Answer #9

How is the Port Hope Area Initiative studying the effects of the projects on human health?

There is a special section of the Environmental Assessment dedicated to human health and safety.  The likely effects on people (workers and residents) are calculated from information developed in other studies, such as the effect of the project on the water we drink and the air we breathe. Each technical study – geophysical, atmospheric, aquatic, terrestrial and socio-economic – considers human health to be a Valued Ecosystem Component, that is, a valued and potentially vulnerable part of the environment against which project effects must be assessed.