Suter G W, Cornaby B W, Hadden C T, Hull R N, Stack M, Zafran F A
Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee, USA.
Risk Anal. 1995 Apr;15(2):221-31. doi: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.1995.tb00316.x.
Human health and ecological risks must be balanced at hazardous waste sites in order to ensure that remedial actions prevent unacceptable risks of either type. Actions that are designed to protect humans may fail to protect nonhuman populations and ecosystems or may damage ecosystems. However, there is no common scale of health and ecological risk that would allow comparisons to be performed. This paper presents an approach to addressing this problem based on classifying all risks (i.e., health and ecological risks due contaminants and remediation) as insignificant (de minimis), highly significant (de manifestis), or intermediate. For health risks the classification is based on standard criteria. However, in the absence of national guidance concerning the acceptability of ecological risks, new ecological criteria are proposed based on an analysis of regulatory precedents. Matrices and flow charts are presented to guide the use of these risk categories in remedial decision making. The assessment of mercury contamination of the East Fork Poplar Creek is presented as an example of the implementation of the approach.
在危险废物处置场，必须平衡人类健康风险和生态风险，以确保补救行动能够预防这两种不可接受的风险。旨在保护人类的行动可能无法保护非人类种群和生态系统，或者可能破坏生态系统。然而，目前尚无一个通用的健康和生态风险衡量标准可供比较。本文提出了一种解决该问题的方法，即把所有风险（即由于污染物和补救措施导致的健康和生态风险）分为可忽略不计（极小）、高度显著（明显）或中等。对于健康风险，分类基于标准准则。然而，由于缺乏关于生态风险可接受性的国家指导方针，本文基于对监管先例的分析提出了新的生态准则。文中还给出了矩阵和流程图，以指导在补救决策中使用这些风险类别。作为该方法实施的一个例子，本文介绍了对东叉白杨溪汞污染的评估。
