Significant is not an exact measurement
Sentelle 2000 [David Bryan Sentelle, Senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, previously a U.S. district judge on the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina from 1985 to 1987, “STATE OF MICHIGAN, Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and State of West Virginia, Division of Environmental Protection, Petitioners, v. U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, Respondent. New England Council, Inc., et al., Intervenors.”, Nos. 98-1497, 98-1499-98-1502, 98-1504, 98-1518, 98-1556, 98-1567, 98-1573, 98-1585, 98-1588, 98-1590, 98-1596, 98-1598, 98-1601, 98-1602, 98-1608, 98-1609, 98-1611, 98-1615-98-1619, 98-1621, 99-1070, 99-1093., United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit, March 3, 2000, //zrubin]
The term "significant" does not in itself convey a thought that significance should be measured in only one dimension—here, in the petitioners' view, health alone. Indeed, "significant" is a very odd choice to express unidimensionality; consider the phrase "significant other." In some contexts, "significant" begs a consideration of costs. In finding a threshold requirement of "significant risk" in § 3(8) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act, 29 U.S.C. § 652(8), a plurality of the Supreme Court understood a "significant" risk as something more than a "mathematical straitjacket," and held that "[s]ome risks are plainly acceptable and others are plainly unacceptable."