Safety - Field Sampling: Principles and Practices in Environmental Analysis - page 101

without the farmer's permission and preferably with the farmer present. These same
precautions can be extended to areas in which the person doing the sampling is not
familiar with the animals likely to be present. In this case (e.g., remote wilderness areas,
game preserve parks in Africa), a knowledgeable guide should accompany the sampler at
all times.
Agriculture fields can quickly and seamlessly develop into industrial-type sites. An
unusually high level of nitrogen in a soil sample may be traced back to a leaking tank of
liquid fertilizer. At this point a field sample needed to access plant nutrient levels has led
to an industrial-scale problem of sampling around a large tank of potentially dangerous
chemicals to find the leak.
4.8.2. Abandoned Industrial or Waste Field
As noted above, this might be an abandoned industrial field or a field in which chemical
or other wastes have been discarded, or it may be an active manufacturing plant. Such
fields have similar safety concerns. One of the most important is that large quantities of
concentrated toxic chemicals are likely to be present. These may be above ground and
easy to see. It is equally likely that they are in below-ground storage tanks, however. The
condition of the tanks will probably be unknown and they may or may not be leaking.
Samples from deep in the soil and from monitoring wells thus may be needed.
Toxic chemicals can have a wide range of dangers associated with them, depending on
their characteristics. It thus is not good enough to say that a field contains toxic
chemicals; one must know what type of chemicals are involved. For this reason it is
prudent to consult reference information about the types of chemicals likely to be present.
Such information can be found in MSDS sheets and the Merck Index described below [6].
The situation here is very different from that described above for agriculture because the
full range of possible compounds will not be known.
In this case a large number of chemicals may be involved. For that reason a large
number of MSDS sheets need to be readily available. Also in this situation there are
likely to be surprises; chemicals, tanks, barrels, and so on not previously reported as
being present may be found. From a safety standpoint it is important to be prepared for
any eventuality.
4.8.3. Active Industrial or Manufacturing Field
Sampling in and around active industrial or manufacturing sites should be similar to
agricultural sites in that you should be able to obtain an accurate list of the chemicals
present. The difference is that there will be large concentrations of highly dangerous
chemicals. The proper safety clothing for such a site should be known and must be
strictly adhered to.
4.8.4. Contaminated Water
Safety precautions discussed above are generally applicable to contaminated water. If
sampling water involves using a boat on a lake, river, or other body of water, however, all