The' Scientist' in the picture (the white coat gives it away - it must be Dr Collins) clearly already knows the soil is "safe" as he's not wearing gloves or safety glasses. And where's his hard hat and high vis vest? (bet he's wearing sneakers as well).
I don't buy into the hype:
"may mean that more brownfield sites are available for housing developments"
"It is expected that the new test will help to determine that more brownfield sites are fit for redevelopment, allowing for more houses to be built in areas less damaging to the environment."
Bio-availability testing is only going to potentially reduce remedial costs for shallow surface soils in soft-standing areas on the developed site (to what ever depth you define as 'surface'). And most house builders like to import nice 'fresh' top soil anyway. And the article implies that the only significant human exposure pathway is ingestion!
This test is not a silver bullet - although it may prove to be another helpful tool if accepted by regulators (especially for imported top soil). I'd be interested to know how the results compare to currently accepted bio-availability methods.
We rarely find that human heath risks from soils that will be in gardens are preventing site development as these risks are pretty easy to engineer out. So even if you do push up the numbers that are acceptable to leave in shallow soils from a human health perceptive, its more often the case that the risk driver is controlled waters anyway (or then becomes the driver once your human health numbers go up).
Though if Dr Collins can get rid of the low BaP GAC nonsense, I'll buy him a pint!
Chris Dainton
Peak Environmental Solutions
http://peakenvironmentalsolutions.com/
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