The Presence of Fluoride in Water - Term Paper Example

Introduction The water pollution or the ground water pollution that would be covered would be the site contamination. Site Contamination and reasons for choosing it The activities that are happening in the area of industry, agriculture and other commercial areas has resulted in a situation of chemicals being discharged to the environment and that getting accumulated in the soil sediments and the ground water or the surface water. There is every chance that the chemicals can remain in the environment for long time. Some of the chemicals may be having adverse impact on the environment. That can bring down the productive use of land and water.( Contamination Law) The contamination can be due to the past uses. Contamination can rise from activities that have taken place in the adjacent site or the result of not handling the chemical in the manner prescribed or the weak disposal practices that has been followed. There are chances of accidental spillage or leakage of materials that has to be thought of. The polluted ground water can be thought of as an example of polluting or contaminating the land indirectly. The dust from industrial emission can also be thought of. It has been found out that residential development has been found to more contaminate than commercial and industrial development(Moore).It has been also found out that adequate protection in the form of human health and environment has to be taken care of (Christopher Reynolds). There should be information about the known contaminated activities of the site and the site should be checked for the potential contaminated activities and the decision on the alternative use of the land should be checked. Before using the land the contamination in the environment should be checked for acceptable levels and whether the land and immediate environment had to be remediated to be made useful.( ANZECC Guidelines re Assessment of On-site Containment of Contaminated Soil) The probability and magnitude of risk The contaminated sites assessments are usually done by contaminated site consultants. They are also entrusted with the job of remediation of contaminated sites. The job is considered as technically difficult keeping in mind that the chemicals have complex behaviour in the environment and the effects that have on the ecosystem and human health. There has been found to be difficult to get dependable information in making reliable decision. The decision that has been provided by qualified and experienced people can help developers and planning authorities to take the correct decision. The main issues will be the quality of the data that has been used for assessing the contamination and the issues that has been encountered in the contamination of investigation. The suitability of the land and remediation activities should be considered. The failure to do so can result in the inappropriate use of the land and that can also increase the health risk. There will be bad effects on the biosphere or biophysical environment. There can be impact on the safety on the structures that can be new and that has been for log time. The delay in the development will turn out to be costly affair. There will be also a fall in the land value and that can cause the nearby land value to crash also. The possible consequences in terms of losses to people There has to be clear guideline on who should the blame be placed .The normal procedure is that there will be a person who has caused the contamination .There will be a person whose action would have resulted in that a substance would have been converted and caused the contamination. There will be a person who is either an owner or occupier of the land and would have known that contamination of the land would have occurred and had not taken any steps to prevent it. There would have been a person whose activities would have generated or used some substances that would have caused the contamination. There would be some persons by which certain actions would have meant that the land would have become more contaminated A regulation should be there in such a way that the land should be considered for regulation the moment it is felt that contamination is there to warrant regulation rather than determining whether the contamination can be harmful or not. A preliminary investigation can be done to know the situation. The landowner can be forced to do the primary investigation. The investigation and remediation of the land can be done together. There can be penalty charges for giving false information about the contaminated land. The assistance other than the financial assistance should be dealt first. The site contamination assessment should be included of the following factors. The soil investigation levels The decision making process of whether a site has been contaminated or not will depend on the investigation of soil. The concentration of contamination should be assessed first. Soil investigation level can be considered as a level above which if the concentration level rises, then further investigation should be done. The account of all environmental impact is not taken under the Soil Investigation Level. The soil investigation level will also include a health based investigation levels and the phytotoxicity that has been based on investigation level.( Chan, N., Jefferies, R.L., and Simons, R.A) Under normal procedures, Soil Investigation Level will not be applied to a land that has been applied or proposed for agricultural purpose. The Soil Investigation Level will not take into account the environmental concern that can affect the wild life . The important part of soil investigation level is the use of phytotoxicity. The phytotoxicity can be termed as the toxicity to the plants and this type of data can be considered against individual data points rather than going across the average data that has been found on the site. There can be limitations as the toxic level is dependent on the soil and understanding the nature of the soil has to be understood. For example if the soil is sandy loam or having the PH range of 6-8 then other tests has to be undertaken to determine the levels. The drawbacks of each tests has to be noted.( National Environment Protection) Petroleum Hydrocarbons There has to be assessment for the volatile petroleum hydrocarbons. There has to be checking for the TPH fractions for the soil and that can be in the range of C16-C35 and greater than 35.There should be a method of differentiating aromatic and aliphatic compounds and it at any case is not possible, then the guideline of C10-C40 has to be applied. The aesthetic considerations cannot be used as surrogates for the investigation level. This can said of 10 mg/l for oil and grease that has been based on the aesthetic issues. The problem with this type of assessment is that it cannot be translated into carbon fraction ranges of the TPH like the C10-C36.( Edwards, J.W) The contamination migration. The potential for the contamination to migrate from the original site should be addressed. The evidence of the occurrence of off -site migration has to be taken care of and the impact of likely receptors has to be addressed. This has to be done to protect the human health and the environment.( National Environment Protection) It has to be taken care of that air, quality, odour, aesthetics, and the suitability of a site for use. The site owner should be addressed of the off-site migration risk if any. The groundwater assessment There has to be every measure to identify the potential for ground water assessment and that include the using of scientific method. There has to be clear guideline why the groundwater assessment can be taken. Identify weaknesses in currently available scientific knowledge for quantifying your selected pathways (or links), and comment on these weaknesses. There has to be a system by which ground water contamination has been done. The groundwater would be becoming polluted when rainfall would be coming in contact with the site contamination, picking up chemicals and other waste pollutants. The chemicals would be infiltrating the water in a much faster manner. The groundwater has been tended to enter the chemical area slowly and that has to be done using with turbulence, dilution and mixing and contaminants touching the groundwater would be making a concentrated plume along with the groundwater and there would be slow movement of contamination of plume with the groundwater and there has been cholirinatedsolvent that would be several kilometers long. The weakness that could be identified would be the determining of the way the pollution would be taking place and there would be separate circumstances in which the pollution would be taking place and that would have to determine clearly. Assess the feasibility of controlling risk in your chosen context. There has been a situation of risk that has been poised by the contamination of soils and groundwater. The problem of contamination to land and groundwater has been happening through improper disposal of waste (F. Arendt). There has been a concern on the contaminated site issue that has spread to other parts of the world. The problem with general environmental protection is that it does not provide the necessary laws or the necessary strength to address the problem of site contamination. The specific legislation can address more issues like the relevant scientific or technical framework that can be applied in relation to the identification, assessment and the remediation of contaminated sites. The systems that were developed in the 80s provide the clean up for the multifunctional use and that has been the practices of trying to completely eliminate the contamination of the affected sites. This has been proved costly and there has been time consuming and there have been amendments to the legislation. There has been felling of encouraging the so called “brownfield” in all parts of the world and there has been offering of relief from the future liability and it has been offered voluntary remediation of sites that are part of development project. Compare the likelihood and magnitude of risk in your chosen context with that of other types of environmental risk. The other environmental risk that would be seen here would be air pollution and land pollution. The site contamination would be also influencing the air in such a way that it would be polluting the nearby areas and there would be contamination in different parts of the areas close to the site and this has the same power as ground water pollution. Evaluate people’s perceptions of risk in your chosen case study. How does it compare with perception of other risk? The presence of fluoride in water cannot be detected without the help of water quality testing equipment. High fluoride content is often detected from such symptoms on human beings as yellowing of teeth, damaged joints and bone deformities, which occur from long years of exposure to fluoride containing water. That would mean that people would be considering water pollution as a dangerous potent when compared with other forms of pollution like air and land pollution. Arsenic contamination of drinking water causes a disease called arsenicosis, for which there is no effective treatment, though consumption of arsenic free water could help affected people at early stages of ailment to get rid of the symptoms of arsenic toxicity. That would be more prevalent in cases of site contamination and that would be causing conditions like Brownfield. The site contamination has provided the minimum guidance to the respect of remediation strategy that can be made and that can be used to eliminate the risk of human health and affected ecosystems and new scientific approach emerge and it should be made sure that the relevant legislation and accompanying policies should be made for these developments. The current legislation does appear to be poorly equipped to do so.( ANZECC/NHMRC) Reference ANZECC/NHMRC Guidelines on Assessment and Management of Contaminated Sites (1992), available at http://www.ephc.gov.au/sites/default/files/ANZECC_GL__Assessment_and_Mgt_of_Contaminated_Sites_199201_Hist_0.pdf ANZECC Guidelines re Assessment of On-site Containment of Contaminated Soil (1999), available at http://www.ephc.gov.au/sites/default/files/ANZECC_GL__Assessment_of_on_site_containment_contaminated_soil.pdf Chan, N., Jefferies, R.L., and Simons, R.A., “Government Regulation of Contaminated Land – A Tale of Three Cities” (1998) Vol 15,pp.321. Christopher Reynolds, Genevieve Howse,2004, "International dimension on public health",Public Health Law and Regulation,pp.94. “Contamination Law”,viewed on November 25,2009,retrieved from http://www.iccl.ch/download/meeting_stockholm/Session%20D%20Rob%20Fowler%20Paper.pdf. Edwards, J.W., van Alphen, M., & Langley, A. 1994 Identification and Assessment of Contaminated Land. Improving Site History Appraisal. Contaminated Sites Monograph Series No.3. South Australian Health Commission,pp.75-100. .F. Arendt, Kernforschungszentrum Karlsruhe, Nederlandse Centrale Organisatie voor ,93, Contaminated soil '93 ,pp11. National Environment Protection (Assessment of Site Contamination) Measure 1999 and Schedules B1 – B10, available at http://www.nepc.gov.au/taxonomy/term/44 Read More