Ambient Air and Soil Gas Sampling

A negative side effect of industrial activity is pollution, often in visible forms, but also through trace releases of potentially harmful chemicals into surrounding soil and air.

These contaminants can persist for hours, years, or even decades, posing concerns for current and future land use.

To evaluate site safety for both short- and long-term exposure, regulatory agencies often require ambient air and soil gas sampling.

These investigations are typically conducted as part of an air quality study or a more comprehensive Phase II Environmental Site Assessment (ESA).

In each case, vapor sampling canisters and regulators are set in locations representative of typical site activities and traffic. These canisters vary in terms of sample frequency and total duration, and these parameters are set by the testing laboratory according to regulatory guidelines and specific study designs. The sampling apparatuses can be set up to sample ambient air either inside existing structures, or outdoor air, and can be fitted to leakproof enclosures within borings to sample soil gas. Ambient air samplers are very easy to deploy as well and can usually be left alone for the duration of sampling, as long as they are in a suitable location. This allows the conductor of the study to deploy many samplers within a relatively short amount of time, and terminating the sampling is as easy as capping the apparatus and disconnecting the regulator from the canister.

Regulatory agencies often have threshold values of various analytes for both residential and commercial properties, and for ambient or soil gas vapor samples. Comparing the concentrations of the analytes found in the ambient air, and soil gas samples to these thresholds can determine if the site poses risks to the current and future occupants. With only a bit of effort, a great deal of valuable information about potential risks from a target site can be gathered. From this information, remediation plans can be designed if necessary.