defensible scenario. A high-rise
building or shopping centre grade
could be developed. Similarly, a root
vegetable grade, cereal grade, or
rangeland grade might be devised for
agriculture. A groundwater
protection criterion could be
developed. The advantage of this
approach is that it is tied more
closely to the impacts one might
reasonably wish to prevent. (i.¢., on
children, groundwater, etc.). Far
fewer assumptions and cross-checks
would be required to develop
criteria, although additional
information is necessary to develap
some of these criteria. While each of
these new use criteria would require
far less complexity than those
currently proposed, there may be
some trade-off with an increase in
the number of criteria. A further
advantage of the redefined uses is
that people can readily understand
that children’s playground grade
means just that, and there Is no
reason why every gram of soil on a
housing development would have to
meet this criterion. The implication
of "residential" grade is that all soil
on site should meet this standard.
Giving managers in the field a variety
of use-specific criteria to apply at a
site is also an advantage.

Another option for setting generic
standards is to use the results of site-
specific risk assessments conducted to
date. These form an evolving “case
law" of contaminated sites. Basing
generic criteria on the accumulated _
results of site-specific risk i
assessments would require

periodic updating of criteria.

This is not necessarily bad as it

will prevent a widening gap between
generic criteria set on a crude and
highly uncertain basis in 1993, and
site-specific cleanup criteria bas

All concerned with contaminated sites 10
the CCME Committee structure should
recopnize that there is very little evidence
to support the view that soil cleanups are
effective in reducing human exposures.

Zven in the case of children’s exposure to
lead in soil, recent trials in urban settings
have not yielded encouraging results.
While one should not generalize from
these trials to all sites and all
contaminants, it provides ample grounds
to question the wisdom of widespread soil
remediation. Even if one assumes soil
remediation is effective in reducing
exposures, it probably provides less
reduction in human health risk per dollar
spent than other public health programs.
Costs of up to $15 billion/cancer averted
have been estimated in the United States
and it appears that only at a minority of
sites would the cost per hypothetical life
"saved" go below $100,000,000. Whether
these remediation activities represent a
wise use of resources is a judgement for
elected officials and the public to make.
Jronically, when the risks of remediation
activities are factored in, in many. cases we
will end up doing more harm than good
from a public health point of view.

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Submitted by Tim Roark,
Chief Environmental Health Officer

The Central Fraser Valley Health Unit is
pleased to announce that
Mr. Charles Young, currently an
Instructor in the Environmental Health
Protection Program at the British

ia Institute of Technology, will be

rapidly evolving state of the art
assessments.

lem fot a one year term starting
3, 1994,