EAM
Environmental & Analytical Management, Inc
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The Most Cost Effective and Time Efficient Assessment Strategy
EAM has designed an optimum, one mobilization assessment/remedial feasibility strategy that will:
1) Provide data for spatial mass delineation and well location rationale,
2) Provide water quality data for aquifer identification,
3) Provide electron acceptor zone data,
4) Provide data to determine potential bioaugmentation limiting factors,
5) Provide significantly more representative and accurate data,
6) Provide data essentially in real time, and,
7) Provide long-term natural attenuation monitoring analytical services.
These points can be completed in one mobilization for the same costs as a fixed base lab. The cost and time
savings to traditional approaches is significant.
Analytical Parameters Include:
Electron Accepting Process
Nitrogen Cycle - Nitrate, Nitrite
Sulfur Cycle - Sulfate, Sulfite, Sulfide
Manganese Cycle - Manganese
Iron Cycle - Iron, Ferrous and Ferric
Carbon Cycle - Methane, Carbon Dioxide
Water Quality Parameters
Alkalinity, Chloride, Dissolved Oxygen
Contaminants and Breakdown Products
Volatile Organic Hydrocarbons, Ethane, Ethene, Chloride
EAM staffs every mobile analytical project with senior analysts who have accumulated numerous years of environmental chemistry experience. Environmental analytical chemistry, quality assurance/quality control and sample collection method effects must be integrated into the total evaluation of the representativeness of a data point. False data points require additional time and costs to describe the associated events of the generation of the false data. On-site mobile analytical chemistry eliminates several steps of the data collection system that introduces error and deviation from the true in-situ biogeochemical equilibriums that exist at that point in space and time. These errors are more or less serious based on the specific analyte. To maximize representativeness of environmental analytical data, EAM has developed a cost-effective mobile laboratory that generates analytical data in accordance with USEPA QA/QC standards, NELAP guidelines and EAM’s Quality Assurance Plan. These QA procedures insures that the data generated by EAM is legally and scientifically defensible, of known quality and maximized sample representativeness.
EAM QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE
EAM has performed mobile environmental analytical projects worldwide. A description of typical projects and experience follows:
· Designed, and set-up a watershed water quality monitoring system for the Salaca river watershed in Latvia, including training of Latvian scientists in USEPA sampling and analytical methodologies.
· Developed and operated natural attenuation (NA) parameter mobile analytical laboratory to evaluate NA and biogeochemical processes at several sites throughout the USA.
· Provided analytical system design and build services for long-term natural attenuation studies. Provided data in database formats and utilized data visualization software.
· Researched sampling methods and analytical procedures to determine site-specific interferences and minimize the occurrence of data outliers. Incorporated the results of the study in the design of a NA sampling and analytical system.
· Performed environmental analytical laboratory audits and performance evaluations
· Conducted NA studies interpreting sampling and analytical data quality, interferences and data completeness on a quarterly basis for one year at three Automotive Assembly Plants in Michigan.
· Evaluated NA data and site-specific analytical interferences during sample collection and analysis over a four year period at the Sydney Mine Superfund Site, Brandon, FL.
· Provided natural attenuation data sets in databases designed for input to various modeling software.
· Designed and operated sample collection and analysis systems for natural attenuation studies at chlorinated solvent, petroleum and co-mingled plume sites.
· Conducted inspection and audit of the environmental and health analytical laboratory facilities in Moldova as part of an evaluation of sustainable agriculture and infrastructure needs funded by Worldbank. Conducted seminars and lectures on ISO 14000 practices and USEPA sampling and analytical techniques. Provided recommendations and cost plans to conduct upgrades of existing laboratory facilities.
· Design and operations of a field analytical laboratory designed to sample and analyze hundreds of samples for volatile organic compounds, metals, polynuclear aromatic compounds and PCB’s at an automobile assembly plant in Michigan, USA. Technologies used include gas chromatography, X-ray fluorescence, spectrophotometry and immuno-assay.
· Mobile operation of gas chromatographs at numerous Superfund sites, a terpene site in Mississippi, automobile manufacturing plants in Michigan, and a dioxin project in New Jersey.
· Mobile gas chromatographic analysis of several herbicides and pesticides at a USEPA Emergency Response site in North Dakota, USA.
· Sampling and/or analysis of numerous industrial hygiene analytes in accordance with NIOSH methods including sulfur, asbestos, benzene, lead, CO2, O2 and mercury.
· Conducted data validation of analytical data sets in accordance with the USEPA Contract Laboratory Program
· QA/QC, sampling and analysis plan development and data quality objective process applications.
· Gas chromatographic analysis of solid samples for PCB’s at a former aluminum machining plant, New York, USA.
NATURAL ATTENUATION
Natural attenuation occurs in groundwater via destructive (biodegradation) and non-destructive (sorption, dilution, volatilization and dispersion) mechanisms. By evaluating spatial and temporal distribution and concentrations of electron acceptors and donors, mechanism(s) and rates of site-specific biodegradation can be determined. Three different biodegradation pathways have been described for chlorinated solvents: Type 1) reductive chlorination using electron acceptors, Type 2) as primary substrate or electron donor, and Type 3) co-metabolism where the chlorinated solvent breaks down as a side reaction with no energy benefit to the microorganism. The electron donor process is usually the rate limiting process. In reductive dechlorination, the chlorinated solvent is used as an electron acceptor, and a chlorine atom is substituted by a hydrogen atom. Because the solvent is the electron acceptor, a carbon source (electron donor) like is required for bacterial metabolic growth. A chlorinated solvent plume in the saturated subsurface begins when native aerobic microbes utilize native /anthropogenic carbon as the electron donor and D.O. as the first electron acceptor. When the D.O. is depleted, the next energy efficient electron acceptor will be used. The order of electron acceptor utilization is oxygen, nitrate, ferric iron hydroxide, sulfate and carbon dioxide. The literature indicates the highest rates of biodegradation occur in the methanogenic zone. Ideally, a chlorinated solvent plume would exhibit high rates of biodegradation via reductive dechlorination in the source area. The dechlorination mechanisms begin when PCE enters the aquifer, PCE is dechlorinated to TCE and then to the isomers of DCE and VC depleting oxygen initially, then nitrate, iron, sulfate and then carbon dioxide, where greater rates of dechlorination occur. The step from DCE to VC and ethene has been shown not to occur in the previously described mechanisms. The literature indicates that in an oxidizing zone DCE and VC are readily dechlorinated to ethene, carbon dioxide and chloride. Dr. Cherry’s work indicates that characterization of RNA requires detailed site monitoring plans with a comprehensive QA plan completed via the Data Quality Objectives process. When the DQO process is applied to a natural attenuation characterization study, three-dimensional transects of sampling arrays at relatively small intervals are required, when compared to spatial contaminant mass delineation groundwater monitoring well networks.