Bioavailability, toxicity, mobility and modeling of data poor metals (BIOMET)

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Canada is the world's largest exporter of minerals and metals, and mining contributes close to 5% of Canada's GDP, employing over 400,000 Canadians. Key to the sustainable development of the metals industry is the development of scientifically-based ecological risk assessments (ERA) for metals. These assessments must protect the environment from adverse biological effects related to metal loadings but at the same time, they should allow Canadian communities and companies to benefit economically and socially from our mineral resources without imposing unduly punitive restrictions. BIOMET will provide novel science-based understanding and diagnostic tools that will improve the capabilities of regulatory agencies to assess the ecological consequences of a number of data-poor, but strategically important metals. The existing knowledge gaps for these metals represent an impediment to the future competitiveness of Canadian metal producers as well as to Environment Canada's assessment capabilities for many metal-containing substances on the Domestic Substances List (DSL). BIOMET results will feed directly into activities within Canada's Chemical Management Plan (CMP), into the needs of international (e.g., REACH) regulatory agencies and into the environmental planning companies that are required to meet these new regulations. The studies are key to the protection and development of the vast and potentially fragile northern ecosystems. This is becoming a pressing issue as major mining and resource development activities in the North have been initiated or are projected to start in the near future. BIOMET should be of great strategic value to Canada's policy on northern development.