Human health and ecological risk assessment of contaminated sites
- CanTox Inc., Calgary, Alberta (Canada)
Various methods have been proposed for establishing soil cleanup guidelines at contaminated sites, including both criteria-based and risk-based approaches. The criteria-based method is conservatively based on low concentrations of chemicals in the environment that are approaching ambient background values and are clearly protective of human health and ecological receptors, over a broad range of site conditions. The risk-based approach, on the other hand, considers site-specific physical, chemical and biological conditions and future site uses in the development of site-specific cleanup criteria. Risk-based criteria are generally less conservative (i.e., result in higher soil remediation values) than generic criteria. Thus, the risk-based remediation criteria necessitate a greater degree of technical evaluation of the Bite, and greater communication and liaison with regulatory agencies and other stakeholders; however, the higher soil remediation values can effect significant reductions in site-specific remediation cost. Advantages and disadvantages associated with use of deterministic (point estimate) and stochastic (probabilistic) risk assessment approaches will be discussed. Other topics include bioavailability, effects of chemical mixtures, acute and chronic exposure effects, background exposure assessment and emerging trends in risk assessment. The application of the risk assessment approach to contaminated site assessment projects in Western Canada will be discussed as case studies.
- OSTI ID:
- 40158
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9410273--
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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