Environmental Site Assessment field work involves coordinating many complex tasks, all of which have to be done in the right order, and it must be documented well while it is being done. It can get very hectic if you don’t use your time wisely in the field. In order to do the work effectively without getting overwhelmed you must find efficiencies in your work.
Here are 5 things you can do to make your work in the field go a little smoother…
1. Prepare as much of your paperwork before hand as possible.
The documentation of your work in the field will include items such as a Health and Safety Plan, several groundwater sampling logs, and soil sampling logs and general field notes. These documents have many fields on them that are repeated over and over again, such as the name and location of the site. Additionally, you can anticipate the names of samples and the sample numbers and pre-fill that information into the documents as well. It may not seem like a big deal but writing that information by hand takes a lot of time that could be used to collect a sample, take a note, give instructions to a teammate or driller. You don’t want to be a bottleneck in the operations.
2. Bring water for deconning equipment.
You will need to decontaminate your equipment in the field between sample collections and that will require water and alconox powder. Many times you will have access to water onsite from a spigot on the property, but sometimes there is no water available onsite. You will then be forced to de-mob from the facility and go find water at another site to do your decontamination. That will probably cost you at least 0.5 hour of time if not more. Why put yourself in that situation at all? Bring two 5-gallon buckets mostly filled with water to the site. It will be enough to cover your decontamination needs for a day and you can avoid the scrambling in the field if the water you had thought would be available onsite turns out not to be.
3. Pack a lunch (bring Gatorade and snacks too.)
When working in the field with contractors you may notice that they contractors will take a lunch break and go to a nearby restaurant to each rather than pack their lunch. However, if you pack your own lunch and bring snacks and Gatorade you will be much better off. The reason is simple, rather than spending time finding a place to eat and waiting in line and then commuting back to the location, you will have all that time to each at a comfortable pace. If you are working with contractors who do go out to eat you may find that you are finished eating well before than have returned, giving you a chance to catch up on field notes or make any calls back to the office that may be necessary.
4. Schedule the work early in the morning.
Work in the field can get very hot, especially in Florida. And the difference in temperatures between the morning and the mid-day are large. Work early in the morning can be comfortable, while work at 2pm can be nearly unbearable. The earlier your day starts, the less time you will spend broiling in the sun. Working in the hot sun slows down work and it totally preventable. Also, you will end up spending much less time commuting to the location of the work. There will always be less traffic at 5 in the morning than 7 in the morning. and by the same logic, there will be less traffic at 3 in the afternoon than at 5.
5. Hand off your lab samples in the field.
Schedule your lab contact to meet you in the field to get the environmental samples you collected onsite and take them to the lab. If you do this, you will not have the added step of taking your samples that you collected in the field to the lab at the end of the day. This can save you a lot of time and that time saved is some of your most precious time. At the end of the day, after a long day of field work, do you really want to shlep all the way to the lab to drop off samples? Now, you could keep the samples on ice overnight and submit them in the morning but frankly, why have that hanging over your head? Just get it done same day and have the lab meet you onsite. This option isn’t always available but if it is, take it.
Environmental Site assessment is not just a science, it is a skill. And in the beginning of your career, when you are first sent into the field to handle an assessment on your own, you may feel overwhelmed with all the things you have to do. If you miss just one thing you could cause costly rework to take place. Its a lot of pressure. But, if you find efficiencies in the field and prepare for the work ahead of time, you will give yourself all the time you need to get the work done quickly and efficiently.
If you are looking for an environmental consultant to perform environmental site assessment you your property please don’t hesitate to contact me. My team will work with you.
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