Contaminated Land

Health Issues Resulting from Contaminated Land

Contamination and contaminated land has the potential to impact health and it is the Councils responsibility to ensure that where health is being affected, appropriate action is taken.

Just because someone lives on or near to an area of contamination or contaminated land, does not mean that their health will be impacted. The assessment and treatment (or remediation) of contamination is purposely conservative to be protect people.

Values against which levels of contamination are compared are also very conservative and are based on someone being exposed to contamination over their lifetime. There are parts of the Country were levels of natural contamination in the environment far exceed values against which levels of contamination are compared.

Generally, contamination will be taken up (or get into someone's body) in the following ways:

• By touching and coming into contact with contamination.
• By eating or ingesting dust or contamination attached to food (such as vegetables).
• By breathing in gas, vapours or dust.

If you find an area of contamination, you should contact the Council, who will visit to assess the situation. You should avoid contact with the area of contamination and where necessary stay at a safe distance. Businesses should also contact the Council, although they will probably have to get the issue investigated by an environment consultant. Details of how to report an incidence/occurrence of contamination.

If you believe that your health has being affected by contamination you should visit your doctor. You can also contact the Contaminated Land Unit. The Council does not have expertise in the direct health effects from contamination but is able to liaise with a specialist National Health Authority Unit, who's responsibility is to advise on these issues.

Communicating contaminated land issues effectively is difficult because very often were there are no signs of health effects to people or the environment and the likelihood of people being significantly effected by contamination will often be small and depend on each persons sensitivity to contamination.

However, because science doesn't have all the answers and because the assessment of contamination is necessarily conservative, the conclusions of assessment and investigation can often seem alarming. In reality, there may be no immediate need to worry about health issues.

The Council is sometimes asked whether potential contamination poses a risk to someone's health. If there is an obvious immediate risk to someone's health, the Council will take action to protect health. However, were there are no obvious signs of any health effects and depending on how much information there is on the potential source of contamination, it is very often difficult to identify real risks without undertaking investigation.

Where contamination either is, or may be causing harm, the Council must co-ordinate its approach to deal with an issue with other government bodies, public representatives, residents and the media. Where the Council is dealing with a site, the Contaminated Land Service will inform you of this but will not necessarily be able to offer you detailed advice at that stage. Advice will be provided to you in line with a public liaison strategy.

As part of its duties the Council must undertake a structured programme of investigation of potentially contaminated land in order to identify whether the land poses a risk to health or the environment. The Council is unable to investigate a property out of its prioritised order. This is to ensure that the most serious contamination issues are dealt with first. The Council's Strategy for investigating contaminated land in the Borough is available online.

You may wish to undertake researches on your property to find out whether contamination issues have been dealt with already or whether contamination may potentially be present. Further guidance on Environmental Searches and other information is available on this web site.