ominous

東京都議会公明党は２０日、豊洲市場の地下で採取した水から、シアン化合物が１リットルあたり０・１ミリグラム検出されたと公表しました。

Cyanide found in basement water at site of Tokyo’s new fish market

Cyanide was found in trace amounts in a sample of water pooling in the basement of one of the three main buildings of Tokyo's proposed new wholesale market in Toyosu.
The finding was revealed by Tokyo metropolitan assembly members of Komeito on Sept. 20.
The sample contained 0.1 milligram of cyanide compound per liter of water. Government environmental standards dictate that cyanide must not be present in soil at all.
The members collected the sample of water accumulating in the basement of the wholesale facility for seafood on Sept. 14 and sent it to a private research lab to be analyzed.
They also took water samples from buildings to be used by intermediate wholesalers of seafood and traders of fruit and vegetables, but no cyanide was detected.
Other toxic chemicals, such as benzene arsenic or hexavalent chromium, found in the samples were below environmental standards.
“(The amount of cyanide detected) was the same level of concentration as a clean, unpolluted river. At this level, it is usually harmless to human health,” said Takeshi Hasegawa, a former director of the Tokyo Metropolitan Research Institute for Environmental Protection and one of the members of the metropolitan government’s “technological meeting” that looked at ways of dealing with soil contamination of the Toyosu premises.
However, Akio Hata, former chairman of the Japan Association on Environmental Studies and a former professor of environment at the graduate school of Osaka City University, suggests there is a more ominous possibility.
“Finding highly toxic cyanide compound in the water is an extremely serious situation. Cyanide compounds are volatile, and this discovery must constitute what is left from an amount that has already evaporated,” said Hata.
A Tokyo Gas Co. factory formerly stood on the Toyosu site in Koto Ward.

http://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/AJ201609210037.html

今回取り上げる表現は、"ominous"です。『ウィズダム英和辞典』(第３版、三省堂)を引いたところ、「不吉な、胸騒ぎのする」とありました。

LDOCEでは、“making you feel that something bad is going to happen”と定義されていました。

今回の“ominous”は、“omen”という単語から発生した単語です。“ominous”が悪いことが起こる前兆を表現するのに対して、“omen”は「«良いまたは悪いことの»前兆、兆し、前触れ «for, of»」という意味になります(『ウィズダム英和辞典』)。今回の記事では“ominous possibility”という表現が用いられており、豊洲市場の地下水にはさらなる問題がある可能性を示しています。(Blue Sky)