Risk Assessment

Sanexen is the leader in environmental risk assessment in Quebec and offers extensive human health and environmental risk assessment services. Sanexen’s multidisciplinary team of professionals (toxicology, ecotoxicology, biology, ecology, environmental modelling, environmental engineering, etc.) has many years of experience in the environmental and risk assessment fields, providing clients with a comprehensive expertise, as well as custom solutions to meet all risk assessment demands.

Since 1996, Sanexen has successfully carried out several hundred studies for public and private clients in Quebec and Canada. Sanexen has also developed and implemented TerraSysTM, a software program for the assessment of ecotoxicological risks of contaminated sites. This innovative software combines all the functions required to perform an ecotoxicological risk assessment, either in a terrestrial or aquatic environment.

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Services Offered

Toxicology:

  • Expertise in toxicology and scientific literature review;
  • Development or revision of environmental standards;
  • Planning and interpretation of toxicity assays.

Human Health Risk Assessment:

  • Human health risk assessment of toxic agents;
  • Human health risk assessment of radioactive agents and  pathogenic agents;
  • Know-how and application of federal and provincial risk assessment guidelines;
  • Determinist and stochastic methods.

Ecological Risk Assessment:

  • Ecotoxicological risk assessment of chemicals to fauna and flora in terrestrial and aquatic habitats;
  • Ecological field survey;
  • Planning and interpretation of toxicity assays;
  • Weight of evidence method.

Environmental Modelling:

  • Vapour intrusion;
  • Air dispersion of industrial emissions;
  • Fate of effluents in water;
  • Multimedia transfer of chemicals;
  • Food chain exposure to chemicals.

Risk-Based Management:

  • Remedial action plan for contaminated sites;
  • Certificate of approval for industrial projects;
  • Statistical and geostatistical data processing;
  • Risk communication and client support for legal or public hearings;
  • BAPE;
  • Public information sessions;
  • Expert witness.
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Contaminated Sites

In Québec, the Environment Quality Act specifies provisions regarding the management of contaminated properties based on the risk assessment approach. By limiting the decontamination work to the areas presenting a risk to human health or the environment, this approach often leads to the re-use of contaminated sites which, due to prohibitive costs, may not otherwise be remediated. Similar legislation exists in other provinces and states around the world.

Sanexen’s Risk Assessment team works in conjunction with its Site Remediation team to offer integrated solutions for the management of contaminated sites, from the initial assessment of the site (Phase I) to its final remediation.

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TerraSys Assessment Tools

TerraSysTM was the first professional software program to combine all the tools necessary for the evolution of ecotoxicological risks assessments.  Initially designed for contaminated sites, TerraSysTM possessed the functionalities and tools required to evaluate various situations involving toxic substances in the environment, whether in terrestrial or aquatic environments. Several databases integrated into the software gave it an unequalled capacity to evaluate the ecotoxicological risks of receptor-contaminant combinations for which no reference value was available

TerraSys GeoAssistantTM was developed to facilitate the documentation of the values required for environmental modelling. The software provided the user with local values of the principal variables required for environmental modelling, particularly with respect to the atmospheric dispersion of contaminants, regardless of the location of the site under study throughout the world.

These tools are no longer commercially available. For reference,  consult the Reference Manual

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