Land is contaminated what to do ?

Basic questions from students; resources for projects and reports.

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Hi , please help me on this

My friend wants to study specific land. This land is contaminated with lots of thing.

What happen through history?

Truck full of waste water from a sewege from different industry has been poured in this land ( they dont have treatment plant to treat water before throw it) so they directly collecting sewege in these trucks and disposed the waste water.

This land I am sure their soil , plant and nearby well or ground water will be contaminted !

My questions:

1) how can I take soil samples?

Do I just collect soil with 1 cm depth every 10 meter x and y?

Is there some procedure that really reflect a scientific sample collection for the soil?

2) is the same thing with water ?

3) when I collect the soil , i am sure will be hubdered of organic compounds on it , the problem the chromatograms will have million of these how can i determine or say this land has x, y, z etc compound and their conc is this?

I am actually looking for methods in term of sample collection, preparation and techniques. Could you point paper that help me started?

Thanks
First off, I don't think that a single paper will come anywhere *near* giving you the information you want. If this were my problem, I'd do a Google or Amazon search on SOIL + ENVIRONMENTAL + ANALYSIS + BOOK. Look at the reader reviews and pick one that seems general and is well reviewed.

That said, what you described is unrealistic unless you have a lot of time and the resources of a good-sized research group. So, how badly do you want to know, and how much time and money are you willing to spend.

Again, if it were my problem, I would do a survey of local industries to get an idea of what types of compounds are "likely" to be there (are there a lot of refineries? metal plating?, pesticide manufacturing? etc.) then identify a few "marker" compounds characteristic for different types of contamination and make sure you can quantitate those individually and then spiked in soil samples. Only then can you start thinking about where/how to sample that field.
-- Tom Jupille
LC Resources / Separation Science Associates
tjupille@lcresources.com
+ 1 (925) 297-5374
Sometimes people hold a seweage sample and ask : plz could you tell me what is in there ? I think this is quite difficult as you perfectly said.

Thanks
You might also want to look at what is downstream/downhill from other areas. Possibly things would collect there and give an idea of what may be going on elsewhere. More just trying to cut down on sample load but still getting information about what is on the site.

This sounds like a SuperFund project.
I would contact your govenmental environmental agency and ask for regulatory information, i.e. what hazardous materials or compounds (I guess that they are what's interesting you) are regulated in soil in your country/area.

I'm being very broad here, but usually sample analysis in our area (not in the US) is done via microwave assisted acid digestion then ICP-OES for inorganics, using US EPA methods 3051/6010, and for organics we use GC/MS analysis for VOC using method 8260, and sVOC using method 8270. VOC preparation using headspace, sVOC preparation using ultrasonic extraction.

We also test the soil for DRO/ORO using method 8015 by GC-FID.

What's good about EPA methods is that they're free (Just search for method X EPA look for the PDFs) and accreditation agencies are very welcoming the "Prove it then test it" approach, usually. Your experience may, of course, vary.
Thanks Itspip thats awesome

Thanks markf for sharing your great knoweldge :!:

I read one book on this I still feel dizzy
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