Handling Soil Samples - Environmental Issues

[NoWittyHandle]

What precautions should be taken when handling samples during geotechnical investigations? The reason I am asking this question is that I recently had to prepare a Health and Safety Plan (HASP) for a project involving a local utility in the New York City area. The safety requirements the utility is insisting on are excessive to put it mildly, but the HASP requirements got me thinking about what reasonable safety precautions we should take when obtaining soil samples. Somebody once told me that you would have to be taking soil samples from a toxic waste dump before you would have to worry about getting sick from handling soil samples, but I don't know if this is true. Also, are sight and smell sufficient to identify possibly contaminated soil samples that would suggest that our inspectors should take precautions when handling? Thank you for your responses.

 

[kslee1000]

The number 1 precaution is to figure out how many potential lawyers are after you for your decision today. After that, I suggest:

1. Identify the hazardous, harmful materials, environment, the workers are to face.
2. Check all regulations, guidelines regarding above, including the owner's own guildelines for its specific concerns for certain industry.
3. When drafting the HASP, put yourself in the shoes of the workers, image there are families rely on theirs health to carry them for the next 30-50 years, if not longer.
4. When reviewing, image you are dropped by your insurance, surrounded by lawyers and grief families, the sadness of your own family...
5. At conclusion, you have got the motivation to do better, don't you.

 

[Ron]

Your state department of environmental protection or similarly named governmental agency can probably give you some basic guidelines. Next you need to comply with the Personal Protective Equipment requirements of OSHA, depending upon the anticipated contaminants. That could include suits, masks, gloves, gas purging, etc.

Sight and odor are not sufficient to determine contaminants. They work in many instances, but not in all and you have to be prepared, as an employer or supervisor, for all. Some contaminants can quickly deplete oxygen, thus personal monitory alarms might be necessary for oxygen, CO, methane, HS, and other gases.

This is a difficult area in which to practice and precautions have to err on the conservative side, but within regulatory guidelines.

Further, you need to consider that your equipment must be cleaned and decontaminated, and in some cases this might not be possible, so you'll have to destroy the equipment (not likely, but possible). Cover that in your cost or obtain insurance for such.

Next, don't take "possession" of contaminants. They are not yours and you don't own them, even if you use them for testing. Destroy them by protocol or return them to the owner. Don't store them or keep them.