Future of The Environmental Services Industry

SampleServe, Inc. has a mobile app for environmental sampling. Our app can very easily be modified for all the remote collection and sampling for COVID-19 medical screening locations being established across the state and country. In addition to the COVID testing, it also seems that a path to getting people back to work is to do a similar screening of people for the “antibody”.   Mass remote testing for the antibody would indicate if people have had the virus and developed the antibody for COVID and are now immune to the virus and thus “clear" to resume public work and work with the vulnerable population. This type of antibody public testing will allow many people to get back to work sooner rather than later, thus minimizing overall economic impact to the economy. This video will help explain how remote medical screening for both the virus and the antibody might work: https://youtu.be/VuVWeraN79g Our apps cut the time for each individual screening, sampling, and data m

"But if we win, on our budget, with this team,  we'll change the game."   - Billy Beane, Oakland A's General Manager I saw the movie "MoneyBall" for the second time the other day. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. You can view the movie trailer below. MoneyBall Trailer The movie is based on a true story. In the movie the General Manager of the Oakland A's baseball team, Billy Beane, attempts to devise a strategy for assembling a team for 2002, but struggles to overcome Oakland's "limited" player payroll. You see, they have the smallest payroll in baseball and can't afford to compete head to head with the big payroll teams like the New York Yankees.  In the movie, and in real life, he teams up with an economist named Peter Brand, and together they look at players and player statistics from a completely different angle than was traditional throughout the history of baseball. Th

July 24, 2019 "Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations  which we can perform without thinking of them."  - Alfred North Whitehead I may be dating myself, but when I started working in the environmental industry, the fax machine was just becoming standard office equipment. They were slow, used thermal paper that came on a roll, and you had to cut the paper into the right size yourself. The Fax Machine - Circa 1990 paper was difficult to work with as it wanted to roll back up on itself. When we needed results from a laboratory in a hurry, we would ask them to "fax it over." We would have to re-type the data ourselves into whatever format we wanted it in. Tables I worked on back then were mostly rudimentary tables constructed in a software called "WordPerfect". I spent hours and hours re-typing data from paper to a computer only to print it back out on paper again. It was a good thing both I

Groundwater Elevation and Contaminant Levels, cause and effect? Over the years I've heard a lot of explanations regarding groundwater elevations and subsequent increases and/or decreases in contaminant levels and the presence and disappearance of free product. I've heard people argue that increasing water levels increases contamination, and I've also heard the opposite. The question or debate is does groundwater elevation influence contaminant levels? Furthermore, does groundwater elevation influence the presence or absence of free product? I've been doing this kind of work for about 31 years now, and I've learned enough to know that it all depends on the specific site and even the specific well. These are a question of correlation or causation. Webster's Dictionary defines correlation as: "a relation existing between phenomena or things or between mathematical or statistical variables which tend to vary, be associated, or occur together in

Selecting a remedial approach can be a complicated task. The process is based on identifying desired clean-up goals, sensitive issues that could affect a remediation strategy (e.g. proximity to drinking water wells, surface waters, other sensitive receptors or public perception/relations), and costs. Each site presents different decisions and uncertainties regarding remediation options. The four main steps are 1) delineation, 2) risk evaluation, 3) feasibility, and 4) cost. The companies that understand the process and also work to keep it simple, end up selecting the more effective and least costly solutions. When estimating remedial action, estimates should provide for a relative comparison of costs between all the feasible alternatives. Alternatives that are not feasible should not be included. These estimated costs should be detailed and accurate. Costs that will be incurred in the future should be identified and noted for the year in which they will occur. The distribu

The Case for Using a Third-Party Sampling Company Part of any sampling strategy is the evaluation of the scientific benefit of each potential sample to be collected. The scientific benefit should be evaluated against the cost to collect that sample. A "cost/benefit analysis" is performed (or should be) for each sample collected and for every parameter proposed. What makes the most sense and provides the most useful data, without sampling everywhere for everything as if cost wasn't an issue. Financial issues are almost always a point of consideration when it comes to evaluating the sampling plan. However, the question is, whose finances are being considered? Bias and conflicts of interests in science are rarely discussed. Scientists all like to believe that they can draw a distinct line between a scientific decision and financial decision. However, Scientists are human and humans have bias. When a person benefits, whether financially or otherwise, the person has