Statement on the applicability of time-series coefficients to areas affected
by emissions of air pollutants from industrial sources September 2000
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Supporting Paper: COMEAP advice for the Environment Agency: applicability
of time-series coefficients to small areas around industrial processes
Introduction
1. Many large industrial processes are subject to regulation under the
provisions of Part 1 of the Environmental Protection Act of 1990: the
Integrated Pollution Control (IPC) regime. In implementing these regulations
the Environment Agency (EA) is required to satisfy itself that the requirements
of the legislation have, or can, be satisfied by the applicant.
2. The Act states:
"in carrying on a prescribed process, the best available techniques
not entailing excessive cost (BATNEEC) will be used for……..
reducing the release of such substances to a minimum and for rendering
harmless any such substances which are so released…".
Within the context of the Act, "harm" means:
"harm to the health of living organisms …..; and harmless
has a corresponding meaning".
3. In making its assessment of the likelihood of damage to health occurring
as a result of exposure to pollutants released by an industrial process
EA staff need to consider the exposure-response relationship(s) for the
pollutant(s) concerned. In practice, exposure can be modelled but more
frequently local concentrations of pollutants are modelled and attention
is paid to concentration-response relationships.
4. In the case of industrial processes releasing air pollutants that
have been studied as part of general research work on the effects of air
pollutants on health it is possible to use the concentration-effect coefficients
produced by such work to estimate effects. In principle, coefficients
derived from a range of study designs might be used but attention has
focused on those produced by time-series studies. Thus, in principle at
least, the proposed approach is similar to that used by COMEAP in its
QUARK report.
5. EA is seeking COMEAP's advice on the likely validity and reliability
of using this approach on a small to medium geographical scale. For example,
the effects of emissions from a cement works chimney on concentrations
of pollutants in a defined area could be modelled so as to yield 24 hour
average concentrations. The extent by which the cement works raised the
local concentrations could be determined. It would be arithmetically straightforward
to apply the time-series best coefficients linking, say, concentrations
of sulphur dioxide and daily deaths and to calculate the number of deaths
per year attributable to the pollutants released by the cement works.
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