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What is Risk?

What is Risk?. Stella Swanson Golder Associates Ltd. Betty Hutchinson Northern Mines Monitoring Secretariat. Ecological Risk Assessment Workshop June 2005. Risk is an Everyday Thing. Planning a Boat Trip. Goal: Make Sure the Boat Stays Afloat. Is It Safe?. Standards:

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What is Risk?

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  1. What is Risk? Stella Swanson Golder Associates Ltd. Betty Hutchinson Northern Mines Monitoring Secretariat Ecological Risk Assessment Workshop June 2005

  2. Risk is an Everyday Thing Planning a Boat Trip • Goal: Make Sure the Boat Stays Afloat

  3. Is It Safe? Standards: • The rating of the motor • How many people can the boat hold?

  4. Is It Safe? Variables: • Weather • Distances to be travelled • Experience of the boat operator • Condition of the boat and motor • The navigation aids and equipment – e.g. maps

  5. How Sure Are We? Add to Our Confidence That it is Safe By: • Having enough approved life vests • Having a first aid kit and bailing equipment • Having fishing gear along in case have to get emergency food • Checking the fuel – and having extra fuel along • Tool kit for motor repairs • Filing a travel plan

  6. Is this Reasonable? How much risk are we willing to take? • Can we really count on the weather and are we prepared if the weather gets bad? • Is there really room for one more moose?

  7. Assessment of Risksfrom Chemicals Goal: Make sure fish continue to be present in normal numbers and in a healthy state

  8. Is it Safe? “Standards”: • Water quality guidelines or objectives • Sediment quality guidelines • Consumption guidelines for concentration of chemicals in fish • Benchmarks –the level of chemical where we are confident that the fish are protected at the population level

  9. Is it Safe? “Variables:” • Amount of chemical being released after treatment in the effluent treatment system • Size of the creek, river or lake that the chemical is entering • Amount of the creek or lake that has changes in chemical concentrations

  10. Is it Safe? Variables, Cont’d • The kinds of fish present in the creek, river or lake and how sensitive they are to the chemicals • Whether the fish use the area right where the chemical enters the creek, river or lake for things such as spawning or over-wintering • Whether the chemical is in a form that can enter the body of the fish

  11. How Sure Are We? Chemical • Treat the effluent to the best of our ability in order to get chemical concentrations down as low as practical • Apply safety factors to the water quality or sediment quality objectives or to the effects benchmarks for fish Boat Trip • Use life vests and have bailing buckets in the boat • Boat maximum capacity and motor rating include safety factors

  12. How Sure Are We? Chemical • Deliberately over-estimate the amount of time fish spend in the area right where the effluent enters the river or lake • Monitor the water, sediments and fish to be sure that our assessment is correct • Go back and correct if monitoring shows assessment has some errors Boat Trip • Look at worst case weather scenarios • Keep an eye on weather and performance of the motor • Leave half of the moose behind if over-loading the boat

  13. Is that Reasonable? • how important is it to protect fish? • is the level of safety for the fish correct given how important the fish are?

  14. Is that Reasonable? Chemicals • Different people will have different opinions as to acceptable risk • Basic principle for fish: fish continue to be there in normal numbers and in a healthy state Boat Trip • There may be differences in opinion re loading the boat with the moose even if somewhat overloaded • Basic principle: correct balance between benefit of bringing back the whole moose and the risk of swamping the boat

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