Public involvement in cleaning up
contaminated sites will help to reduce health
risks.
Image: iStockphoto
The Australian public is a vital player in the safe, effective clean-up of industrial contamination that poses risks to the nation’s health.
Public engagement in clean-up processes, understanding of what is involved and support for the outcomes will help reduce the risks posed by contaminated sites close to where people live and work, Professor Brian Priestly of Monash University told the CleanUp09 conference in Adelaide on 28 September.
Prof. Priestly is a distinguished Australian toxicologist, who has been involved in numerous investigations into contaminated sites such as Botany Bay and Mt Isa, headed the Therapeutic Goods Administration and helped shape Commonwealth Government policy on toxins, pesticides, drugs and other chemicals over many years.
“Australia has thousands of contaminated, or potentially contaminated, sites from its long industrial history – but a clear picture of the actual health risks involved to the population can only be obtained by close investigation of each individual site and what it contains,” he says.
“To do this we have the National Environmental Protection Measure (NEPM) - currently being further strengthened - and use Health Risk Assessments, which deliberately take a very conservative view of the possible risks at a particular site.”
However, Prof Priestly concedes, the public in communities affected by contamination doesn’t always appreciate this, and their view of the actual risk is coloured by their natural apprehensions about their own and their children’s safety.
“Even an HRA which finds that the risks involved are very small will not necessarily assuage public concern, or reduce the emotion behind it. The only way to do that is to engage the community in understanding and helping to solve the issue from the start.”
There needs to be a higher level of engagement between environmental protection agencies, industry and the public in dealing with contamination generally, he says.
“You have to take the community into the discussion. The worst thing you can do is try and fob them off with a bureaucratic PR exercise by trying to tell them it is all right – as sometimes still happens,” he warns.
Community perceptions of risk associated with contaminated sites can fall into two polarised camps, Prof Priestly says. “There are those that say “Those chemical nasties in the ground will harm my health, or that of my family. Get rid of them!” and there are those who say “So what! I’m not worried because I don’t eat dirt and I presume that any nasty chemicals will stay where they are.”
“Both statements are to some extent incorrect.
“People’s perception of risk is usually influenced to a large extent by emotive factors. A favourable outcome from a HRA will not necessarily ameliorate such emotions. To address people’s concerns there needs to be proper engagement with affected communities from the beginning of the site assessment process to engender mutual trust in the outcomes.”
While the people who dismiss the risk, tend to ignore the fact that chemicals can be mobile, moving in the form of gases, airborne dust and water, he explains: “A Health Risk Assessment has to take account of all these pathways.”
The answer in both cases is to bring the community to a clearer understanding of the nature of the contamination, the risks it may – or may not – pose and the various options for dealing with it. This will help them participate in and have confidence in the ultimate decisions.
“Unfortunately government departments sometimes still hide behind their communicators, and it can be difficult for the scientists and technical experts to get their messages out to the public to give them confidence in what is being done. This needs to change,” Prof Priestly says.
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