Adaptation of the Available Detailed Risk Assessment Methodologies for Human Health and Ecotoxicology to the Case of French Ownerless Polluted Sites. Caroline Bertho and Christophe Schmeitzky, Environmental Consultants, Arthur Andersen, 41 rue Ybry 92 576 Neuilly sur Seine Cedex, telephone 01 55 61 00 32, fax 01 55 61 05 05, e-mail caroline.bertho@arthurandersen.com
The French circular dated December 3, 1993 provides the national policy frame relative to the treatment and remediation of polluted sites. One of the objectives of this policy is to define priorities, by means of consensus, through a risk and vulnerability assessment for each site.
Until recently, the studies available provided only broad and theoretical guidance. In order to complement this approach, a practical tool has been built to assess the human and ecological risk linked to a polluted site.
This work benefited from the know-how of the Anglo-Saxon and Germanic countries. An adaptation of these methodologies has been proposed for the purpose of simplification. The general approach consists in the quantitative assessment of the effects of the pollutants based on exposure scenarios considered likely.
The advantage of such risk assessment is not only the quantification of the risk, but also the definition of what constitutes an acceptable risk, in order to select remediation scenarios.
This approach is particularly well illustrated through the methodology implemented by the EPA in the United States called RAGS (Risk Assessment Guidance Superfund). The other methodologies developed by national, federal or international organizations are in fact more or less inspired by the RAGS methodology.
The work, performed for the first time and presented here, is an adaptation to a French framework of RAGS methodology, and more specifically to the ownerless polluted sites. It was the first step in the development of a decision making tool to help public and private managers of such sites choose the most appropriate remediation scenario.
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