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

加拿大是世界上最大的矿产和金属出口国，采矿业占加拿大GDP的近5%，雇用了40多万加拿大人。金属工业可持续发展的关键是制定以科学为基础的金属生态风险评估。这些评估必须保护环境免受与金属负载有关的不利生物影响，但同时应允许加拿大社区和公司从我们的矿产资源中经济和社会受益，而不会施加不适当的惩罚性限制。Biomet将提供新的以科学为基础的理解和诊断工具，这将提高监管机构评估一些数据贫乏但具有战略重要性的金属的生态后果的能力。这些金属的现有知识差距阻碍了加拿大金属生产商未来的竞争力以及加拿大环境部对国内物质清单(DSL)上许多含金属物质的评估能力。Biomet的成果将直接提供给加拿大化学品管理计划(CMP)内的活动，满足国际(如REACH)监管机构的需求，并提供给环境规划公司，以满足这些新法规的要求。这些研究对保护和发展广阔且潜在脆弱的北方生态系统至关重要。这正成为一个紧迫的问题，因为北方的主要采矿和资源开发活动已经开始或预计将在不久的将来开始。Biomet对加拿大的北部开发政策具有重要的战略价值。

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.