Soil Generic Assessment Criteria for Human Health Risk ... - ESdat

www.esdat.net Esdat Environmental Database Management Software +61 2 8875 7948
The volunteers then had a period of 2 months to collate data for their allocated contaminants and produce the
proformas with recommended CLEA input values. Proformas were then swapped between pairs, reviewed and an
attempt made to resolve any discrepancies or differences in opinion. The pairs of proformas were then distilled into
one unified set of proformas for each contaminant.
A second workshop was held in May 2009 to resolve any remaining issues from the data collation and peer review
process. Protocols for selection of recommended CLEA input parameters were finalised at this workshop.
3.1.3
Phase 3: Proforma finalisation, production of GAC and preparation of
report
Phase 3 involved the second tier of technical review, derivation of GAC and report production. The second tier of
review comprised two review panels, each consisting of 5 or 6 volunteers. One panel reviewed the health criteria
value and mean daily intake proformas and one reviewed the physico-chemical proformas. The panel reviews took
place in a series of one day workshops and were designed to ensure that a consistent approach had been taken for
the selection of recommended parameter values. Modifications were made to the proformas as necessary and the
recommended values used to derive the EIC/AGS/CL:AIRE GAC .
The GAC were derived independently by three volunteers and the results were compared for consistency. The
finalised proformas and GAC were then collated in a pre-publication report. This was issued to the organisations
listed in Box 2, who were asked to provide comments within a period of four weeks. In addition, representatives
from the EIC Contaminated Land Working Group, CL:AIRE and AGS, who were not involved in the collation of data,
were asked to review and provide comment on the report.
Methodology
Box 2: External organisations invited to comment on pre-publication version of report
• Environment Agency of England and
Wales
• Health Protection Agency
• Royal Environmental Health Institute of
Scotland
• Environmental Protection UK
• Scotland and Northern Ireland Forum for
Environmental Research
• Chartered Institute of Environmental Health
• Northern Ireland Environment Agency
• Scottish Environment Protection Agency
• Soil and Groundwater Technology Association
As discussed in Section 2.2.3 comments were received from six organisations. The comments related to the overall
approach and the content of the text section of this report. All of the comments significant to the derivation or
application of the GAC have been addressed. Comments not addressed related to style and/or presentation of
report. The external organisations did not (and were not expected to) carry out a detailed technical review of the
parameter values or GAC presented in this report.
3.2
Derivation of Health Criteria Values
The procedures for collation and choice of health criteria values (HCV) were in general accordance with the principles
set out in SR2, Human Health Toxicological Assessment of Contaminants in Soil (Environment Agency, 2009c). One
exception to the recommendations in SR2 concerns the use of expert toxicologists. SR2 recommends the use of an
expert toxicologist in the derivation of HCV to review the health criteria from expert review groups and to challenge
these criteria where appropriate. Although the EIC/AGS/CL:AIRE GAC project volunteers were all experienced
human health risk assessors none were qualified toxicologists and thus the HCV have been derived on the basis of
12