When contemplating work-related or domestic environmental guidelines, many turn to
regulatory agencies for guidance. There is an inherent flaw with this process.
Regulatory agencies, whether local, state, or federal have a variety of
responsibilities.
1) One of them is to prevent immediate and obvious dangers from occurring.
An example is regulation preventing irresponsible handling of chemical such as
Chlorine, to preclude an immediate health hazard to the user, and the immediately
neighboring public. Another example is guidance in working with voltages that
can produce shock, and death on contact.
2) One is to provide guidelines for chemical or other exposures that will
prevent evident localized or systemic damage within a prescribed amount of
time. This is mainly a period of short duration such as a few hours or
days.
3) Another responsibility is to provide guidelines for exposures that will
or may produce illnesses over a long period of time.
4) The last and most important is to keep the peace, preventing the public from
becoming alarmed en masse, with unpredictable consequences.
The latter two responsibilities have an inherent
conflict.
When considering biological interaction with chemistry and other exposures,
long-term effects can take 20+ years to manifest themselves. This presents a
dilemma. Since immediate impact cannot be detected, it becomes problematic to
identify the consequences of any specific low-level exposure. Epidemiological
studies, which are time-based long-term studies, can help in this
determination, unfortunately however, only after the fact.
When considering environmental conditions that are already compromised with
chemical and other factors, regulating agency guidelines that indicate the need
to reduce levels significantly will tend to incite public discomfort, court
actions, and industry attacks on agency action. That being the case, the
agencies are constrained into simply accepting the situation as is (or possibly
only nibbling at problems), issuing no guidelines or providing ones that simply
reinforce the placebo that everything is fine, if we simply do not make the
situation worse.
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Experiential identifications based on sound scientific methods have been made
of certain environmental factors, and the levels at which they will produce
biological impact codified. These levels are generally several magnitudes smaller than
regulating agency guidelines. These levels will not acquire sanction by
regulating agency or industrial interest, simply because they could produce
panic, and unpredictable consequences.
The idea that some technical systems have been put in place
before there was sufficient knowledge to determine that they were safe, does
not justify the continued replication of their established engineering and
their grandfathering into a "safe" status.
However, it also does not justify the public having free and unrestricted
ability to prosecute the myriad of industries involved.
Since evidence is available, it makes sense for the public, industry, and regulating agencies, to come to agreements regarding low level biological interaction mechanisms, and make an effort to reduce "established" environmental aggressors on an ongoing basis, without disrupting life and business cycles, instead of promoting legal pursuits that make lawyers the only winners.
However, this author is not so naive as to think that a selfless attitude will prevail
when legions of alligators are searching for the me-mine pot of gold because they perceive
a wrong done to them by others. So problems will keep on being unwittingly built into
structures by individuals looking for a least expense, and people like me will keep on
getting paid to educate the "victim" and identify the problem.
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© 2007
Environmental Assay Inc. / Sal La Duca
Sal La Duca
Building Biologist
BS, BBEC/BBEI,
CIEC
FCC Licensed
792 Green St.
Phillipsburg NJ 08865 USA
908-454-3965