Society is becoming increasingly aware of the existence of massive environmental cleanup costs and potential health risks to human and ecological species from environmental and occupational exposures to contaminants. Today, environmental awareness and technological advances have brought about a recognition of the importance of risk management principles in defining the basis for the allocation of scarce funds to prioritize environmental objectives. Risk management principles assist in making difficult decisions regarding initiatives to be funded or criteria to be implemented, the degree to which they will be funded or implemented, and the impacts that we (as a society) are willing to live with versus those we are willing to pay to reduce or eliminate.

The establishment of risk management principles involves a major technical challenge in the establishment of common scales to account for factors such as:

Risks from different types of contaminants:

• uniform approach to assessing ecological and human health risks from radioactive and non-radioactive contaminants
• feasibility of developing a uniform approach towards assessing the impact of threshold and non-threshold acting carcinogens
• methodology for assessing potential impacts of non-toxic substances

Types of risks:

• environmental versus human health risk
• occupation risk versus risk to the public
• voluntary and involuntary risk
• perceived risk
• acute versus chronic risk

Socio-economic valuation of these risks:

• with respect to human life (morbidity and mortality) and the less tangible issues related to quality of life).

Once such common scales (so called "metrics") are established, risk management decisions can be made in an informed and logical way.

When site specific considerations permit, risk management plans can be developed on a priority (i.e. Cost-Benefit) basis, thus achieving the greatest reduction of risk in a cost effective manner and also assuring avoidance of undue risks.