LTR - Ep 49 - The Fundamentals of Field Sampling

In this 49th episode, I review an article I wrote a little over two years ago entitled "The Fundamentals of Field Sampling."

In short, the keys are to have reliable field measurements to guide you to know when to knowledgeably send samples to The Laboratory for Third Party Validation as "Confirmatory Samples," confirming what you were able to see in the filed while performing the remediation work. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

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SPEAKER_00 0:26

Hey there, let's talk remediation. This is your host, Charles Fader, and this is our 49th episode. Our 49th episode is brought to us by our ongoing sponsor, Hambi Environmental. Hambi Environmental is a manufacturer of field test kits. The field test kits provide accurate results within 10% of a lab result, economical at$35 a test for soil and solid surface and$45 a test for water. And efficient, four minutes for soil and solid surface, and six minutes for water analysis. And last week, Hambi Environmental released a new product. It's a field test kit for chlorides analysis. The chlorides uh test kit uh will analyze both chlorides in soil and in water with the same kit, and it provides those results in three minutes for water analysis and five minutes for soil analysis at$20 a test. So uh Hambi Environmental has uh saw that there was a need for uh some real-time feedback for chlorides, and so they developed the test kit. So, new compliment for Hambi Environmental. So, thank you, Hambi Environmental, for your ongoing support of this podcast, Let's Talk Remediation, where we're in our 49th episode and we are trying to have a positive impact on the environmental remediation industry. And with that, let's get started with our 49th episode. Our 49th episode is going to be the fundamentals of field measurements. Um, I'm actually gonna go over uh a publication I wrote uh a little over two years ago entitled The Field uh The Fundamentals of Field Measurements. Uh, some people don't like to read, so I'm gonna read for you. I wrote this article about field measurements and uh titled it The Fundamentals of Field Sampling. Um and it's uh it says All too often when introducing our handby environmental TPH field test kits, I hear we send all our samples off to a certified laboratory. Great, and you should, is my response. However, that's not all you should do, and most know better, but surprisingly enough, it's too it's too frequent that this is all that's done. The intent of this uh publication is to educate about the thought process behind field sampling. Field sampling, as the name implies, means taking samples in the field. However, there are two parts to this. It does not mean going to the field and taking samples and immediately sending them off to a laboratory for analysis. Well, that's certainly one way to do it if you want to have a long and expensive cleanup job. But if your intention is to be efficient and economical in the cleanup, then field sampling needs to have field measurements incorporated prior to sending samples to a laboratory. It's about being knowledgeable about when to send the samples to the laboratory. Field sampling and taking field measurements will do a number of benefits for your cleanup job. First, field measurements will immediately define your cleanup area. Sure, again, you could take field samples and send them off to a laboratory and get the results back for those samples and then know the concentration level for the areas where those samples were taken. But guess what? To get those results back from a laboratory will take time, typically 10 to 14 days unless you expedite them at a much higher cost to get the 20, 40 to 48 hour turnaround, which always means 48 hours, because the clock doesn't begin until the laboratory receives the samples from you. But even then, due to the time that's elapsed, most likely those places where you took those samples has changed. The concentration has likely the contamination has likely spread out, making what you thought was your defined cleanup boundaries now different than you previously thought. So now you have bad information, and worse, the cleanup area has grown and the cleanup bill has increased. This is not going to make the responsible party, likely the insurance company, very happy. This is why real-time field measurements are important to document and define the cleanup area so that the cleanup work can immediately begin and not later when the laboratory results are returned and the area has changed. Now that we understand that we need field measurements and why we need them, let's talk about the old mathematical description of garbage in and garbage out. You need to have reliable field measurements, measurements that mean what they say, not just a number, but a number that correlates to lab results, such that when you perform your cleanup, your field measurements provide you information that tells you when you have met the desired threshold of interest, which means now you should send your samples off to the laboratory for third-party validation of what you already know. These are called confirmatory samples. They are laboratory results that come back from having had reliable field measurements that told you to send them off to the laboratory. However, all too often, samples are returned back from the laboratory as hot, meaning still too high, meaning being over the required threshold for clean. This is not the laboratory's fault. This is from having unreliable field measurements if any field measurements were even performed. But we use our volatile organic compounds, VOC's level monitor, or our organic vapor analyzers, which is commonly referred to as a VOA meter, or our photo ionization detector, our PID, or our flame ionization detector, our FID. And it told us that we were below the threshold of interest, and that's why we sent samples to the laboratory. But the laboratory sent us back our results and reported back that the contamination levels were still too high, and now we have to go back out to the site and continue with more cleanup activities. And guess what? Time has elapsed again. So now the concentration that was left has now spread again, meaning you are again in a situation where you really do not know what the cleanup area really is. Now it's like a dog chasing its tail. Just a few complicating factors that come into play with these types of field measurements. Cost. Either the instrument has an expensive price tag, or to alleviate this, there's some kind of ongoing rental expense associated with its use. Typically, there's a some ongoing maintenance, which is work and cost, which is uh constant recalibrations or changing or cleaning of filters or both. Then other external factors have to be accounted for, like weather, wind, rain, etc. And uh another common response I hear is that we don't need TPH results. The term TPH stands for total petroleum hydrocarbons and means any and all hydrocarbons present taken as a single measurement. This means any type of oil, uh be it crude or refined, or any type of fuel it produced by refining oil or uh any individual aromatic compound or combination of them, such as those that make up the commonly referred to acronym BTEX. BTEX stands for benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene. Another common aromatic is naphtalene. Um all of these are found in all oils and fuels. Other commonly referred to acronyms are uh PCBs and PAHs. These are also hydrocarbons, which means they are detectable by TPH measurements. Now then, most field test kits have a very specific purpose or type of hydrocarbon that they are utilized to target, like a gasoline or a diesel fuel or a jet fuel or a crude oil, but not our handby environmental TPH fuel test kits. We not only detect all of these, we have specific calibrations for each uh all in the same test kit. Then but our state agency requires the breakout of DRO and GRO, which stands for diesel range organics and gasoline range organics. No problem. Your third-party confirmation laboratory results will break these out for you in their reports. Take comfort in knowing that they are both part of the TPH measurement. So as you're lowering your TPH contamination level, you are lowering your DRO and GRO levels so that once you have met your desired threshold, you will have these in check as well. This also applies for states like New Jersey who don't regulate based on TPH, but rather EPH. EPH is included in TPH, it is part of it. EPH means extractable petroleum hydrocarbons. There is also VPH, which means volatile petroleum hydrocarbons. TPH is the combination of both of these combined as a single measurement. So both are covered. And if the intention is to clean up the site, then using a TPH measurement, which covers both, in any and all hydrocarbons present, is a better measurement to rely upon and is in the environmental best interest of the cleanup of the site. The cost of field measurements compared to laboratory results, just because they are less expensive doesn't mean that they're less valuable. They are priced this way to be able to give you more data points because when you have more data points, you get a better spread or coverage, which provides for a better understanding of the area of concern. The thought process should be that having spent a little more money to run a few more field tests and sending a few more samples for laboratory analysis to have a better understanding is a lot less expensive than opting for less measurements only to find out that there are still hot spots and having to remobilize and making a whole new site visit and start back over chasing your tail again. Or worse, having an insurance company or state or federal regulatory agency send someone out to back check you and get this uh the same, this is a double-edged sword. You will not only be a dog chasing your tail again, but also not in the good graces with those regulatories, and this is a terrible situation to be in. Uh that can create all kinds of problems. To name a few, you are still on the hook as a responsible for the cleanup, but also the risk of having the bill collection issues, uh integrity issues, which could uh lead to being blacklisted andor prosecution, and could have the uh potential of putting you uh out of business. So the purpose of this is not to provide fear, it's to provide understanding. Do what's right, don't shortchange your work, don't opt for the minimal uh required. Understand that you need both reliable field measurements to guide your work, and then you need third-party certified laboratory results to confirm the work you performed to justify the cleanup bill. Understand that when justifying your bill, you understand how to explain why you performed both field measurements and have uh laboratory analysis performed to confirm what you did in the field. Likewise, have the understanding and be able to explain why reliable field measurements are in everybody's best interest of being able to advance the cleanup project forward in real time rather than waiting on laboratory results to come back all the while all the while the cleanup area is spreading and increasing in size, driving the cleanup costs up. The laboratory results for cleanups should be confirmatory to document the knowledgeable field measurements performed while in the field as opposed to relying solely on sending samples for laboratory analysis during field work to monitor the progress. That's the whole purpose of field measurements in the first place. However, it is understandable as to why some have opted for this approach. They had too many experiences with unreliable field measurements and had those projects whereby they had demobilized and then had to remobilize from the surprise return of hot sample analysis from the laboratory. These unfortunate situations put a negative image on field measurements. Most that even performed them uh do not even give much credit to them for this reason. And it really comes down to having a bad option as their field measurement. I'm here to tell you our Hambi environmental TPH field test kits and now our chloride uh field test kits have spanned uh the test of time. Next month, uh and at the time of this article, um, next month was gonna mark 30 years in business. Well, um uh last month actually, as of this date, uh uh March uh of um 26. Uh last month, March of 26 marked us 40 years. So 40 years in business. Uh we've been uh manufacturing our field test kits and sending them around the world. Um our field test kits utilize a very sound analytical chemistry to provide fast, accurate, and economical field analysis for hydrocarbons. Our kits provide results in soil in four minutes and six minutes in water, and have been found by regulatory agencies and independent studies and validated by uh lab results the world over. You have an effective field measurement if you can get a result in the field within 25% of a lab result, and we have been found to be within 10%, which is two and a half times better than the acceptable variance. And our kits have been deployed the world over from the Arctic to the desert, to the jungles and everything in between. Um and our per test uh analysis is even priced below other field measurements, with the thought process that at a lower price point we might encourage additional measurements or data points to be performed, thus providing a better understanding for the cleanup project. We have always underpriced the value impact our products provide, and the main purpose for doing this is my grandfather and our namesake, John D. Hanby, uh past NASA scientist, uh rest in peace uh from April of 2015, always said a sh a scientist shouldn't be prepaid, uh, they should be uh supported. So I've interpreted that as always provide our value at an affordable price option so that we are supporting the science field work, which has the immediate impact on uh the project in motion, but has a much wider impact over time like our 40 years, uh by being the fast, accurate, and affordable option to assist in the cleaning the cleanup of our world. So with that, just to kind of uh highlight some things there is again, you know, we need to have you need to be using field measurements such as those that provided by the Hambi environmental field test kits. Uh, and then they need to be reliable field measurements, such as those provided by the Hambi environmental field test kits. And so that with that, that's just what I wanted to go over today with the the review of this um article that I wrote a little over two years uh entitled The Fundamentals of Field Measurements. So thank you for tuning in. Thank you, Hambi Environmental, for your ongoing support of this podcast. Let's talk remediation, where we're trying to have a positive impact on the environmental remediation industry. And with that, uh, I am your host, Charles Fader, and I'm out.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

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