By NICK STEWART
An extensive seven-year, $10 million project analyzing the soil, water, air and food from the Sudbury area has determined there are little to no health risks from exposure to metals mined in the area.
The Sudbury Soils Study, the largest soil analysis project ever undertaken in Canada, involved the collection of 14,000 samples from various environmental sources, including soil samples from 10 per cent of local residences.
This study does not provide a historical perspective on local exposure rates. Indeed, rather than taking a look at occupational health and safety issues or historical perspectives on Sudbury’s environmental past, the Human Health Risk Assessment study instead focused on the health risks over a 70-year lifespan, 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.
This conclusion was mirrored by Dr. Penny Sutcliffe, Medical Officer of Health for the Sudbury and District Health Unit.
“Overall, this study is very good news for the health of our community,” she says.
“When you stop and consider a community that has 125 years of mining history, you might expect to see levels of contaminants that are much higher than those that were found in the study.”
What’s more, airborne nickel in Copper Cliff and the western portion of Sudbury Centre has a “very minimal risk” of causing respiratory inflammation over 70 years of exposure, Wren said. While this type of inflammation has been linked to the promotion of respiratory cancer caused by other sources, the study also determined that it’s unlikely this nickel exposure will result in any respiratory cancers over the projected 70-year lifespan.
Nickel is identified as being sourced not from the Vale Inco superstack, but rather from dust emitted from local smelting facilities and stirred up on their roadways.
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.
In fact, after looking at other Northern Ontario communities that have similar metal statistics, Wren says the Sudbury area samples actually featured a lower level of arsenic than places such as Wawa.
What’s more, it was also established that First Nations people, along with anglers, hunters and those who consume more local and wild game do not face greater risk of health effects than the general population.
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.
“We have come a long, long way since the 1970s,” says Brian Cameron, district manager of the Sudbury office of the Ontario Ministry of the Environment.
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, both have also established that their companies could do more to ensure public safety. Both companies plan to commit “hundreds of millions of dollars” over time to improve dust and smelter emissions to reduce the spread of lead and nickel particulates.
The two companies have outlined similar responses to the study, detailing their respective plans in a jointly developed Risk Management Report.
“We’re encouraged by these results, but there are a broad number of things we feel we need to do in response,” says Ed Cocchiarella, manager of the environment for Vale Inco’s Ontario operations. “For example, we’ve committed to continue monitoring at six stations around our Copper Cliff Smelter so as to determine whether our measures to reduce particulates is in fact working.”
Other measures include improving the design and efficiency of air filtration devices known as baghouses, as well as electrostatic precipitators, which use electrically-charged plates to separate dust from air. Both companies are also seeking to pave additional roads and improve the management existing roads, while making use of state-of-the-art sweepers to keep related dust to a minimum.
Extensive re-greening and land reclamation is also being planned.
The cost of the $10 million project was shared between the two major mining companies, with Vale Inco taking 70 per cent of the cost and Xstrata Nickel sharing the remaining 30 per cent.
While the funding was provided by the area’s two major historical mineral producers, the study was conducted and overseen by a variety of voices, including a technical committee, a public advisory committee, an independent expert review panel, an independent process observer, representatives from unions at the two mining giants, and a scientific advisor, among others.
Despite the involvement and funding by the two mining giants, Dr. David Pearson says any concerns about a conflict of interest and any potential interference in the final report are little more than a red herring.
“When you’re dealing with science, the numbers are the numbers are the numbers,” says Pearson, the science director at Science North and a professor of Earth Sciences at Laurentian University.
“They speak for themselves, and I don’t care who’s around the table.”
Pearson hails both the scientific process and the eventual peer review as being very thorough, and possessing strong credibility.
Pearson, whose involvement in the study was limited to oversight of some sample collection outside the city years ago, says the forward-looking scope of the study was also acceptable.
While he acknowledges the concern and frustration towards health problems of area residents as a potential result of historical mining activity, he says a retroactive analysis of the problem would have been next to impossible.
Retroactive studies of individual health issues would have to involve a study of a person’s genetic history, food consumption and lifestyle as well as the local environment. Given the inability to provide an “in the now” look, the most that could be produced would be questionable statistical probabilities, and even that much might be unfeasible.
“If you had looked at people and tried to discern what the story of the past was, the numbers would not have spoken for themselves,” Pearson says. “One doesn’t want to minimize the question, because it’s a very important question to a lot of people, but I don’t know if there’s a way science can answer it, to be honest.”
The full impact of the report is yet to be determined, as the Ecological Risk Assessment portion of the study will be presented in the fall.
www.sudburysoilsstudy.com
www.ene.gov.on.ca
www.valeinco.com
www.xstrata.com
