Contamination and Risk Assessment in Environmental Law Essay

Contamination and Risk Assessment in Environmental Law - Essay Example In a nutshell, substance, range and quantity are key in this third level. The last stage involved risk characterization that looks at the data collected and its relevance to the environmental stressor. Transparency, clarity, consistency and reason are the principles that guide this stage. Ecological risk assessment is concerned with the potential risk f substances on a whole range of organisms including birds, mammals, and reptiles in the rivers. Human health risk assessment, on the other hand, is more interested with the lives of individual beings. Both of these concepts employ the same models, however, ecological risk assessment involved foraging range omitted in human health risk assessment. Ecological risk assessment heavily relies on physical impacts of the substance. For example, it considers the physical abnormalities on the animals, changes in color of the plants among others. The national resource damage assessment and restoration (NRDAR) projects aim to rehabilitate the environment mainly land and water sources from large oil spills and effects of mining activities. The program carries assessment on the damages to the environment and push for legal action from the relevant authority. The NRDA has continued to carry out many activities for the deepwater horizon spill. Some of its activities include assessing the damage the level of impacts from the spill. The project is also interested in implementing rehabilitation for the natural resources damaged during the spill. The final plan is restoration program, which will include compensation of individuals involved.