In November 2009 Queensland Health will release an interim Health Risk Assessment (HRA) which will broadly assess the risks posed to the Gladstone community by emissions from industrial and other sources.

The HRA process has four steps:

1. Identification of the contaminants of concern.

2. Identification of safe exposure levels for these contaminants.

3. Calculation of contaminant exposures.

4. Assessment of health risks.

This week’s column will cover the first step which is critical as it identifies the contaminants of concern that the HRA will consider.

The starting point for contaminants of concern is the emissions that Gladstone industries are known to release. All significant industries must report the type and quantity of their emissions for inclusion in the National Pollutant Inventory (NPI). Click here for a summary of GILG member NPI emissions.

Queensland Health then examined all Gladstone NPI industrial emissions along with emissions information from similar international industries. Of these emissions, any substance with scientific evidence which linked it to a disease and which had an air quality standard was listed as a contaminant of concern.

To this list were then added contaminants about which the community was worried plus contaminants that the Clean and Healthy Air for Gladstone project team thought should be included.

To confirm the completeness of this list, Queensland Health identified those diseases which occur at a higher rate in Gladstone compared to Queensland. Queensland Health then verified that any contaminants linked with these diseases were included on the list of HRA contaminants of concern.

For example, Queensland Health’s recent community survey of self-reported disease found a 12 per cent asthma rate in Gladstone compared to the 10 per cent rate in the rest Queensland. To validate whether this difference was due to industry emissions or other factors such as lifestyle choice, Queensland Health affirmed the requirement to include the five industry emissions associated with asthma as contaminants of concern.

The industrial contaminants Queensland Health identified as linked with asthma were: - Oxides of Nitrogen, - Oxides of Sulphur, - Particulate Matter (dust), - Ozone and - Chromium III and Chromium VI. These process steps resulted in a comprehensive list of about 160 contaminants of concern.

For more information about these contaminants and the process used in their identification, please click here.

In my next column I will discuss the second HRA step, the identification of contaminant exposure limits.

If you would like to comment about the HRA approach, please make a comment on the forum topic below.

If you would like to have your say on how GILG is going and don't know how, please click on this link which shows you how to register and make a comment, anonymously if you wish.

I look forward to hearing from you soon, cheers, Kurt.