Other Solutions

Something strange and mysterious? We can help you out.

Every now and then we get a call for the unusual, something so out of the ordinary that we simply have to invent a solution. Normally, it is something small, but always it is a joy to put the "Little Gray Cells" to work with a client to solve a problem. Here are some examples:

Air Toxics for Pharmaceutical Company

A Boulder Colorado pharmaceutical company asked us to analyze Tetrahydrofuranand 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 their quarterly monitoring, as well as all of their other non-pharmaceutical chemistry, for environmental, waste water, pollution prevention, and manufacturing process modification and control.

Yellow Snow???

A ski area proposed makeing 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.

Horizontal In Situ Injection Wells

ESN was asked to design a horizontal in situ injection remediation system. ESN had previously characterized the site of a large metal plating and manufacturing operation, and then provided vertical injection systems to reduce hexavalent chromium to trivalent in ground water. The sources, however, lay beneath dozens of tanks and a piping system. The default approach was to sequentially remove structures and floor, clean up, and then re-install the operation. We had a different idea. The facility was built on a slight grade leading to a river, and so the down hill side presented a 4' retaining wall. ESN installed 90 horizontal, 1'' PVC injectors using its Dolly Probe, bolted to the retaining wall. The injectors ranged from 25' to 60' long. The project was completed in less than three weeks, and saved the company many hundreds of thousands of dollars and months of time.

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 our laboratory facility in Golden Colorado. 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 had 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, as well as help the State deal with the complaints and issues facing them.

River and Lake Sediment Sampling

ESN has installed our Dolly Probe (or other probe) on a wooden frame and attached it to boats and cherry pickers to conduct sampling of unusual sediments, generally in lakes and streams. In addition, we have used our Gravity Corer for deep water and our Slurper Sampler for lake bottom surface muds from boats and other devices. Users have been EPA (Superfund site in Utah), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Platte River in Denver), and Public Service Company of Colorado (cooling water ponds).