Posted: November 20, 2020
Toxicology graduate students Alina Roman-Hubers and Alexandra (Alex) Cordova, together with Texas A&M Toxicology faculty member Dr. Thomas McDonald, organized and moderated a scientific session during the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) North America 41st Annual SCICON2 Conference (November 15–19, 2020).
The “Environmental Hazard and Risk Assessment for the Oil & Gas Industry” session was co-organized with Charles Meyer (Shell) and Jeffery Stevens (USGS). This session took the place of a live poster session on this year’s virtual platform. The goal of the session was to identify priority research topics of interest regarding environmental hazards and risk assessment across various sectors of the oil and gas industry.
Alina and Alex prepared for the session by soliciting questions from submitting authors, and these were broadly categorized into the following categories:
- Novel Methods & Technology,
- Green Chemistry,
- Environmental Impact & Remediation,
- Oil & Gas Research Data Gaps, and
- Sustainability.
Session participants were asked to prioritize these research questions using live online polling, and discussion focused on questions in the most popular topics. Over 50 participants attended the session, including stakeholders from industry, government, and academia.
The most popular topics of interest were Environmental Impact & Remediation and Oil & Gas Research Data Gaps. These topics sparked lively discussions revolving around actions the industry and researchers can take to address the potential impacts of petroleum products on human health and the environment.
Specifically highlighted was the need to understand the effects of oil spill cleanup procedures on the environment as well as the need for better methods of exposure in toxicity testing using different target organisms, especially considering the movement away from animal testing.
The outcomes of the discussion will be developed into a manuscript to share the opinions with the wider audience.
Questions and further discussion can be directed to the SETAC meeting virtual platform or to acordova@cvm.tamu.edu.