AEGL - Acute Exposure Guideline Levels: Similar Values
The diversity of national and international values similar to AEGL seems to be confusing and might be seen as competing with the AEGL values.
General Information
However, these values consist mostly of
- preliminary values which should be replaced by the more recent and more substantiated AEGL values or
- parallel values which can be used until AEGL values are established (there is some burden sharing so that more recently ERPG values, for example, are only derived for chemicals for which AEGL are not planned).
Some of these values similar to AEGL are briefly characterized for a better orientation:
- IDLH (Immediately Dangerous to Life and Health)
- ERPG (Emergency Response Planning Guidelines)
- TEEL (Temporary Emergency Exposure Limits)
- EEI (Emergency exposure indices)
- ARE (Acute Reference Exposure)
- Störfallbeurteilungswerte (german values)
- Einsatztoleranzwerte (german values)
Similar Values
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SBW - Störfallbeurteilungswerte
Early in the 1990ies the German Association of the Chemical Industry (Verband der chemischen Industrie, VCI) produced an unpublished "Concept for the establishment of hazardous incident assessment values".
These values refer to an exposure period of 60 minutes and the level of severity is defined as generally not leading to life-threatening or severe and irreversible effects. Compared to ERPG these values usually lie between ERPG-2 and ERPG-3. It is noted in the concept that the values should be reviewed with regard to advancements in the methodology and recent data. -
EEI - Emergency Exposure Indices
The "European Centre for Ecotoxicology and Toxicology of Chemicals" (ECETOC) of the European chemical industry provided a contribution to the derivation of hazardous incident values with its "Technical Report No. 43" entitled "Emergency Exposure Indices for Industrial Chemicals". Apart from two exemplary chemicals, however, no further values have been derived. While there are some differences in the definition of the severity levels, the procedure is by and large similar to the AEGL concept. By analogy to the AEGL concept, values for different exposure periods (e.g. 15, 30 and 60 minutes) could be established.
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ETW - Einsatztoleranzwerte
The derivation of these values was carried out at the Technical University of Munich under contract for the Federal Agency for Civil Defense (Bundesamt für Zivilschutz) in 1995/6. These values are included in a draft guideline on hazardous concentrations for fire brigades and are derived for only one severity level - defined as no health hazard - and one exposure period (4 hours). The current version adopts AEGL-2 values as well and a total of 45 values are now included.
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TEEL - Temporary Emergeny Exposure Limits
TEEL values, initiated by the Department of Energy, reflect three levels of severity with similar criteria as AEGL and one exposure period (60 minutes). They are used as preliminary guidance until in depth assessments are performed. There are no support documents.
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IDLH - Immediately Dangerous to Life and Health
IDLH values, developed by OSHA and NIOSH, reflect only one level of severity (severe to life-threatening) and one exposure period (30 minutes). One of the main purposes is to provide guidance in the selection of protection equipment. A brief documentation of the values is available.
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ARE - Acute Reference Exposure
In 1998, EPA published a draft report on the methodology to derive acute reference exposure values. While the primary goal is the derivation of a concentration or dose level without adverse effects, the proposed methodology also allows to establish effect concentrations for varying levels of severity ("Adverse Effect Level" (AEL1 and AEL2) and "Franc Effect Level" (FEL)). The criteria for these levels is different from the AEGL criteria, e.g. the ability to escape is not an AEL2- criterion in ARE methodology. Because ARE methodology employs sophisticated mathematical analysis (e.g. benchmark dose modelling and categorical regression) there is a need for a very good data base.
