[Parker-L] [PBD 7-22-01] Toxic Confusion: the feds might be right

[Parker Donham]

22 July 2001
Halifax Daily News
Parker Barss Donham


	Health Canada revealed Wednesday that only five of the first 640 soil
samples tested in the neighbourhood north of the Sydney Steel Coke
Ovens exceeded acceptable short-term exposure levels. 

	Provincial Health Minister Jamie Muir, who never saw a health hazard
he didn't think Sydney residents could live with, was quick to declare
that the hot spots had nothing to do with pollution from Sysco.

	As you might have guessed, they were the victims' fault: arsenic
found where a family had dumped ashes from its coal stove; lead left
behind after careless removal of an old pipe.

	Then came Friday's Chronicle-Herald, and a page-one story that left
even the most jaded Tar Ponds watchers sick with rage. The "short term
exposure levels" against which samples had been checked were not the
same guidelines the rest of Canada is expected to live with. The
Sydney samples had been judged by much more relaxed standards drawn up
specifically for this project. 

	In every case, the Herald revealed, the short-term Sydney exposure
levels were higher -- much higher -- than national guidelines set by
Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment. The acceptable limit
for lead was 11 times higher for Sydney than for the rest of Canada.
For arsenic, it was 68 times higher. For benzene, 1,040 times higher.
For polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, 1,625 times higher. For xylenes,
165,000 times higher.

	Worse still, Health Canada refused to say how many tests had exceeded
the stricter CCME guidelines. The test results remained with the
private labs that carried out the analyses, beyond reach of Freedom of
Information requests.

	CBRM mayor John Morgan called it "abhorrent" that the safety of
Sydney residents would be judged by different standards than the rest
of the country.

	Bureaucrats responsible for the long delayed tar ponds and coke ovens
cleanup were furious with the story, which they believe seriously
misrepresented the nature and meaning of the tests.

	"We're upset," Don Ferguson, regional director general for Health
Canada barked into his speaker phone. "The CCME guidelines are not for
human exposure. They are for the most vulnerable element living in the
soil."

	Stephen Esposito, project manager for the consortium of environmental
firms carrying out the assessment, said the project has been
"approached in the same way it would be approached at any site across
the country."

	The CCME guidelines, Esposito said, are conservative numbers intended
only to identify areas of concern that require further investigation.
The point of the further investigation is to determine whether the
flagged chemicals pose a human health risk in the particular
circumstances that exist at that specific site.

	Investigators in Sydney, he said, are trying to figure out whether
it's a safe place to live, i.e., whether residential exposure through
a 70-year life span puts citizens at risk. Their analysis will be
completed by September 1. 

	With public concern at a fever pitch, they were also asked to
determine whether it was safe for families to live there for even a
short period of time. For that test, the benchmark was a toddler
living in the neighbourhood for 60 days, the time it will take to
complete the chronic exposure analysis.

	In both cases, analysis followed a similar course, Esposito said. For
each toxic chemical, investigators determined the maximum tolerable
dose over 70 years (for chronic exposure) and over 60 days (short-term
risk). The tolerable-dose figures came from Health Canada and the US
Environmental Protection Agency.

	Then they determined possible pathways of exposure residents might
experience. For the short-term risk assessment, the researchers
estimated that a toddler might conceivably ingest as much as 400
milligrams of contaminated soil per day -- roughly one-third of a
restaurant sugar pack.

	The short-term standards reported by the Chronicle-Herald represent
the amount of each toxin that would have to be present in soil for a
toddler who ate 400 mg. per day for 60 days to exceed the maximum safe
dose established by Health Canada or the US EPA.

	The lifetime risk to be reported in September will look at multiple
pathways of exposure -- ingestion, absorption through the skin,
inhalation of dust -- and determine how much of each toxin must be
present in the soil for people who spend their whole lives in the
neighbourhood to exceed a safe dose.

	"Risk assessment isn't rocket science," said Esposito. "It has a lot
of complex underlying components but the basic process is very
straightforward."

	"We do this for a living," said Bryan Leece, senior toxicologist on
the project. 

	Does the coke ovens cleanup pose unique problems?

	"We're asked that all the time," said Leece. "The short answer is
no." 

	He rattled off half a dozen comparable cleanups in Ontario: massive
industrial pollution of Hamilton Harbour; radioactive waste from a
nuclear plant at Port Hope; PCB contamination at Cornwall from a
General Motors plant across the US border; a toxin-spewing Inco plant
at Port Colborne.

	Any of them have 700,000 tonnes of toxic waste?

	"I think Randle's Reef in Hamilton Harbour has you beat," said Leece.

	Ever have to move a whole neighbourhood?

	"In the backyard of the nuclear plant at Port Hope."

	"The Sydney Steel Plant used conventional technology for making steel
and coke," said Esposito. "There are probably hundreds of sites like
this in the US, many of which have been cleaned up. There are
significant issues, but they're not unmanageable."

	All the more reason to get on with it.

	<I> Copyright (C) 2001 by Parker Barss Donham (parker@donham.ca). All
rights reserved. <N>

-- 
  Parker Barss Donham
  8190 Kempt Head Road, Kempt Head, Nova Scotia, B1X-1R8
  Phone: (902) 674-2953;  Halifax: (902) 423-7714