EPA's Science Advisory Board determined that metals are fundamentally different from organic pollutants in some contexts

EPA's Science Advisory Board (SAB) concluded three days of meetings on September 12, 2002, and determined that metals are fundamentally different from organic pollutants in some contexts. The issue at the SAB meeting is the appropriateness of the EPA's PBT (persistent, bioaccumulative, toxic) criteria used for assessing chemicals believed to be among the worst and thus the most in need of minimization in the environment. The PBT list was first released by EPA in 1998. The criteria was used to lower the threshold for lead under Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) reporting requirements in 2001, a rule that is still the subject of a lawsuit. SAB members agreed that "persistence" is a problematic scientific issue for assessing metals hazards and risks. The SAB also expressed its interest in the application of chemical speciation, bioavailability (including bioaccumulation), and toxicity as criteria in assessing the hazards of metals.