Canadian soil quality guidelines for barium

This document contains a review of the chemical and physical properties of barium, the sources and emissions in Canada, the distribution and behaviour of barium in the environment and the behaviour and effects of barium in humans and mammalian species. [...] The conclusions of the 1999 barium Soil Quality Guidelines for Environmental Health remain in effect: “In the case of barium, there are insufficient data and/or confounding factors in the existing data to derive the preliminary soil contact values or the nutrient and energy cycling checks. [...] Therefore, the Soil Quality Guidelines for the protection of environmental and human health are based on the Interim remediation criteria for soil derived in 1991 (CCME 1991), and re-iterated by CCME in 1999. [...] Although the NCSRP program officially ended in March of 1995, the development of soil quality guidelines was pursued under the direction of CCME Soil Quality Guidelines Task Group because of the continued need for national soil quality guidelines for the management of soil quality (with a particular focus on remediation of contaminated sites). [...] The guidelines originally published in that document have since been revised and are now superseded by the Canadian Soil Quality Guidelines for the protection of environmental and human health published by CCME in October of 1999 and updated regularly since.