Risk Assessment as a Decision-Making Tool for Treatment of Emissions at a New Aluminum Smelter in Iceland: 2. Human Health Risk Assessment

Abstract

ABSTRACT Alcoa recently constructed the Fjarðaál aluminum smelter in Reyðarfjörður, East Iceland. The smelter is designed to produce a maximum of 346,000 metric tons per year of aluminum. A risk assessment was conducted to evaluate the differential human health risk related to estimated potential air emissions from the planned Fjarðaál smelter with and without seawater scrubbers. Air-dispersion modeling results provided for particulate matter (PM10), sulfur dioxide (SO2), hydrogen fluoride (HF), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were compared to ambient air standards or air quality guidelines from Norway, Iceland, or European directives and from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Risk estimates were calculated for PAHs. Modeled air estimates were mapped geospatially, to identify potential receptors, including onsite outdoor worker, seagoing worker, hypothetical fence-line resident, future hypothetical resident, closest current resident, residents in neighboring villages, closest farmer, and a visitor to the nearby Holmanes Nature Reserve. Both with and without seawater scrubbers, the predicted exceedances of standards per year for SO2 were well below the maximum number allowed. Use of seawater scrubbers was predicted to decrease average SO2 air concentration estimates in the short term; however, annual estimates were lower without seawater scrubbers. Risk estimates for carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic PAHs, and modeled air concentrations of HF and PM10, were well within acceptable levels.