Region looks for best practices for incinerator monitoring

DURHAM -- It will cost almost $250,000 for Durham's consultants to sift through thousands of documents in a review of best practices around the world for environmental and health monitoring of energy-from-waste (EFW) facilities.

At a May council meeting, Ajax Councillor Colleen Jordan asked staff to review the best practices and to create an environmental monitoring program based on it. Councillors asked the Durham-York Joint Waste Management Group (JWMG), which is overseeing the environmental assessment process necessary to build an incinerator, to oversee the work which will be paid in full by Durham.

Environmental monitoring includes looking at things such as soil, water and air samples. Health monitoring involves looking for chemicals and products in blood, hair, breast milk and other types of samples.

The Region's consultants outlined how they would conduct the review, which they expect to cost $240,000, at Tuesday's JWMG meeting.

Dr. Christopher Ollson, a consultant from Jacques Whitford, said environmental monitoring legislation differs in Ontario compared to Europe or the United States and other places.

"We've been asked to go away to look at what those practices are around the world and come back, report on those practices to provide alternatives and options for council to consider at which point we'll prepare our preferred option within those," said Dr. Ollson.

From what the consultants could find, nobody's undertaken this type of study in the past.

"As you can imagine, there are thousands upon tens of thousands of scientific articles in this general broad topic, how do you narrow that down to something that makes sense for your study," Dr. Ollson asked.

To do that, the consultants will conduct a systematic review of the literature which is intended to eliminate bias and allow anyone to reproduce the search, including Dr. Lesbia Smith, who will peer review the study. She reports to the Region's Medical Officer of Health.

"We're looking at probably somewhere in the neighbourhood of around 3,000 to 3,500 articles that would pop up in the first round of the search that's done, not all of that is relevant."

Beyond that, the consultants will look through what is called grey literature, meaning they haven't been published in scientific journals. As an example, Dr. Ollson cited the generic risk assessment for the Durham-York EFW project his team had conducted.

Dr. Ollson expects most of the information to come from grey literature, including studies and technical reports produced for governments. His team will also directly contact scientists, government officials and members of the EFW industry for further information.

In the end, the consultants will present a summary of best practices, the options and alternatives available and a recommendation on the preferred option.

"Eventually at the end of the day, the question is what is the best practice to ensure the protection of health and the environment if this facility is built," said Dr. Ollson.

The draft report is scheduled to be released on Jan. 15 and the final report will come at the end of February.