May 20, 2005
NORSKE CROFTON STUDY CONFIRMED AS INADEQUATE TO MEASURE HEALTH RISK
(Crofton, BC) – Debating scientists at the Norske Community
Advisory Forum struck accord on one thing - the NorskeCanada study on
air quality and health risks was not a baseline health risk assessment.
Representatives for Norske consultant, Jacques
Whitford, told the forum that it was never intended to be a baseline
health risk assessment – despite the title of the report “Baseline Air
Quality Modelling and Human Health Risk Assessment of Current Day
Emissions from NorskeCanada Crofton Division”. The consultant’s
statements came at the Community Forum last night in response to the
damning peer review commissioned by the Crofton Airshed Citizens Group
(CACG) and performed by RWDI Air and Pioneer Technologies.
“The peer review, along with these admissions by Norske and Jacques
Whitford that their study really doesn’t measure health risk, clearly
highlight the need for a proper baseline study on air quality and
health risk from the mill to be undertaken immediately,” said Michael
Ableman of CACG. “We still really don’t know what is coming from
the mill, or what the health impacts are.
Chris Waldron of Pioneer explained in his
presentation to the forum members the importance of considering the
many pathways of contaminants from the stacks to human tissue.
Inhalation is one of several pathways that needs to be considered,
however indirect pathways are a far greater human health risk for
facilities like Crofton, according to Waldron. Deposits of toxins
on land and water can get passed through the food chain, in some cases
accumulating in ever increasing concentrations in fatty tissue since
they don’t break down.
“This just demonstrates the importance of having an
independent study done where the terms of reference are set by the
stakeholders and not the company,” said Elizabeth White of CACG.
“We’ve known since the peer review was done that this didn’t measure
health risk, but to hear now that it was never intended to, really
calls into question the value of the whole exercise”.
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