Environment

Contamination of environmental media with biological, chemical and radiological toxicants may have serious effects on human health and elements of ecosystems.

Remediation of contaminated land requires risk-based target concentrations for corrective action...

• Assessment of impacts of environmental contamination relies on competence in environmental health sciences.
• Complex exposure scenarios involving combinations of pathways (soil, air and water) may result in direct contact (inhalation, ingestion and dermal) and indirect exposure through the food chain.
• Environmental fate of toxic substances depends on physical-chemical parameters of substances, which determine factors such as transport and persistence in environmental media. This determines the pathways and routes of exposure.
• Acute and chronic hazards to aquatic ecosystems are based on the toxicity of substances to aquatic species and are affected not only by contamination, but also by factors such as habitat and baseline health status.
• Quantitative assessment of environmental contamination for corrective action requires a fundamental understanding of health sciences, the risk assessment paradigm and the environmental behaviour and fate of the substances.
• Remediation of contaminated land requires risk-based target concentrations for corrective action. Goals for remediation should not rely on conservative screening guidelines and are often not achieved with computerised models in the absence of a fundamental understanding of health sciences.
• INFOTOX develops risk-based cleanup target levels for corrective action based on established competence in environmental health sciences.
• Cleanup costs must be balanced with the level of residual risk that would be acceptable after corrective action. The health-based approach followed by INFOTOX provides for a large margin of safety, yet it limits corrective action to a justifiable level not invoking the precautionary principle.