10892 Federal Register / Vol. 76, No. 39 / Monday, February 28, 2011 / Notices 

Dated: February 18, 2011. 

Nathaniel J. Davis, Sr., 

Deputy Secretary. 

[FR Doc. 2011–4318 Filed 2–25–11; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 6717–01–P 

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION 

AGENCY 

[FRL–9271–2; Docket ID No. EPA–HQ–ORD– 

2011–0187] 

Aquatic Ecosystems, Water Quality, 

and Global Change: Challenges of 

Conducting Multi-Stressor 

Vulnerability Assessments 

AGENCY: Environmental Protection 

Agency (EPA). 

ACTION: Notice of public comment 

period. 

SUMMARY: EPA is announcing the release 

of the draft report titled, ‘‘Aquatic 

Ecosystems, Water Quality, and Global 

Change: Challenges of Conducting 

Multi-stressor Vulnerability 

Assessments’’ (EPA/600/R–11/011) and 

a 45-day public comment period for the 

report. The document was prepared by 

the National Center for Environmental 

Assessment within EPA’s Office of 

Research and Development. 

This draft report investigates the 

issues and challenges associated with 

identifying, calculating, and mapping 

indicators of the relative vulnerability of 

water quality and aquatic ecosystems, 

across the United States, to the potential 

impacts of global change. Using a large 

set of environmental indicators drawn 

from the scientific and management 

literature, this draft report explores the 

conceptual and practical challenges 

associated with using such indicators to 

assess how the resilience of ecosystems 

and human systems may vary as a 

function of existing stresses and 

maladaptations. 

The public comment period and the 

external peer review are separate 

processes that provide opportunities for 

all interested parties to comment on the 

document. EPA intends to forward the 

public comments that are submitted in 

accordance with this notice to the 

external peer reviewers for their 

consideration prior to the finalization of 

their review comments. When finalizing 

the draft document, EPA intends to 

consider any public comments that EPA 

receives in accordance with this notice. 

EPA is releasing this draft document 

solely for the purpose of predissemination peer review under 

applicable information quality 

guidelines. This document has not been 

formally disseminated by EPA. It does 

not represent and should not be 

construed to represent any Agency 

policy or determination. 

The draft document and EPA’s peer 

review charge are available via the 

Internet on the NCEA home page under 

the Recent Additions and the Data and 

Publications menus at http:// 

www.epa.gov/ncea. 

DATES: The 45-day public comment 

period begins February 28, 2011, and 

ends April 14, 2011. Technical 

comments should be in writing and 

must be received by EPA by April 14, 

2011. 

ADDRESSES: The draft ‘‘Aquatic 

Ecosystems, Water Quality, and Global 

Change: Challenges of Conducting 

Multi-stressor Vulnerability 

Assessments’’ is available primarily via 

the Internet on the National Center for 

Environmental Assessments home page 

under the Recent Additions and the 

Data and Publications menus at http:// 

www.epa.gov/ncea. A limited number of 

paper copies are available from the 

Information Management Team, NCEA; 

telephone: 703–347–8561; facsimile: 

703–347–8691. If you are requesting a 

paper copy, please provide your name, 

your mailing address, and the document 

title, ‘‘Aquatic Ecosystems, Water 

Quality, and Global Change: Challenges 

of Conducting Multi-stressor 

Vulnerability Assessments.’’ The EPA’s 

National Service Center for 

Environmental Publications (NSCEP), 

P.O. Box 42419, Cincinnati, OH 45242; 

telephone: 1–800–490–9198; facsimile: 

301–604–3408; e-mail: nscep@bpslmit.com. Please provide your name, 

your mailing address, the title, and the 

EPA number of the requested 

publication. 

Comments may be submitted 

electronically via http:// 

www.regulations.gov, by mail, by 

facsimile, or by hand delivery/courier. 

Please follow the detailed instructions 

provided in the SUPPLEMENTARY

INFORMATION section of this notice. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For 

information on the public comment 

period, contact the Office of 

Environmental Information Docket; 

telephone: 202–566–1752; facsimile: 

202–566–1753; or e-mail: 

ORD.Docket@epa.gov. 

For technical information, contact 

Chris Weaver, NCEA; telephone: 703– 

347–8621; facsimile: 703–347–8694; or 

e-mail: weaver.chris@epa.gov. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. Information About the Project/ 

Document 

This draft report investigates the 

issues and challenges associated with 

identifying, calculating, and mapping 

indicators of the relative vulnerability of 

water quality and aquatic ecosystems, 

across the United States, to the potential 

adverse impacts of external forces such 

as long-term climate and land-use 

change. The draft does not directly 

evaluate the potential impacts of global 

change on ecosystems and watersheds. 

Rather, it explores the implications of 

the assumption that a systematic 

evaluation of the impacts of existing 

stressors will be a key input to any 

comprehensive global change 

vulnerability assessment, as the impacts 

of global change will be expressed via 

(perhaps complex) interactions with 

such stressors. This is an assumption 

with an impressive pedigree, but, to 

date, there has been relatively little 

exploration of the practical challenges 

associated with assessing how the 

resilience of ecosystems and human 

systems in the face of global change may 

vary as a function of existing stresses 

and maladaptations. The work 

described in this draft report is a 

preliminary attempt at such an 

exploration. 

This draft report takes as its starting 

point more than 600 indicators of water 

quality and aquatic ecosystem 

condition, along with numerous 

datasets from EPA, other Federal 

agencies, and other organizations, as a 

testbed for identifying challenges and 

best practices (as well as gaps in ideas, 

methods, data, and tools) for calculating 

and mapping vulnerability nationally. 

Specifically: 

• Challenges associated with 

identifying those indicators that speak 

specifically to ‘‘vulnerability’’ as 

opposed to those reflecting simply a 

state or condition; 

• Challenges associated with 

calculating and estimating the values of 

these vulnerability indicators, including 

establishing important indicator 

thresholds that reflect abrupt or large 

changes in the vulnerability of water 

quality or aquatic ecosystems; 

• Challenges associated with 

mapping these vulnerability indicators 

nationally, including data availability 

and spatial aggregation of the data; 

• Challenges associated with 

combining and compositing indicators 

and developing multi-indicator indices 

of vulnerability. 

This draft report is intended to be one 

building block for future work on multistressor global change vulnerability 

assessments. It is hoped that it will 

contribute to improved links between 

the decision support needs of the water 

quality and aquatic ecosystem 

management communities and the 

priorities and capabilities of the global 


srobinson on DSKHWCL6B1PROD with NOTICES
Federal Register / Vol. 76, No. 39 / Monday, February 28, 2011 / Notices 10893 

change science data and modeling 

communities. 

II. How To Submit Technical Comments 

to the Docket at http:// 

www.regulations.gov 

Submit your comments, identified by 

Docket ID No. EPA–HQ–ORD 2011– 

0187, by one of the following methods: 

• http://www.regulations.gov: Follow 

the on-line instructions for submitting 

comments. 

• E-mail: ORD.Docket@epa.gov. 

• Fax: 202–566–1753. 

• Mail: Office of Environmental 

Information (OEI) Docket (Mail Code: 

2822T), U.S. Environmental Protection 

Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW., 

Washington, DC 20460. The phone 

number is 202–566–1752. 

• Hand Delivery: The OEI Docket is 

located in the EPA Headquarters Docket 

Center, Room 3334 EPA West Building, 

1301 Constitution Ave., NW., 

Washington, DC. The EPA Docket 

Center’s Public Reading Room is open 

from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday 

through Friday, excluding legal 

holidays. The telephone number for the 

Public Reading Room is 202–566–1744. 

Such deliveries are only accepted 

during the docket’s normal hours of 

operation, and special arrangements 

should be made for deliveries of boxed 

information. 

If you provide comments by mail or 

hand delivery, please submit three 

copies of the comments. For 

attachments, provide an index, number 

pages consecutively with the comments, 

and submit an unbound original and 

three copies. 

Instructions: Direct your comments to 

Docket ID No. EPA–HQ–ORD–2011– 

0187. Please ensure that your comments 

are submitted within the specified 

comment period. Comments received 

after the closing date will be marked 

‘‘late,’’ and may only be considered if 

time permits. It is EPA’s policy to 

include all comments it receives in the 

public docket without change and to 

make the comments available online at 

http://www.regulations.gov, including 

any personal information provided, 

unless a comment includes information 

claimed to be Confidential Business 

Information (CBI) or other information 

whose disclosure is restricted by statute. 

Do not submit information that you 

consider to be CBI or otherwise 

protected through http:// 

www.regulations.gov or e-mail. The 

http://www.regulations.gov Web site is 

an ‘‘anonymous access’’ system, which 

means EPA will not know your identity 

or contact information unless you 

provide it in the body of your comment. 

If you send an e-mail comment directly 

to EPA without going through http:// 

www.regulations.gov, your e-mail 

address will be automatically captured 

and included as part of the comment 

that is placed in the public docket and 

made available on the Internet. If you 

submit an electronic comment, EPA 

recommends that you include your 

name and other contact information in 

the body of your comment and with any 

disk or CD–ROM you submit. If EPA 

cannot read your comment due to 

technical difficulties and cannot contact 

you for clarification, EPA may not be 

able to consider your comment. 

Electronic files should avoid the use of 

special characters, any form of 

encryption, and be free of any defects or 

viruses. For additional information 

about EPA’s public docket visit the EPA 

Docket Center homepage at http:// 

www.epa.gov/epahome/dockets.htm. 

Docket: Documents in the docket are 

listed in the http://www.regulations.gov 

index. Although listed in the index, 

some information is not publicly 

available, e.g., CBI or other information 

whose disclosure is restricted by statute. 

Certain other materials, such as 

copyrighted material, are publicly 

available only in hard copy. Publicly 

available docket materials are available 

either electronically in http:// 

www.regulations.gov or in hard copy at 

the OEI Docket in the EPA Headquarters 

Docket Center. 

Dated: February 17, 2011. 

Rebecca Clark, 

Acting Director, National Center for 

Environmental Assessment. 

[FR Doc. 2011–4375 Filed 2–25–11; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 6560–50–P 

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION 

AGENCY 

[FRL–9272–3; Docket ID No. EPA–HQ–ORD– 

2011–0050] 

Draft Integrated Science Assessment 

for Ozone and Related Photochemical 

Oxidants 

AGENCY: Environmental Protection 

Agency. 

ACTION: Notice of Public Comment 

Period. 

SUMMARY: The U.S. Environmental 

Protection Agency (EPA) is announcing 

a 60-day public comment period and 

availability of the first external review 

draft of a document titled, ‘‘First 

External Review Draft Integrated 

Science Assessment for Ozone and 

Related Photochemical Oxidants’’ (EPA/ 

600/R–10/076A). The document was 

prepared by the National Center for 

Environmental Assessment (NCEA) 

within EPA’s Office of Research and 

Development as part of the review of the 

national ambient air quality standards 

(NAAQS) for ozone. 

EPA is releasing this draft document 

to seek review by the Clean Air 

Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) 

and the public (meeting date and 

location to be specified in a separate 

Federal Register notice). The draft 

document does not represent and 

should not be construed to represent 

any final EPA policy, viewpoint, or 

determination. EPA will consider any 

public comments submitted in response 

to this notice when revising the 

document. 

DATES: The public comment period 

begins February 28, 2011, and ends 

April 29, 2011. Comments must be 

received by April 29, 2011. 

ADDRESSES: The ‘‘First External Review 

Draft Integrated Science Assessment for 

Ozone and Related Photochemical 

Oxidants’’ will be available primarily via 

the Internet on the National Center for 

Environmental Assessment’s home page 

under the Recent Additions and 

Publications menus at http:// 

www.epa.gov/ncea. A limited number of 

CD–ROM or paper copies will be 

available. Contact Ms. Debbie Wales by 

phone (919–541–4731), fax (919–541– 

5078), or e-mail 

(wales.deborah@epa.gov) to request 

either of these, and please provide your 

name, your mailing address, and the 

document title, ‘‘First External Review 

Draft Integrated Science Assessment for 

Ozone and Related Photochemical 

Oxidants’’ (EPA/600/R–10/076A) to 

facilitate processing of your request. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For 

technical information, contact Dr. James 

Brown, NCEA; telephone: 919–541– 

0765; facsimile: 919–541–1818; or 

e-mail: Brown.James@epa.gov. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

I. Information About the Document 

Section 108(a) of the Clean Air Act 

directs the Administrator to identify 

certain pollutants which, among other 

things, ‘‘cause or contribute to air 

pollution which may reasonably be 

anticipated to endanger public health or 

welfare’’ and to issue air quality criteria 

for them. These air quality criteria are 

to ‘‘accurately reflect the latest scientific 

knowledge useful in indicating the kind 

and extent of all identifiable effects on 

public health or welfare which may be 

expected from the presence of [a] 

pollutant in the ambient air * * *.’’ 

Under section 109 of the Act, EPA is 

then to establish national ambient air 

quality standards (NAAQS) for each 


srobinson on DSKHWCL6B1PROD with NOTICES