An extensive seven-year, $10 million project analyzing the soil, water, air and food from the Sudbury area has determined that there are minimal health risks for exposure to lead and nickel from mining operations.

The Sudbury Soils Study involved the collection of 14,000 samples from various environmental sources, including soil samples from 10 per cent of residences.  The Human Health Risk Assessment portion was unveiled Tuesday, while the Ecological Risk Assessment will be presented in the fall.

The study does not provide a historical perspective to local exposure. Instead, it analyzes the health risks over a 70-year span, beginning in 2001 and onward.

While levels of lead identified in some soil samples in Copper Cliff, Coniston, Falconbridge and Sudbury Centre were high enough to indicate a potential risk of health effects to young children, it is unlikely to have any real impact, according to project director Dr. Christopher Wren.

What's more, airborne nickel in Copper Cliff and the western portion of Sudbury Centre has a "very minimal risk" of causing respiratory inflammation from 70 years of exposure, Wren said.

No unacceptable health risks were determined from exposure to the remaining four of the six "chemicals of concern" examined in the study: arsenic, copper, cobalt and selenium.

Independent observers and officials from both the Ministry of the Environment and the Sudbury and District Health Unit have all praised these results as being highly satisfactory and indicative of a safe community.

In response, both Fred Stanford, president of Vale Inco's Ontario operations, and Mike Romaniuk, Xstrata Nickel's vice-president of Sudbury operations, have commended the report. However, they also established that more could be done, and  have committed "hundreds of millions of dollars" in the coming years to improve dust and smelter emissions to reduce the spread of lead and nickel particulates.