Application of Environmental Risk Analysis to Groundwater Protection

Industrial hazards can be divided into risks relating to property, persons, know-how and operations. The operational risks include risks to the environment, against which the industry in generally not insured. Environmental risk management is necessitated by the growth of legislation for environmental protection, by the economic losses involved in environmental damage and by the unfavourable image created by such damage for the industry. In 1985-1987, environmental risk analysis was applied at four factories and four refuse disposal systems in the fields of chemistry, forest industry and foodstuffs. The analysis covers organization of the different process stages, air pollution, waste disposal and problems connected with the surface and ground-water. Consideration of the groundwater risks must take into account the hydrogeological conditions, sources of pollution, use and monitoring of groundwater, and estimation of magnitude of damage. A wide variety of factors affecting the quality of the groundwater supply must also be included in the analysis. As in normal risk analysis, the study consists of identification and quantification of the risks and comparison of alternative measures. However, environmental risks were not found to be identifiable solely by fault tree of action error analysis, by hazard and operability study (HAZOP) or by management oversight and risk tree (MORT) analysis. As in other fields, specialists are needed for a site study of groundwater issues in the factories. Check lists were prepared for use when the personnel at different organization levels are interviewed. Serious environmental risks were found to be caused by deficiencies in the functioning of the organization, in information and allocation of responsibility. Permits, agreements, etc. had frequently been disregarded and many technical deficiencies had endangered the groundwater quality or supply.