User:Sami Rissanen

Homework 3

Scope

Defines the purpose of the assessment: why is it done?

Talvivaara mine has been alot on news becauce of environmental problems. Escpecially leakages to natural waters but local air quality broblems have occurred too. Rock crushing plant creates alot of mineraldust (PM10 and PM2,5). Assessment is done to investigate the amounts (t.ex. concentration) of mineraldust that is present in air of mining and working area where workers are exposed. From other studies it seems that heavymetall concentrations in air as dust are biggest in rock crushing plant compared to other places in mine.

Question

A research question that the assessment attempts to answer.

Is the outdoor air quality a health hasard to miners? What kind of mineral dust particles there is present in air and how high are the concentrations?

Intended use and users

List of users that are supposed to need the assessment. Also, how do we expect them to use the information?

Talvivaara mining company Kainuun ELY-keskus (Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment)

Company wants to know is the air quality in acceptable level. They need infomation about when and where the worst concentrations occur. Company can do shanges to reduse emissions if needed.

ELY-keskus needs to know is the air quality legal and safe to workers. ELY-keskus can impose the company to reduse emissions if needed.

Regional TTL (Työterveyslaitos) to observe air qiality levels and workers safety and work condititions, and to offer knowledge and improvements to working conditions if needed.

Participants

Who is needed to participate to make the assessment a well-balanced and well-informed work? Also, if specific reasons exists: who is not allowed to participate and why?

Needed:

A consultant to measure air quality.

Company

Ely-keskus

DARM group

Regional TTL

Not allowed:

To get objective and scientific assessment regarding to environmental effects and workers air quality and working conditions, The Finnish Association for Nature Conservation (FANC) might be good to keep separated from assessment making at least in the beginning due to very negative attitude towards Talvivaara corporation. This attitude could lead to biased opinions and assessment.

Scenarios

Decisions and decision options considered. Also, if scenarios (defined here as delibarate deviations from the truth) are used, they are described here. For example this is a scenario: "Let's assume that the whole population is exposed as much as the maximally exposed individual, because we want to see if even the worst-case scenario causes concern."

Rock crushing plant:

BAU or reducing emissions with some technique, t.ex. building insulation around crushing devices, or offering effective personal protection devices for workers in crushing plant. Also searching more developed rock crushing techniques and/or machines to improve crushing and reducing the amount of dust that arises.

Overall mine area:

Building protection structures to prevent wind from lifting dust and moving it around mine area. Using more water or other chemicals to tie up dust in roads and other gateways in mine area where moving vehicles lift dust to air.

Analyses

What statistical or other analyses are needed to be able to produce results that are useful for making conclusions about the question?

Answer

Results

What are the results of the analysis?

Conclusion

What is the conclusion about the question based on the results obtained?

The best option is...

Rationale

Endpoints

• What are the stakeholders that we should consider?
• What are the endpoints that a stakeholder is interested in? How would the stakeholder summarise the endpoints to derive an overall preference ranking for outcomes of decision options? Think about this separately for each stakeholder.

Variables

• What are the issues that should be looked at to be able to understand the outcomes of the decision options?
• Typically, with health impact assessments:
  • What emissions and exposures should be considered?

Emissions from rock crushing plant:

Exposure of mineral dust PM₁₀ and PM_2,5

• • What health endpoints should be considered?
  • What exposure-response functions should be considered?

• • What population subgroups should be considered?

Workers who breath raw outdoor air for many hours per week.

Workers who has low quality air conditioning in their vehicles.

Workers who has high quality air conditioning in their vehicles.