Quality Assurance Applications for Non-Residential and Residential Lead Contamination Sites
In this issue of The Standard, there is an excellent article by Jeff Leed, M.S., which contains a synopsis of new lead guidance and the potential effects of that guidance on lead-contaminated sites. It also provides great background for a current Superfund site investigation and remediation project where Environmental Standards is providing third-party quality assurance oversight for our client.
Prior to a new phase of soil investigation and remediation work for non-residential parks, playgrounds and school building exteriors, Environmental Standards was tasked with ensuring the field and analytical data met strict quality standards.
Environmental Standards provides the following third-party quality assurance services on an ongoing basis to meet these standards.
- Quality Assurance Plan development and updates
- Laboratory auditing of both sample preparation (air-dry and sieve) and analysis laboratories
- Field sampling auditing of both composite and incremental sampling methodology (ISM)
- Validation at Stage 2B and Stage 4 analytical deliverables for 100% of the laboratory data.
- Validation of field documentation to meet specified Level A and Level B criteria to further define data as enforcement or screening quality data.
- Updates to database electronic data deliverables (EDDs) to qualify data based on analytical and field data for import back into the project database.
- Design and implementation of a significant screen size study comparison between lead results of 250- and 150-µm sieved data (approved by US EPA and to be published in the near future in consortia with Project Team risk assessment personnel).
- Coordination with US EPA quality assurance oversight contractor on data quality issues.
- General consulting on analytical, quality assurance issues and corrective actions.
By implementing these quality assurance measures, our client is able to confidently use the analytical data collected over the 2021-2023 sampling events to support a screening limit much lower than the current site-specific screening-limit requirements. The client commented that by implementing these value-added services by Environmental Standards, resampling and reanalysis will not be necessary, and newly defined remediation areas can be mapped for remediation without the delay and expense of resampling and analysis of target areas on the site.
If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to discuss Environmental Standards’ quality assurance services.
