Cancer hazardous water sites

Inhalation exposure to high concentrations of benzene in the occupational setting may lead to death from pancytopenia and leukemia. However, environmental exposure to benzene in the air, drinking water, soil, or food is unlikely to be fatal. People living near hazardous waste sites who are chronically exposed to contaminated air, water, or soil may be at a higher risk of death due to adverse health conditions, including leukemia and other types of cancer. 

Griffith J, Duncan RC, Riggan WB, Pellom AC. Cancer mortality in U.S. counties with hazardous waste sites and ground water pollution. Arch Environ Health 1989 44(2) 69-74. 

Living in close proximity to hazardous waste sites and drinking water contaminated by leachates from these sites has been associated with numerous health problems, many of which have been discussed previously in this book. A study was carried out by the U.S. ERA on 593 waste sites in 339 counties in the United States with analytical evidence of contaminated drinking water being the sole source of water supply. In this study, significant associations were demonstrated for several cancers in both men and women [67]. These include ... 

Despite the attention paid to dioxin, these pollutants do not pose as acute a hazard as a large spill of a lethal gas (such as the Bhopal tragedy), or a burning disposal site. Rather, concern about dioxin focuses on long-term effects such as potential cancer formation or bloaccumulatlon In the food chain. Unlike many pollutants, PCDD are very Insoluble In water and are not as likely to leach Into groundwater as, for example, halogenated solvents. 

Burning waste is sometimes seen by consumers as a convenient way to avoid trips to landfill sites, and the municipal corporation is a serious threat to air quality in some developed and developing countries. Pollutants have been linked to many health concerns, including cancer, disruption of endocrine function, developmental problems, endometriosis, cardiovascular disease, asthma and diabetes. Burning the waste also causes fire hazards, unpleasant odours and chemical fog in addition, the toxic ash can contaminate water supplies [1]. 

Many see the commercial nuclear power station as a hazard to human life and the environment. Part of this is related to the atomic-weapon heritage of the nuclear reactor, and part is related to the reactor accidents that occurred at the Three Mile Island nuclear power station near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1979, and Chernobyl nuclear power station near Kiev in the Ukraine in 1986. The accident at Chernobyl involved Unit-4, a reactor that was a light water cooled, graphite moderated reactor built without a containment vessel. The accident resulted in 56 deaths that have been directly attributed to it, and the potential for increased cancer deaths from those exposed to the radioactive plume that emanated from the reactor site at the time of the accident. Since the accident, the remaining three reactors at the station have been shut down, the last one in 2000. The accident at Three Mile Island... 

The chronic daily intake (CDI) estimated in the analysis of exposure, the second step of the risk assessment, is used to calculate the risks of both noncancer health effects and cancer. Risk calculations are also referred to as quantitative risk assessment, a term that is somewhat misleading because the word quantitative implies a high degree of accuracy, which is clearly not the case. In the first risk scenario described in Section 8.3, future residents drink arsenic-contaminated water from the aquifer beneath a former Superfund site. Their CDI by this pathway is estimated to be 0.0I6I mg/kg/day of arsenic. The oral reference dose (RfD) for arsenic is 3 x lO"" mg/kg/day, according to the EPA s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) (U.S. EPA 2009). The hazard index (HI) for noncancer health effects caused by this chemical of concern by this exposure pathway is calculated using Equation (8.3) ... 

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