The technical support document contains technical details on how the EPA develops national bioaccumulation factors for use in deriving national recommended ambient water quality criteria.

The EPA on Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2009 released its Technical Support Document, Volume 3: Development of Site-Specific Bioaccumulation Factors that accompanies its 2000 methodology for determining criteria for ambient water quality.

The technical support document contains technical details on how the EPA develops national bioaccumulation factors for use in deriving national recommended ambient water quality criteria. It contains technical details on how states and tribes may develop site-specific bioaccumulation factors for use in deriving site-specific criteria, and determine the most accurate estimates of bioaccumulation feasible for each site.

In 2000, the EPA announced the availability of final revisions to the Methodology for Deriving Ambient Water Quality Criteria for the Protection of Human Health (2000). Along with the 2000 Human Health Methodology, the agency committed to publishing several technical support documents to provide additional detail to the methodology document, including two documents that describe the development of bioaccumulation factors for use in ambient water quality criteria calculations. In 2003, the EPA announced the release of the Technical Support Document Volume 2: Development of National Bioaccumulation Factors.