Environmental considerations assessment

Exploration activities are potentially damaging to the environment. The cutting down of trees in preparation for an onshore seismic survey may result in severe soil erosion in years to come. Offshore, fragile ecological systems such as reefs can be permanently damaged by spills of crude or mud chemicals. Responsible companies will therefore carry out an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) prior to activity planning and draw up contingency plans should an accident occur. In Section 4.0 a more detailed description of health, safety and environmental considerations will be provided. 

Conceptual design—the generation of ideas for new processes (process synthesis) and their translation into an initial design. This stage includes preliminaiy cost estimates to assess the potential profitability of the process, as well as analyses of process safety and environmental considerations. 

The development of models incorporating biomarker assays to predict the effects of chemicals upon parameters related to r has obvious attractions from a scientific point of view and is preferable, in theory, to the crude use of ecotoxicity data currently employed in procedures for environmental risk assessment. However, the development of this approach would involve considerable investment in research, and might prove too complex and costly to be widely employed in environmental risk assessment. 

Another issue is the development and refinement of the testing protocols used in mesocosms. Mesocosms could have a more important role in environmental risk assessment if the data coming from them could be better interpreted. The use of biomarker assays to establish toxic effects and, where necessary, relate them to effects produced by chemicals in the field, might be a way forward. The issues raised in this section will be returned to in Chapter 17, after consideration of the individual examples given in Part 2. 

Thns far, the discussion has dealt primarily with biomarker responses in living organisms. In the next section, consideration will be given to the exploitation of this principle in the development of bioassay systems that can be nsed in environmental monitoring and environmental risk assessment. 

Though it is impossible to anticipate all the directions in which environmental risk assessment will expand during the forthcoming years, below are presented some hot issues that nowadays are already attracting considerable scientific research. 

Thus the consideration of kinetics of POP sorption by particulate soil organic matter appreciably changes the pollutant vertical distribution, particularly during the clearance period, which increases this period substantially. Accordingly, this is of great importance to environmental risk assessment of POPs exposure to living organisms. 

Demidova, O, Chep, A. (2005). Risk Assessment for Improved Treatment of Health Considerations in El A. Environmental Impact Assessment Review 25(4), 411-429. Available at www. sciencedirect.com. 

Note (a) BCF is hioconcentration factor, NOEC is no-observed effect concentration. (b) For marine environmental risk assessment, half-life data in freshwater sediment can be overruled by data obtained under marine conditions. (c) Substances are classified when they fulfil the criteria for all three inherent properties for P, B and T. However, there is certain flexibility for instance in cases where one criterion is marginally not fulfilled but the others are exceeded considerably. (d) R48 Danger of serious damage to health by prolonged exposure. ... 

COMMUNITY APPLICATIONS OF SMALL SCALE SOLAR THERMAL ENERGY SYSTEMS. (1981) (Sponsor U.S. Department of Energy) ENVIRONMENTAL CONSIDERATIONS IN SITING A SOLAR-COAL HYBRID POWER PLANT. Substudies Include ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT. AIR QUALITY AND METEOROLOGICAL IMPACTS. (1981) (Sponsor U.S. Department of Energy)... 

Lange R. and D. Dietrich (2002). Environmental risk assessment of pharmaceutical drug substances—conceptual considerations. Toxicology Letters 31 97-104. 

Depending on the aim of the study, appropriate life-cycle methods and scope have to be chosen [27]. Most of the methods either consider all stages of the ENM or nanoproduct life-cycle, or focus only on specific parts of the life-cycle. For example, some methods focus only on the environmental health effects of ENMs, whereas life-cycle assessment (LCA) focuses on all environmental impacts of a nanoproduct, and thus also includes considerations such as impacts of energy consumption. LCA is essentially a comprehensive tool for environmental sustainability assessment. 

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) has evolved as a comprehensive approach to project evaluation, in which environmental factors, as well as economic and technical considerations (e.g. Cost Benefit Analysis), are given appropriate consideration in the decisionmaking process. The purpose of an EIA study is to determine the potential environmental, social and health effects of a proposed development. It attempts to define and assess the physical, biological and socio-economic effects, so that logical and rational decisions are made. The identification of possible alternative sites and/or processes may assist in the reduction of potential adverse impacts. 

In the past, risk assessment consisted largely of computer-based models written to start from hazard assessment assays, such as chronic toxicity assays on rodents, encompass the necessary extrapolations between species and between high and low doses, and then produce a numerical assessment of the risk to human health. Although the hazard assessment tests and the toxic end points are different, an analogous situation exists in environmental risk assessment. A matter of considerable importance, now getting some belated attention, is the integration of human health and environmental risk assessments. 

It becomes clear that environmental considerations not only can play a major factor in the choice of selecting a plant site but can also be quite costly. The American Petroleum Institute has estimated that the preparation of an ELA for each site considered may range from 50,000 for small projects to 1.5 million for a large petroleum refinery. On the other hand, a detailed environmental assessment may quickly eliminate possible sites because of their highly restrictive standards. 

Lange R, Dietrich D. 2002. Environmental risk assessment of pharmaceutical drug substances-conceptual considerations. Toxicol. Lett. 131 97-104. 

Pacific Northwest Laboratory has developed health impact assessment systems, the Remedial Action Priority System (RAPS) and the Multimedia Environmental Pollutant Assessment System (MEPAS), for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to evaluate the relative importance of environmental problems. RAPS, which was developed first, applies to releases from inactive waste sites. MEPAS, the most recent version of the system, allows consideration of releases from both active and inactive sites. MEPAS differs from RAPS mainly in terms of the types of emission options. Although MEPAS retains the documented framework of RAPS (1), several enhancements have been added to the transport and exposure components (2). 

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