Environmental Forensics
Environmental Standards, Inc. personnel perform and oversee the collection, evaluation, storage and retrieval, data interpre-tation, and statistical analysis of large-scale environmental data sets.
Environmental Standards has in-depth knowledge and experience in assessing sampling, laboratory, and methodological reliability (for internal and external data interpreters), so we can manage down the data set, focus the statistical evaluations, and help avoid wasted effort. In addition to assessing and managing sample data, Environmental Standards provides robust capabilities in data interpretation.
Our senior forensic chemists and data managers/data analysts work in concert to condense complex analyses into manageable, discrete tasks. Our forensic and data teams routinely manage and evaluate environmental data sets involving tens of thousands of samples and millions of records. The requirements for data interpretation and data quality oversight in chemical forensics applications differ significantly from those needed in regulatory and remediation focused applications. The ability to compare, integrate, and analyze data sets requires first understanding which data are truly signals and which are statistical noise.
Why us
Interpret Forensic Data
The highly-qualified Chemists and Geoscientists at Environmental Standards employ sophisticated forensic techniques to obtain data not previously available. In addition, our Scientists have the expertise needed to interpret forensic data to provide a “fingerprint” or chemical signature of environmental pollutant contamination. Fingerprinting has been successfully used to reduce remediation costs and environmental liability of Environmental Standards’ clients.
Demand for More Information
Standard analytical methodology allows for the identification and quantitation of contaminants in environmental samples and the characterization of current site conditions. The validation of these data (i.e., contaminant and concentration) is one of Environmental Standards’ cornerstone services. In recent years, however, the regulated community has demanded “more information” from sample analytical data.
Our Response
Environmental Standards responded by combining the talents and experience of scientists from several service areas to offer our clients the advantages of a relatively new scientific discipline – environmental forensics.
Client Benefits
Clients responsible for site remediation want to know when, where, and by whom a pollutant was released into the environment because this information can be used to identify other sources (and responsible parties) of a contaminant release. Additionally, the professionals at Environmental Standards are adept at working on confidential projects under client-attorney privilege.
Our chemists identify PCBs, dioxins, PAHs, Agent Orange, Pesticides, creosote, hydrocarbons, and other chemicals that relate to contamination. Using fingerprinting techniques we can discriminate between chemicals of: petrogenic origin, pyrogenic origin, phytogenic origin, biogenic vs. thermogenic methanes, stable and unstable “diagnostic” ratios, and a variety of statistical techniques.
Professional Contacts
David Thal, CQA, CEAC, CFS
Principal Chemist
Gary Yakub
SENIOR QUALITY ASSURANCE CHEMIST
