Probabilistic human health risk assessment from offshore produced water

Chowdhury, Mohammad Khaled H. (2009) Probabilistic human health risk assessment from offshore produced water. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

Offshore oil and gas facilities are producing huge amounts of produced water during the production. The produced water contains formation water, injected water, small volumes of condensed water, and any chemical added during production and oil/water separation process. To meet the present regulatory criteria the produced water needs to be treated before discharge to the ocean. But despite the treatment the water contains some contaminants which are chemicals of concern for environment and human health. -- Produced water contains both organic and inorganic constituents. Several studies have been conducted in the past to assess their risk associated with produced water. The toxicity and persistence of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in produced water is of particular environmental concern, but there are very few studies on how to assess the associated human health risk. In this study a probabilistic assessment framework was developed to estimate the risk to human health from offshore produced water contaminants, especially PAHs. Two types of fish growth models were compared to select the best model for marine fishes. A questionnaire survey was conducted to get information about the local trend of fish ingestion and other demographic information. The concentrations of PAHs were considered absorbed in the lipids offish and along with the food chain ingested into the human body. The probabilistic results were compared with the deterministic analysis. The hazard values were to be negligible, but the risk values were found to be slightly above the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) acceptable limit. The probable main reasons for this were lack of data regarding concentrations of contaminants in produced water and values of slope factor of PAHs. The probabilistic framework is flexible and can be extended for use to other contaminants of produced water. A set of recommendations were included for future studies.

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