Quantitative Health Risk Assessment of Hydrocarbon Contamination at Former Inner Town Bus Depot (Case Study)

Hungary has a National Clean-up programme in line with policy and governmental decree for contaminated land that do specify explicit environmental and health risk assessment. This presentation provides a case study of risk assessment and modelling methods applied to a site contaminated by hydrocarbons at former inner town bus depot. A comprehensive health and environmental risk assessment framework was carried out for the evaluation of contaminated site. The goal of the study was to provide estimates of potential changes in exposure and risk that may occur either under a no-further action alternative (in present status after removing of contaminated soil layer) or following implementation of remedial actions (decontamination of heavily polluted groundwater). The presentation describes the danger that the hydrocarbon contamination source represents. The potential fugacity of pollutants to environmental media was evaluated by transfer and transport model according to RBCA rules. The calculated risk values for selected receptors (population, local and construction workers) showed marked hazard inside the site and descending off-site risk. The risk values were used in the selection of appropriate remedial action.