Human health and environmental risk assessments: politics or science?

Human Health and Environmental Risk Assessments are being used by both governments and \nindustries to determine whether or not existing and/or proposed pollution levels are safe for \nhuman populations and/or the natural environment. My personal experiences with a “Community \nBased Risk Assessment” in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, left me rather doubtful as to the validity \nof both the science involved and the level of community involvement in the process. After \nmeeting other people who had participated in the same kind of process in other communities, I \ncame to the conclusion that these three risk assessments needed to be analyzed and chronicled, \nnot only for historical purposes, but as a reference to how the process was carried out in the three \ncommunities in question: Sudbury and Port Colborne, Ontario, and Belledune, New Brunswick. \nThe risk assessment in Sudbury, Ontario, resulted in the highest permissible levels of ambient \nnickel air pollution in the province to become the norm only for Sudbury. Of note, extensive \nwater pollution of multiple heavy metals was left out, at the insistence of the mining industry \npolluters, who not only funded the process, but were allowed to be involved. The Government of \nCanada would later charge one of the polluters, Vale, for allowing exactly this kind of pollution \nto occur. Areas of the Belledune fishery are now unfit for human consumption after being \nsubjected to “risk free” pollution; however, rather than close the lobster fishery, all lobsters \ncaught within a 4-mile radius of the smelter in Belledune, are bought by the polluter, and then \nincinerated, rather than face the public relations fallout of having to close the fishery. Another \ncase in point concerning contamination levels being increased to match local levels, as opposed \nto recognized standards, is the case of the nuclear accident in Fukushima, Japan. The accident \noccurred while research into the three CBRAs mentioned was being carried out. These cases \nclearly indicate human health and environmental risk assessments are a political process, not a \nscientific one, and meant to match whatever form and level of local contamination was \noccurring, in order to keep corporate profits and government tax revenues flowing, despite the \nvery real risks to human health and the environment

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