Company Profile

OAK CREEK, Inc. provides toxicology and risk assessment services to industry, trade organizations, government agencies, attorneys, and environmental consulting and engineering firms. The keystone of OAK CREEK services is Dr. James Smith’s nearly 20 years of experience in public and private environmental consulting and his broad-based multidisciplinary education in the biological and chemical sciences.  OAK CREEK provides:

  • Goal-oriented risk assessment;
  • Derivation of alternative remedial goals;
  • Critical third party evaluation and review;
  • Comparative risk and exposure analysis;
  • Litigation support; and
  • Support negotiating with regulatory authorities.

Dr. Smith earned a Bachelor of Science from Cornell University and a Doctorate in Toxicology from the University of Cincinnati. His academic studies included extensive course and laboratory work in neurobiology and behavior, immunology, biochemistry, carcinogenesis, and molecular genetics. 

Dr. Smith’s professional experience includes 5 years working for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Criteria and Assessment Office (ECAO), which is now the National Center for Environmental Assessment (NCEA), and a total of 5 years work at two national environmental consulting firms.  Since 1997, Dr. Smith has worked as an independent consultant under the company he established and maintains for that purpose, OAK CREEK. Dr. Smith’s goal as an independent consultant is to minimize financial and environmental liability while maintaining the highest technical and ethical standards.

Dr. Smith’s chemical-specific expertise in toxicology and risk assessment includes:

  • Polychlorinated Compounds (i.e., Dioxins, Furans, Biphenyls);
  • Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon (PAH);
  • Volatile Organic Compound (VOC);
  • Chlorinated VOCs;
  • Petroleum Products;
  • Airborne Particulate;
  • Metals (Arsenic, Cadmium, Chromium, Lead, Mercury, Thallium, and others).

Dr. Smith’s expertise in exposure assessment includes the use of default- and population-specific parameters, Toxicity Equivalency Factors (TEF), the Estimated Order of Potency (EOP) approach, surrogate toxicity values, Plant Uptake Factors (PUF), subsurface vapor transport models, and process modeling.

Dr. Smith has experience working on  environmental projects in the following states:

    Alaska, Connecticut, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, Washington.

Dr. Smith provides clients with innovative and pragmatic science-based solutions to environmental problems.  He has successfully applied scientific arguments relating to compound bioavailability, relative risk and exposure, toxicology, chemical forensics, source determination, and environmental fate and transport to reduce or eliminate client environmental and financial liability. 

Please contact Dr. Smith with your environmental concerns.