The Nielsen Environmental Field School training

Most environmental projects involve the investigation and characterization of a variety of interconnected environmental media, including soil, ground water, surface water and sediment. There is a tendency to view each of these media in an isolated manner, which can lead to difficulties in interpreting sampling results later. Writing an effective site-specific Sampling & Analysis Plan to address these issues is much more involved than just sitting at your desk and “cutting and pasting” procedures that may have been prepared for a variety of other sites – that approach is often doomed to failure. Having a written site-specific Sampling & Analysis Plan for all field personnel to follow is an essential component of technical and legal defensibility and data validation.

Developing an effective environmental sampling strategy is a complex task that requires significant planning and forethought. Prior to selecting an appropriate strategy, it is essential to review as many background documents as possible about the site and its surroundings, to create an initial conceptual site model (CSM). With the preliminary CSM in place, you must then field-verify the details of your model by conducting a thorough site reconnaissance. There are many questions that must be asked and answered during site reconnaissance that will guide you through the development of an effective sampling strategy. This topic is covered in two modules. The first module walks you through the development of a CSM and demonstrates how to conduct an effective site reconnaissance.

During environmental sampling events, a wide variety of field equipment is used to collect samples from a multitude of media and to perform field analysis on a variety of media. It is a common practice to use most equipment on a portable basis, at more than one sampling location. This is certainly convenient, but introduces the potential for cross-contamination of sampling locations and individual samples, both of which will affect the representative nature of samples collected. To prevent this potentially very serious and costly problem, it is critical to implement thorough and effective field equipment cleaning protocols. Within this module, classroom presentations and four separate field videos discuss in detail field equipment cleaning protocols that apply to equipment used for sampling soil, ground water, surface water and sediment.