The Ontario Drinking Water Advisory Council has recently recommended1 to the Ontario
Minister of the Environment that the Ontario drinking water quality standard for the radionuclide
tritium be lowered by a factor of 350. The recommendation has not been prompted by a finding
of an increase in the risk associated with the ionizing radiation from tritium but from the reliance
on the methodology recommended by the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) for the
assessment of risks due to exposure to carcinogenic chemicals. The NAS risk assessment
methodology is not generally applied to ionizing radiation nor is it generally applied to situations
where exposure is dominated by naturally occurring sources, as is the case with ionizing
radiation.
Download the document in PDF (http://www.crpa-acrp.ca/pdf/links/owa.pdf )
