 |
 |
So you mean the incoming EPA standard is even lower than the current MOE criteria? No wonder there is some difficulty with (or resistance to) this.
Dave Fountain
Pollution Officer (Contaminated Land)
Tel. (01283) 508848
Mobile (07966) 342121
East Staffordshire Borough Council
Follow us on Twitter @ESBCEnvHealth
If you are visiting The Maltsters please note that we have limited car parking spaces available.
Bays marked ES5, 6, 7 are allocated for our Visitors ONLY. Other ES spaces are strictly for PERMIT HOLDERS ONLY.
Civil Enforcement Officers patrol this area. If there are no visitor spaces available please park at the Meadowside Leisure Centre Car Park (P&D)
From: Tony Windsor [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 24 June 2014 13:47
To: David Fountain
Cc: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Canada: Alberta TCE Class Action - Claims In Trespass, Nuisance, Rylands V. Fletcher Dismissed
The point is that they do not intervene unless indoor air concentrations are measured at concentrations far above their own "safe" criteria for indoor air quality. If concentrations are measured anywhere between 2.3 and 23 ug/m3, nothing happens. So, residents are left breathing air that, according the MOE numbers, could potentially be unacceptable.
The 24/7/365 and 1 in a million risk is very conservative (and pretty unrealistic) but, the main reason that I have been given from the MOE of them not having action levels this low is that they cannot achieve their own standards. However, all new risk assessments have to make sure new development meets the new, lower EPA standard.
The end result being that it leaves a complex legal situation - developers having to meet lower standards than the MOE themselves are meeting and existing residences being left with measured indoor air quality that the MOE are telling them is "unsafe" in the long-term but, "don't worry about it".
Those public meetings are very "interesting"!
Tony Windsor
On 24 June 2014 08:31, David Fountain <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Forgive my ignorance, but isn’t the Ministry of Environment criteria of 24/7 exposure and in 1 in 1,000,000 risk ‘quite’ protective? I can understand (like with Part 2A) why an intervention/unacceptable level would be higher than that....
Dave Fountain
Pollution Officer (Contaminated Land)
Tel. (01283) 508848
Mobile (07966) 342121
East Staffordshire Borough Council
Follow us on Twitter @ESBCEnvHealth
If you are visiting The Maltsters please note that we have limited car parking spaces available.
Bays marked ES5, 6, 7 are allocated for our Visitors ONLY. Other ES spaces are strictly for PERMIT HOLDERS ONLY.
Civil Enforcement Officers patrol this area. If there are no visitor spaces available please park at the Meadowside Leisure Centre Car Park (P&D)
From: Contaminated Land Management Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Tony Windsor
Sent: 24 June 2014 13:22
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Canada: Alberta TCE Class Action - Claims In Trespass, Nuisance, Rylands V. Fletcher Dismissed
What's of, perhaps, more interest toxicologically is that the impacts of TCE in Canada are being felt more and more frequently. There are a number of community wide risk assessment/risk management programs ongoing in Ontario alone right now. The attached link provides a good synopsis of one major one where the company directors were personally found liable (Wambolt v Northstar):
What is also interesting is that the standards that the Ministry of Environment/local city require to be treated as action levels before ventilation occurs are at least an order of magnitude too high (Action level of 2.3-23 ug/m3 v MOE human health criteria for residences of 0.6ug/m3). The MOE criteria is based on 24/7/365 exposure of course and 1 in 1,000,000 risk.
What this does suggest is that meeting the Ministry health standards is "difficult" to start with and it is only going to get worse as the new EPA tox values are implemented (we have to use them in all new risk assessments so vapour mitigation/on-site vapour testing is being the norm).
End result - Tort law is the beginning and its likely that the lawyers will be getting more and more active!
Tony Windsor
On 24 June 2014 04:31, Paul Nathanail <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
I am grateful to Lenny Siegel, Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight (http://www.cpeo.org) for bringing this to my attention. I was struck by the reference to Ryalnds v Fletcher - sometimes we forget the long legal shadow cast over the former colonies:
Canada: Alberta TCE Class Action – Claims In Trespass, Nuisance, Rylands V. Fletcher Dismissed
by Meredith James, Saxe Law Office
Mondaq
June 23 2014
Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) operated a train repair facility, known as the Ogden shops, since the early 1900s in a heavily industrialized area outside Calgary. Over the years, a residential area grew up around the shops. TCE was used as a degreaser in the shops from the mid-1950s to the mid- 1980s. In 1999, CPR discovered that TCE had contaminated the groundwater and migrated into parts of the adjacent residential community. It subsequently installed sub-slab depressurization systems under approximately 70 homes, where the TCE exceeded Health Canada thresholds. It did not provide any remediation at properties below those thresholds.
In 2006, CPR's neighbours successfully certified a class action against it in negligence, nuisance, trespass and strict liability under Rylands v. Fletcher, based on the diminution in property value and loss of rental income. They did not claim damages for physical injury or health problems.
...
For the entire article, see
kind regards
Paul
This e-mail and files or other data transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, disclosure, dissemination, forwarding, printing or copying is strictly prohibited and you must not take any action in reliance upon it. Please notify the sender immediately and delete the message.
Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of East Staffordshire Borough Council unless explicitly stated otherwise. East Staffordshire Borough Council may monitor the contents of e-mail sent and received via its network for the purposes of ensuring compliance with its policies and procedures.
East Staffordshire Borough Council does not enter into contracts or contractual obligations via electronic mail, unless otherwise explicitly agreed in advance in writing between parties concerned.
The Council believes in being open with its information and the contents of this e-mail and any replies may be released to a third party requesting such information at a future date.