Introduction to Contaminated Site Management - Dealing with Contaminated Sites: From Theory Towards Practical Application - page 63

Fig. 1.11 A notice board at which a connection between a landfill and an increased risk for cancer
is presumed, in the silvermines area in Ireland, in 2002 (photo: F. Swartjes)
the source for plant production, and hence food production, and drinking water. On
the other hand, many people, encouraged as a result of media attention, blame the
soil for contaminating their food and drinking water.
Of course, perception of the contaminated sites problem is as varied as human
character. Generally speaking, acceptability is less if the associated possible diseases
are less known, manifest themselves in the longer term, and when cancer is involved
(a small chance for cancer is often perceived as worse than a huge chance for another
serious disease). Lima ( 2004 ), who investigated the Risk Perception of people living
near an incinerator in Portugal, demonstrated that Risk Perception was initially more
acute for persons living closer to the incinerator. After a while, however, the persons
living closer to the incinerator showed a habituation effect. They developed less
extreme attitudes and a lower estimate of the risk.
When laymen are confronted with contaminated sites, they often associate the
contaminated site with the diseases that the contaminants could generate. Naturally,
humans are often afraid of anything dangerous that they cannot comprehend nor
control. It is much easier to accept something, even serious adverse effects, that
humans can understand and even more so when they are able to control these effects.
For these reasons Risk Communication in an extremely important process.
Typically, risk assessors often experience a situation where it is difficult to convince
stakeholders of the fact that the risks are acceptable when contaminants are present,
even though these are usually at low levels, simply because the diseases that these
contaminants could generate are known. A well-known example is the presence of
asbestos, maybe the best known carcinogenic contaminant in the environment due
to intensive media attention, in the soil of a residential garden. The realisation alone
that asbestos has been found in the immediate living environment could be cause