Grant: Strategic Projects Supplemental Competition

Brownfields, sites that have once housed industrial or commercial development and are now abandoned andpossibly contaminated, exist in most Canadian cities. They often are located in desirable areas, such as indowntowns, on waterfronts, or, as is often the case in Northern Canada, in residential neighbourhoods. Becauseof the potential health risk posed by brownfields, and because of their location in prime urban areas,municipalities increasingly want to clean up these sites. Assessing the health risk posed by the brownfield is thefirst step in determining how to clean up the site. Typically, contaminants in brownfields are transmitted topeople via soil ingestion or inhalation. However, little is known about contaminant characteristics of ingestedand inhaled soil particles and as a consequence, the toxicity of these particles is not well characterized. Wepropose to characterize metal and organic contaminant distribution in soil particles that are suspended in the airand in soil particles that can adhere to hands. Over a one-year period, in association with a Northernorganization, we will collect different size fractions of these two types of soil particles in a brownfield inIqaluit, Nunavut. The size fraction of a particle determines whether the particle will be inhaled, inhaled andthen swept into the stomach, or ingested. For each size fraction we will estimate (a) what metals are present,(b) how easily these metals can enter the bloodstream, and (c) what organic contaminants (e.g., hydrocarbonsor polychlorinated biphenyls) are present. This information will identify the single contaminant in abrownfield that is most likely to come into contact with people and how likely that contaminant is to transferinto a person's bloodstream. From this information we can create risk assessment calculations that can be usedin other brownfields that identify the contaminants that pose the greatest human health risk. In turn,remediation technologies can then be targeted towards these high-risk contaminants thus allowing a moreefficient clean up while saving time and money.