An RMWB presentation on the five pillars of recovery, including environmental, in which Erin O’Neill addresses recent concerns about private soil sample results.
Despite concerns raised in the last couple of weeks about the safety of soil in the wake of the wildfire, the RMWB says it is completely confident in the results of the second phase of environmental testing done in June which showed there is no concern for human health and safety.
“We are confident in the health of our environment based on the air, ash, and soil sampling and residents can be assured by the science in the results of the phase 1 and 2 testing,” said Erin O’Neill, Recovery Branch Lead. “No results that we’ve seen were surprising or unexpected and there were no results that exceeded our standards.”
O’Neill said some of the confusion has arisen because people who are having private testing done aren’t having their results measured against the same standard.
“So, we just did want to give some advice to residents who are doing their own testing, that you make sure that you seek a reputable expert when doing this testing and ensure that your samples are evaluated against that same Alberta Tier 1 Soil and Groundwater Remediation Guideline for Residential and Parkland,” she said.
As long as results are measured by the same standard they will be comparable “apples to apples”.
O’Neill said the standard used by the province is the most stringent for human health and included public areas from neighbourhoods across the community as well as community gardens.
“None of the soil samples in any area – burned or unburned – showed an exceedance of human health guidelines,” reads the summary of the report on the testing on the Alberta.ca website.
“In the case of community soil samples, humans are not the most sensitive in any of the categories with exceedances. As such, the exceedances of ecological guidelines in these samples do not have an impact on human health,” the report summary said.
A third phase of testing will be done in public areas like parks and playgrounds across burned and unburned areas of our community.
O’Neill said residents should be confident in the science behind the testing done by the province and should know they are safe to be rebuilding and returning home.
