintenance contact: Webmaster