6-4 – Additional Services – Emergency Response

Emergency Response

When an environmental incident strikes, it is easy for companies to feel overwhelmed. In these emergency situations, hiring an experienced environmental consultant can be essential for providing immediate technical expertise to assess risks, contain impacts, and protect public health and ecosystems. Our swift response ensures regulatory compliance, effective coordination with authorities, and the implementation of proven mitigation strategies that minimize environmental damage and long-term liability. Depending on  the nature and urgency of the response, new procedures and contracts that are atypical of non-emergency environmental operations are often required. The volume of environmental samples and data gathered is extensive and often overwhelm the quality systems already in place.

There is a better way. Environmental Standards’ Emergency Response Team can help.

When the Unexpected Happens, Our Team is Ready

By engaging Environmental Standards for emergency response preparedness, our clients can be assured that data quality is maintained from the very beginning and that defensible data, from which emergency response decisions are made, are readily available and shared with stakeholders during the cleanup.

From the first sample collected, our clients have the peace of mind knowing that they are working under a US EPA-approved Quality Assurance Project Plan (QAPP) and managing data in a manner compatible with US EPA’s Scribe environmental data management system. A pre-approved QAPP enables swift action by eliminating delays in method approval while maintaining data integrity, compliance, and confidence in response and cleanup decisions.

Comprehensive Program

Environmental Standards’ comprehensive Emergency Response Quality Assurance (QA) Oversight Program includes:

• Establishing a Repository for All Analytical Data
• Establishing Sampling Procedures for all Matrices
• Identifying and Contracting Analytical Laboratories
• Auditing Laboratory Performance
• Creating Web-based Data Sharing with Stakeholders
• Providing Third-party Data Validation
• Supporting Command Center Operations
• Training Field Sampling Personnel
• Overseeing Sampling/Field Operations
• Preparing the QAPP
• Automating Chain-of-Custody (COC) recordkeeping
• Supporting Public Meetings/Community Relations
• Meeting With Regulatory Agencies and Project
  Stakeholders

Service Areas

Chemistry Quality Assurance

At the onset of an environmental emergency, Environmental Standards’ QA Chemists quickly develop a laboratory program for the potential analytes of concern. This laboratory program often includes negotiating and specifying laboratory costs, turn-around-times, deliverables, and electronic data deliverables. Our QA Chemists work closely with our expert Geoscientists and data management professionals to ensure that data quality is maintained from the very beginning of a response effort. Together, Chemists and Geoscientists establish and review sample-collection procedures, develop sample nomenclature, and standardize COC forms and processes. Finally, to ensure that costly remediation decisions are based on accurate data, our chemistry QA professionals review and validate analytical results for accuracy, compliance with project analytical protocol, and the usability of those data for their intended purpose.

Geosciences

Environmental Standards’ Geoscientists prepare or independently review project control documents (e.g., standard operating procedures, sampling plans, and health and safety plans) for technical accuracy. Our Geoscientists understand the importance of assigned logbooks and photography records and following sampling procedures – as such, they provide training to sampling personnel and provide third-party field sampling QA oversight throughout all phases of an incident response.

Environmental Data Management

Environmental Standards’ data management professionals provide program-wide, enterprise-level data management throughout the various phases of the emergency response and cleanup process. Our data management professionals coordinate vast amounts of field data, positional data (Geographic Information System [GIS]), and analytical data generated from a project.

 The data management staff understands that project stakeholders want immediate access to data. Our specialists work with decision-makers in the critical days and weeks following the onset of an emergency to quickly develop and implement a central data process and data management system.  Ensuring that the data generated are of known and acceptable quality.  These data are readily available in any number of formats to project personnel as well as federal, state, and local environmental officials through a secure website or other means based on requirements.

When an environmental incident strikes, there’s no room for error. Environmental Standards does the job right. Our team of emergency response experts is here to help.