Environmental Contaminants Act

Review of Present Legislation. In Canada, the primary federal acts that have been developed for the regulation of chemicals and which could potentially be utilized to regulate biotechnology are the Pest Control Products Act (PCP Act), the Food and Drugs Act (F D Act) and the Environmental Contaminants Act (EC Act). 

The Environmental Contaminants Act is administered jointly between the Departments of Environment and NHW, and may be used to control the release, importation, manufacture and processing of a substance and its content in products that the government has reason to believe may pose a threat to human health or the environment. The burden of proof for hazard is on the government and under the existing Act it is difficult to acquire additional information on new chemicals in the absence of sufficient data to demonstrate an environmental or health hazard. Although chemicals which are imported or manufactured in excess of 500 kg are subject to... 

Administrative utility. Environmental Contaminants Act, information, legal framwork, QSAR Information System, toxic substances management. 

In this paper, we assess the utility of an information source based on OSAR models, the QSAR Information System, for the implementation of the Canadian Environmental Contaminants Act (1974-1975). To do this we 1) identify factors in the Act that may impose limits on the regulatory agencies actions, 2) list the QSAR Information System s main properties, and 3) show how these properties can affect the impact of the limiting factors in the Act. 

SCHEME 1 Procedure leading to the regulation of a substance by the Canadian Environmental Contaminants Act. Steps 1, 2, 4, 7, 9, and 14 are initiated by the two regulatory agencies (Environment Canada and Health and Welfare Canada) while steps 3 and 8 imply consultation with provincial authorities and other federal agencies. The Advisory Committee (steps 5 and 6) is a non-mandatory consultative body. The Environmental Contaminants Act Board of Review (steps 11 and 12) must hold a hearing if an objection is filed (step 10). Decision to add the substance to the schedule is made at the government level (step 13). (For more details see Crowley et al. 1986 Crowley 1985.)... 

TABLE 1 shows how each of the limiting factors found in the Environmental Contaminants Act can be affected by the QSAR Information System s properties. The properties may either favour or hinder the system s utility by contributing or not to easing the pressure that the limiting factors exert on the administrative actions. 

K. A. Ki ock and C. L. Wilkins, Qualitative analysis of contaminated environmental exti acts by multidimensional gas chi omatography with infrai ed and mass specti al detection (MDGC-IR-MS) , 7. Chromatogr. 726 167-178 (1996). 

The U.S. National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 required careful analysis of the consequences of any federally funded project. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) of 1976 established guidelines for handling, transport, and hauling of hazardous materials, such as required in cleanup of soil contaminants. The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) of 1980 established, for the hrst time, strict mles on legal liability for soil contamination. CERCLA stimulated identihcation and cleanup of thousands of contaminated land sites, and consequently raised awareness of property buyers and sellers to make soil contamination a focal issue of land use and management practices (US-EPA 2007c). 

The USEPA estimates that over 6000 facilities are currently operated as treatment, storage, or disposal facilities (TSDFs) regulated under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), which assigns the responsibility of corrective action to facility owners and operators and authorizes the USEPA to oversee corrective actions. Unlike the Superfund, RCRA responsibility is delegated to states. The USEPA and authorized states have completed initial assessment of potential environmental contamination at over 70% of RCRA facilities, as required by statute to address corrective action. Environmental contamination at many RCRA facilities is expected to be less severe than at Superfund sites however, the total number of RCRA facilities exceeds the number of Superfund sites. The USEPA developed a computer-based system known as the RCRA National Corrective Action Prioritization System (NCAPS) to help establish priorities for corrective action activities. Among the factors considered in NCAPS are the history of hazardous waste releases, the likelihood of human and environmental exposure, and the type and quantity of waste handle at the facility. 

The potential for environmental contamination continues to come from families of herbicides that have been used for years. The chlorophenoxy herbicides such as 2,4-D (2,4-dichlorophenoxy acetic acid) and 2,4,5-T (2,4,5-trichlorophenoxy-acetic acid) (Figure 5.1) are systemic acting compounds to control broadleaf plants and have been in use since the 1940s. The oral toxicities of these compounds are low. 

A number of environmental contaminants (e.g., some organo-chlorine pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) cause cancer in laboratory animals. The committee found no epidemiological evidence to suggest that these compounds individually make a major contribution to the risk of cancer in humans. However, the possibility that they may act synergistically and may thereby create a greater carcinogenic risk cannot be excluded. 

Each of the six components in the community of molecules (water, hydrocarbon, surfactant, cosurfactant, oxidant and substrate) functions only by virtue of cooperative action, i.e. water acts as a solvent for the inorganic reagent the cyclohexane droplets dissolve the substrate both immiscible components must be combined with the mediation of the surfactant SDS and the cosurfactant butanol fills the space between the charged SDS molecules. The result is, the droplets cannot grow and the emulsion becomes stable. There is a possibility that such microemulsions could work with several hydro-phobic, environmentally contaminating materials and that the structurally... 

Quite recently, attention has been drawn to the environmental contamination caused by pharmaceutical products and drugs. These groups constitute an enormous number of different substances, selected and/or manufactured for the purpose of biochemical and physiological activity and interference. By definition, such substances can act as toxicants in elevated concentrations and especially in the wrong situations or places. Furthermore, modem dmg design in many cases is directed towards the development of products with high bioavailability and... 

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