Risks of soil contaminants for human health: soil-testing procedures, models, standards

There are a great many sites throughout the Netherlands where the soil is contaminated with heavy metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, mineral oil, pesticides, and other organic compounds. Sixty to eighty thousand sites are in urgent need of remedial action. The estimated cost of such remedial action amounts to well over 18 billion euros. In the 1990s, the government instructed the National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) to derive a set of soil standards. A soil-testing procedure was also developed. In this advisory report, at the request of the former Minister of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (VROM), a committee of the Health Council of the Netherlands presents its verdict on the data, methods and models used by RIVM to derive these standards. It assessed these aspects together with the soil-testing procedure. In the course of this work, the Committee has restricted the scope of its investigation to those standards and procedures which relate to the protection of humans. The protection of ecosystems and the extent to which substances are distributed have been given no further consideration in this advisory report.