Laboratory Solutions

Fixed Base | Mobile | Speciality | Quality Assurance/Quality Control

ESN operates fixed base and mobile laboratories to optimize its response to client project needs. The mobile labs allow rapid decision-making in the field, saving time and money where such decisions can be helpful—plume tracking, source identification, excavations, etc. The fixed labs provide conventional environmental analyses on a fast turnaround time (3-5 days) at normal, competitive prices. In addition, ESN provides specialty analytical services, developing or adapting methods to meet specific project needs.

Fixed Base Laboratory Solutions

ESN maintains in-house laboratory facilities capable of running a full range of analytical methods for environmental projects. Our fixed base laboratory specializes in providing rapid turnaround results at standard prices. Except for the most complex projects, all of our conventional environmental data (fuels, solvents, gases, (GC or GCMS), semivolatiles and PCBs, Pesticides, metals, wet chemistry, TCLP, etc., are provided in 3-5 days. Coupled with our sampling systems, we can provide quick results and great convenience to our clients.

ESN's in-house facilities are equipped with a full range of instruments for VOC, SVOC, Metals, Inorganics, Natural Attenuation and Bio-Remediation compounds, Petroleum Fingerprinting, Forensic Geochemistry, and specialty analyses (product characterization, MSDS verification, industrial process design and operation testing/validation). ESN chemists have extensive experience in analysis using EPA, State, and ASTM methods and in developing specialty methods for particular project needs. The quality of data and the ability to adapt methods is critical to conducting risk assessments.

Analytical Methods
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Mobile Laboratory Solutions

ESN operates two types of on-site laboratories: temporary fixed or mobile. Temporary fixed labs are set up for extended periods of consistent on-site analysis, or in locations inconvenient to ESN’s mobile labs. Trailers, offices, or other facilities can be set up very quickly for almost any analytical method. ESN mobile labs are fully equipped motor homes or industrial trucks with multiple, computer controlled instruments.

Most labs are set up with Gas Chromatographs and analyze for the full range of fuels (e.g., EPA Method 8015 for gas, diesel, jet fuel, oil, lubricants, etc.) and volatile organics (e.g., EPA Method 8021B for halogens, BTEX, etc.). They can be modified to measure volatiles and semivolatiles by 8260 or 8270 by GC/MS, petroleum hydrocarbons as TRPH (EPA 418.1 or 1664), PCBs by EPA 8082, PAHs by EPA 8100 or 8310, Pesticides by 8081, Herbicides by 8150, or metals by XRF or AA.
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Speciality Solutions

ESN’s laboratory offers a wide variety of Specialty Analytical services, in which we develop or adapt existing methods to meet the analytical and engineering requirements of our clients. This ranges from petroleum fingerprinting to analysis of toxic compounds in air. In each case, ESN was able to meet a client need where the conventional environmental laboratories failed.

Example projects include:

Air Toxics for Pharmaceutical Company
A Boulder CO pharmaceutical company asked us to analyze Tetrahydrofuran and Diethyl ether in air samples—all of the “big” labs had said no. We developed a modified 8260 method and documented its effectiveness for about $2500. Since then, we have run quarterly monitoring, as well as all of their other non-pharmaceutical chemistry, for environmental, waste water, pollution prevention, and manufacturing process modification and control.

Percolation Test in Snow Making
A ski area proposed to make snow using treated municipal wastewater as a source. The effects of the leaching of treated wastewater on the natural environment were unknown, and so the US Forest Service (lessor of the site) required an Environmental Impact Statement, including the testing and prediction of the effects. ESN was hired to design and operate a test process to predict the effects. ESN designed and set up a 10’ tall column test, in its Golden CO lab, to test the change in water and soil chemistry as treated wastewater percolated through soils collected at the ski resort site. Tested were anions and metals, COD, BOD, fecal coliform, and other parameters. The data were helpful to demonstrate that no negative impacts would result from the use of treated wastewater as a source for snowmaking.

Bilge Water Cleanup
Millions of gallons of petroleum-contaminated bilge water end up in our nations streams, lakes, and harbors. A creative company had designed an innovative approach to cleanup, saving time and money for boat owners. They hired ESN to conduct performance tests and evaluate the environmental consequences of the use of the equipment and disposal of the collected petroleum. ESN assisted in the design of the test and then conducted it at its laboratory facility in Golden CO. It consisted of a detailed characterization of bilge water samples (including multiple fuels as well as motor oil), development of a set of “typical” bilge waters for testing, conducting the cleanup tests under a variety of conditions, and preparation of the performance report and QA/QC.

Method Development and Investigative Design for Mineral Processing Chemicals Spill
A manufacturer of mineral processing chemicals, based on Xanthates and Thionocarbamates, had spilled large volumes around the plant, and then abandoned the facility to local land owners. The site was unusable for other activities, and the odors created problems for other industrial and residential properties. Under EPA’s Superfund program, ESN was asked to develop an investigative approach that would locate and quantitate the presence of Xanthates, but no method existed for its analysis. By examining the manufacturing processes and the degradation behavior of the compounds, ESN determined that CS2 would be a powerful tracer for the materials, but that to conduct traditional soil gas or soil sampling would risk failure as it oxidizes quickly in the near surface to COS and SO2. So, we developed a deep soil gas sampling program, with a mobile lab to analyze CS2 and other sulfur compounds using an GC/FPD. This was followed by a careful soil-boring program to collect sealed samples and analyze them for Xanthates and Thionocarbamates using a modified ASTM method.

Help Prepare MSDS for Rubber Cement
An importer of rubber cements was suddenly faced with the possibility that their product contained too much benzene or other aromatic hydrocarbons. A state regulatory agency was ready to pull the plug and ban the sale of this cement unless a new MSDS was developed to reflect actual concentrations. We quickly adapted an environmental analytical method to the cement and conducted triplicate analyses to document the lower than reported concentration of the lots of cement received to date. This allowed thousands of tubes to be sold safely in the U.S. and saved the importer both time and money.

Remediation Pilot/Bench Testing and Validation
ESN has conducted numerous bench and pilot scale design and validation tests of in situ remediation methods in order to assist our clients to implement them more effectively on contaminated sites. Among the methods we have tested in the lab and in the field on a pilot scale are: chemical oxidants such as permanganate on soil and ground water, Fenton’s reagent, chemical reductants, such as Calcium Polysulfide, biological systems for petroleum contamination in soil and ground water. The data from these and other tests have been invaluable in helping our clients modify and engineer their methods to enable them to be as effective as possible. In addition, we have developed or adapted delivery systems to make them both more effective and less expensive.

Cosmetology Licensing and Hazardous Waste
The State of Colorado cosmetology licensing board receives hundreds of complaints every year about noxious odors and other issues related to beauty salons. Their efforts to get information from conventional laboratories have met with failure, until they contacted ESN. We adapted a method to analyze for methyl methacrylate and test air, water, and solids to help determine how materials and wastes were being handled, and help the State deal with the complaints and issues facing them.
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Quality Assurance/Quality Control

Generally, ESN follows Quality Assurance / Quality Control guidelines as defined by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. The QA/QC varies depending on the project’s data quality objectives and field conditions.

Screening
Screening analytical support is designed to provide real-time data for ongoing field activities or when data will provide the basis for seeking laboratory analytical support. Screening analysis can also be utilized effectively when a phased approach is used for field sampling. In a phased sampling effort, the results of the first phase guide the development of subsequent phases, and thus, real-time data are important. Screening analysis involves the use of portable or transportable instruments that are based at or near a sampling site. Screening analysis should not be confused with the process of obtaining total organic readings using portable meters. Screening analysis can provide defensible, reliable data from the analysis of air, soil and water samples for many Hazardous Substance List (HSL) organic compounds. Screening data includes multipoint ICALs and daily CCVs and blanks after contaminated samples, but may not include MS/MSDs, LCS samples, or frequent duplicates.

Definitive
Definitive analytical support is designed to provide definitive laboratory analysis using standard EPA approved procedures for both analysis and QC. Generally the analysis performed using Definitive DQO is designed to provide confirmed identification and quantification of organic and inorganic compounds in water, sediment, and soil samples. Definitive DQO provides legally defensible data for site characterizations, environmental monitoring, remediation, confirmation of field data, and to support engineering studies (e.g., design, modeling, and pilot/bench studies). Sufficient QA/QC is available to conduct full validation. Definitive analyses can also provide data for risk assessment requirements.

The Mobile Laboratory can check sampling tool rinseate blanks, methanol or other preservatives, and other materials immediately, which means sampling can proceed with confirmed-clean equipment. Similarly, if contamination is suspected from any source, the detective work can be performed without delay because the on-site GCs can be used for this purpose. This rapid QC check of sampling equipment and other possible sources of contamination would translate to great timesavings in emergencies. Further, mobile lab analyses can be used to test IDW samples, particularly if a modest target analyte suite is recognized.
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