Environmental Progress - Winter 2000

IEPA Helped Pioneer Environmental Laboratories

Illinois facility was the first exclusively environmental lab system in the nation.

Since the Illinois EPA was established several months before the U.S. EPA, the IEPA’s Division of Laboratories became the nation’s first exclusively environmental laboratory system. As the nation’s oldest EPA laboratory system, the division has a long history of “firsts.”

Laboratory chemist Cathy Siders demonstrates the process for using a gas chromatograph to detect organic compounds in a sample.

Throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s, as environmental protection and enhancement assumed a recognizable identity, the DoL developed many of the pesticide and toxicity leaching analytical methods used at the time. The Illinois EPA labs pioneered organic analyses such as environmental gas chromatograph-mass spectrophotometer, inorganic analyses for metals by Inductively Coupled Plasma and for mercury by cold vapor.

The Division continued its early successes into the 90s. The facility was the first production laboratory in the country to reach low level drinking water detection limits in 1992; it was among the first laboratories applying for National Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Program certification in 1999.

New innovations in progress

Presently, the DoL is developing on-site or mobile laboratory capability. On-site analysis allows technicians to move out into the field a number of analytical techniques that were once confined to the laboratory. Technology is allowing analytical instrumentation to become more sophisticated, yet simpler to use, versatile and more rugged. On-site analyses produce real time data, reduce the time required for analysis and speed the decision making process. Real-time analyses save time, reduce costs and improve efficiency. Field personnel get results on-site as soon as the analyses are complete and immediately can pass the information on to the contractor, who avoids downtime and can keep his drill rig or bulldozers operating. The mobile laboratory can save money by reducing the amount of time project managers and contractors spend in the field, and laboratory personnel can help monitor field activities.

Types of on-site analyses

Numerous technologies currently exist for on-site analyses. Some of the more recent developments include X-ray fluorescence, portable gas chromatographs and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) . In recent years, X-ray fluorescence has found increasing acceptance as a tool of choice for rapid, nondestructive elemental analysis. While GC-MS has been an established procedure in the IEPA organic laboratory since 1972, this method is increasingly being used outside the laboratory. Project time lines, potentially hazardous conditions and budgetary concerns are persuading Agency project managers to rethink their approaches to site assessment, remediation and compliance monitoring.

Offering the complete analytical capability required to provide quality data, the mobile laboratory is an extremely valuable screening tool for mid-level contamination. However, when samples need the lowest detection level possible to determine regulatory compliance or litigation, some must still be taken to the Champaign or Springfield laboratories.

Park Plating: A successful mobile laboratory pilot project

Laboratory chemist Cathy Siders uses the analytical balance which is used in the mobile laboratory to weigh out samples. Cathy, a chemist in the IEPA organic laboratory, was part of the team working out of the mobile laboratory at Loves Park.

In June of 1998, the Bureau of Land was investigating the Park Plating facility located in Loves Park, Ill. The Agency’s mobile laboratory was sent to Loves Park and used to screen 424 soil samples by X-ray fluorescence analysis. After screening, only 103 of the samples were found to be contaminated with metals and needed to be sent to the Champaign Laboratory for confirmatory complete metal analysis. By cutting the number of samples shipped to the laboratory for analysis from 424 to 103, and assuring that 321 clean samples were not given needless full laboratory analysis, the BoL saved approximately $80,000 on this one project alone.

U.S. EPA has stated that only 5 percent of the samples collected at a hazardous waste site have “hits, ” that is, they are shown to contain hazardous material. By screening samples, the mobile laboratory facility reduces costs by avoiding needless analyses of clean samples at the Agency’s traditional laboratories. Over time, this should make the mobile laboratory an extremely cost effective tool.

Besides saving BL significant amounts of money, the Loves Park Project was a success in other ways:

• finished reports were produced on-site using a laptop computer, facilitating trend analyses of the contamination,
• samples to be shipped to the Agency’s laboratories could be packed inside the mobile laboratory and out of the elements,
• remaining samples could be disposed of on-site after screening, saving disposal costs, and
• the Bureau of Land was able to screen all of the samples in a controlled environment on-site.

Current status and future possibilities

Currently, the mobile laboratory can conduct flash point, pH, volatiles and metals analyses. If needed, additional equipment could expand its capability to conduct pesticide, semi-volatile and immunoassay analyses.