Council’s concerns over air quality exemptions in Hamilton dominate board of health meeting
Global News
Staff from the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP) educated Hamilton councillors Monday about 13 provincial exemptions for a handful of city industries.
Hamilton councillors learned a little more about the province’s air emissions regulations and the impact exemptions for a handful of local industries have on the city.
The explanation comes a month after councilors asked for more information on how “site-specific” air standards are granted to steel-making sectors and what effect, if any, have on residents adjacent to the city’s industrial sector.
MECP manager for human toxicology and air standards Rachel Melzer explained to the committee that provincial air standards are set based on health risks associated with “inhalation exposure” to some contaminants.
She said the “most sensitive risk” might be cancer and that the threshold for the contaminants in question is equivalent to a “one in a million” lifetime incremental cancer risk.
“So the idea is that over the course of a 70-year lifetime, for instance, if a person were continuously exposed to that concentration … their additional risk of cancer … would be equivalent to a one in a million risk,” Melzer cited.
She went on to say standards for other kinds of contaminants, where the associated health risk isn’t cancer risk, are set at a “protective level” where it’s not expected a typical person would have a health effect.
“In the case of sulfur dioxide, people who are exposed … it can trigger respiratory irritation, it can trigger asthma attacks and then other cascades of health risks associated with that,” said Melzer.
“So our air standard is set below the threshold at which people would experience the health effects of being exposed to that contaminant.”
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