tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59507278528215725062024-03-14T02:38:58.005-04:00Accidental Remediationthose little hiccups on the way to saving the earthShort Geologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08047258159927129336noreply@blogger.comBlogger701125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950727852821572506.post-59275636869380497662018-07-27T19:52:00.000-04:002018-07-27T19:52:12.716-04:00Quality controlThere was a side discussion that blew up a bit in last week's Ask a Manager, and now that I'm actually at a computer and can type, I can't find it. Anywhoo, there was a dispute regarding academic vs. industrial quality control.<br />
<br />
As a scientist who has done reasonably similar work both in grad school and at work, there is no comparison. Academia just doesn't have the same controls compared to even the cheapest, lowest common denominator fieldwork in the environmental business. <br />
<br />
If we do a site investigation, we have at least some basic standard operating procedures (SOPs) that are listed or referred to so that anyone can see what we were supposed to be doing. The samples remain under <a href="http://shortgeologist.blogspot.com/2014/10/chain-of-custody.html">chain of custody</a> to ensure that there's no tampering. The samples go to a laboratory that's been accredited to run those particular analyses, and then we get a lab report that either is included or is referred to and is available upon request. Any report, no matter the size, gets at least one review by someone who didn't write the report/pull together the tables and figures. And then the client gets a crack at it, and then the regulator(s) can comment. Even a simple real estate transaction between two private parties can get escalated if sampling turns up concentrations higher than certain thresholds, and you can be sure that any follow-up sampling from <i>that </i>will have lots of scrutiny.<br />
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Once you start entering into the realm of Real Money, feisty stakeholders (such as irritated and well-educated neighbors), and litigation, it gets much more involved. The folks doing the actual sampling may be overseen by a third party in the field, which may collect their own sample sets (split sampling) and send to their own labs. You may have consultants retained by the polluter, the neighbors, the town where the contamination is (or at least the board of health), and environmental/health advocacy groups, all with their own agendas, poring over the data and coming to their own conclusions. Quality control and documentation becomes critical for <i>everything</i>. Academia just doesn't compare to this.Short Geologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08047258159927129336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950727852821572506.post-71995994400319984522018-07-23T06:30:00.000-04:002018-07-23T06:30:12.953-04:00office to fieldI got a good question on <a href="http://shortgeologist.blogspot.com/2018/01/field-clothing-closet.html">this</a> post regarding the transition from office to field attire in the same day. Guys have it easy in this respect because even if they work in a formal environment, they can just wear khakis to work and then lose the tie/roll up the sleeves and not look ridiculous if they have to run out to do something "clean" in the field (grab some equipment, meet someone, etc).<br />
<br />
I have to admit that when I'm in this situation (and it comes up relatively frequently in my case, because I run out to meet clients or regulators on site walks/inspections/technical reviews), I dress kind of like a guy for the day. I am not at all a polo wearer normally, but I do have some company branded polos that fit ok and don't look sloppy untucked (nothing looks right tucked in for me), and I have a pair of boot-cut khakis that fit over steel-toe boots. The khakis are from Gap (from like 10 years ago so they're totally out of fashion) and they're more of an office style than a "jeans" style (flat pockets, a bit drapey, etc), so they're more formal than just jeans. If it's cold out, then I can wear a nice office appropriate top, because if I'm in the field I'm going to wear a jacket anyway.This is going to sound kind of silly, but last time I needed to buy
steel-toe boots, I deliberately picked a pair that were dark brown and
had kind of a nice finish so that they went well with khakis. <br />
<br />
I actually work in a relatively formal office, but the corporate branded polo (or cardigan) + khakis or dark jeans says "I would not dress like this normally, but I am going to a site". If the office is <i>very</i> formal, one could wear steel-toe boots with this the whole day (ugh. who wants to wear their boots more than absolutely necessary) to give the impression "I am just here briefly before I do fieldwork". Even in a formal office, an environmental consulting firm will an exception for people who are running to the field.Short Geologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08047258159927129336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950727852821572506.post-59490808460769723912018-03-26T20:08:00.000-04:002018-03-26T20:08:23.178-04:00Technician vs. scientistWhen we're talking about entry-level field staff, some people tend to talk about the "techs", and I recently overheard a young geologist refer to himself as a "field technician". In consulting, field technicians and entry-level scientists are <i>not</i> the same thing, even though what they do in the field can look awfully similar. This is why I always refer to the samplers working under the supervision of a field manager as "field staff", because they can be either.<br />
<br />
Generally, a technician does<i> </i>not need a four-year degree, has a clear list of regular, standard tasks, and does not make field decisions. A field tech is not considered a "professional" and therefore is <i>not</i> exempt from overtime rules. So many consulting firms claim that all of their junior staff are scientists who happen to also take regular samples/measurements. They really need to watch it, though, and make sure that those junior scientists are also working on more technically involved work and are in a position to make project decisions. <br />
<br />
Technicians are not necessarily low level staff. I work with a CAD (computer aided design) technician whose pay is on a similar level to my own even though I have two more degrees and ten years more working experience than they do. While the CAD technician does some really cool stuff these days, the person who manages, reviews, and signs off on the drawings/renderings is a licensed professional scientist/engineer.<br />
<br />
In my experience, field technicians (vs. scientists) are relatively rare in consulting. But this may vary by region/corner of the environmental business...Short Geologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08047258159927129336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950727852821572506.post-62712855811689394302018-03-02T18:41:00.000-05:002018-03-02T18:41:08.291-05:00still not an advantageWhen I was writing the previous post about having a young-looking face, I was reminded of a conversation I had with a late-middle age man who has <i>always</i> been "the smartest guy in the room" and expected (and received) instant respect his entire career. I had mentioned disliking how young I look in passing, and he said, "but that's such a career advantage!"<br />
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I'm usually reasonably even-keeled, and I'm the last person to start a fight in public (think cocktail party), but I had to fire back. What <i>possible</i> advantage could it be that every time I meet someone new in a professional situation, they peg me as a nobody, someone who couldn't possibly be very knowledgeable in (whatever I'm there for). Yeah, I pleasantly surprise a <i>lot </i>of people who were initially thinking "why on earth is she here?". And I can prepare a mean ambush for those who are on the other side in technical disputes. But it is <i>so</i> much work to get that respect that is just immediately granted to other scientists who look the part. I work on my physical presentation (stance, voice, etc), I have a whole strategy for how to work in my years of experience at whatever the task is, I make sure that I have all my technical backup ready to go and that I know the subject cold... and then everybody else just rolls in and does their thing.<br />
<br />
You may be wondering if part of the problem is that I look young <i>and</i> I'm female. Yeah. The whole package really doesn't help. But that's a whole other post...Short Geologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08047258159927129336noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950727852821572506.post-39998429518496563712018-02-21T18:08:00.000-05:002018-02-21T18:08:59.277-05:00not the baby anymoreI am pleased to announce that I have finally reached an important career milestone: I no longer automatically look like the youngest person in the room! I have officially graduated to looking like a "young professional" instead of a college (or God help me, high school) student.<br />
<br />
I didn't want to jinx it, but the last few times I've gone out to dinner with a field crew, I have been in the not-carded group. And I've just recently been in some high-level meetings that included someone else with a "baby face" who looked quite a bit younger than me.<br />
<br />
Of course, my apparent age is still <i>way</i> off from my actual age and I'm still dismissed as insignificant even when I'm the technical lead, but I'll take what I can get.Short Geologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08047258159927129336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950727852821572506.post-2426001947406670282018-02-12T18:16:00.000-05:002018-02-12T18:16:42.884-05:00old-time academic burnSometimes my work leads me in interesting directions. Working in East Coast Big City means that I occasionally deal with contamination that is centuries old. And because geology doesn't necessarily change that much in a few centuries, occasionally I end up digging into papers and manuscripts that are more than 100 years old.<br />
<br />
One particular thesis had some pretty sharp opinions on previous work. I've redacted it because it's subject is too close to my current work, but you'll get the gist:<br />
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"[Previous investigators' work] I am unable to accept, on the palpable errors in their field investigations. I do not believe that [this correlation] is to be accepted. I dissent from the conclusions of these papers, because the structure of this region has been worked out along untenable lines. Professor X makes the assertion that the cleavage and bedding practically coincide, and my own observations disprove this statement. Professor Y, who <i>has</i> been able to recognize these two structures, has evidently not made any use of the information."<br />
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I shall endeavor to work "has evidently not made any use of this information" into my next set of review comments.Short Geologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08047258159927129336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950727852821572506.post-47091106763257320582018-02-02T17:55:00.002-05:002018-02-02T17:55:43.292-05:00Why we careI came across an old article that I'd received ages ago (before blogging was a thing) and I think it's still relevant today as a reminder of why environmental regulations are so critical. <br />
<br />
The Philly Inquirer did a a great series on the aftermath of a fire at an old chemical warehouse, called "beyond the flames", and lo and behold, I was able to find it online without having to go through a paywall. Link below:<br />
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<a href="http://inquirer.philly.com/specials/2000/fire/">http://inquirer.philly.com/specials/2000/fire/</a><br />
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I've been lucky that by the time I got involved in environmental cleanups, the most blatant contamination had been addressed, and we had procedures to stay safe. But many first responders back in the day weren't so lucky.Short Geologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08047258159927129336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950727852821572506.post-17423146107023184182018-01-24T17:17:00.000-05:002018-01-24T17:17:53.249-05:00field clothing closetI have recently moved to a new place, and now I finally have adequate closet space for <a href="http://shortgeologist.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-many-outfits.html">all of my clothing</a> (fieldwork, office, casual, fancy)! I also inherited closet organization systems that I have no interest in changing or upgrading.<br />
<br />
So here's how I've organized it:<br />
<br />
<b>Full-size closet #1 (field gear):</b><br />
<br />
1. top shelf: field sweaters, hats, and non-bib style coveralls<br />
2. 2nd shelf: bandanas, lightweight pants<br />
3. 3rd shelf: bras, socks, mid-weight pants (like regular carhartts)<br />
4. hangers underneath 3rd shelf: all the shirts. So many shirts. long-sleeve tees acceptable as outerwear, long-sleeved underlayers, short-sleeve tees acceptable as outerwear, short-sleeve tees only acceptable as undershirts...<br />
5. hangers with more space beneath: all outerwear (pants, tops) and jacket-like items (vests, fleeces)<br />
6. floor: everything else that I don't really use and bib-style coveralls on top of/in field duffel bags<br />
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<b>Hall closet</b><br />
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Non field coats, hats, gloves, miscellaneous sporting items (snowshoes, trekking poles, skates, etc)<b> </b> <br />
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<b>Little closet (regular clothing):</b><br />
<br />
I took this one over so I could get ready for work without disturbing my sweetie. It has almost all of my standard office and hanging around stuff, including underwear, socks, etc, with a few exceptions that are in...<br />
<b> </b><br />
<b>Full-size closet #2 (formal stuff and miscellany):</b><br />
<br />
Jeans (because I ran out of room in the little bedroom closet), pajamas, all the shoes that aren't in the pile close to the front door, suits, skirts, dresses, and my sweetie's entire wardrobe.<br />
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I remember squashing most of this stuff into a single closet and under the bed when I was in grad school, and I am <i>so glad</i> I don't have to do that any more.Short Geologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08047258159927129336noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950727852821572506.post-84836919510501081392018-01-15T18:49:00.000-05:002018-01-15T18:49:04.577-05:00ride-sharing?The comments on <a href="http://www.askamanager.org/2018/01/i-dont-want-to-use-airbnb-for-business-travel-am-i-out-of-touch.html">this </a>Ask a Manager post, from someone who was uncomfortable using Uber/Lyft and preferred taxis, ended up going into four digits. Most of them were anti-taxi.<br />
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I've mentioned quite a few times that I am not exactly an early adopter of anything, so it probably won't surprise the reader to hear that I come down on the side of using taxis. But hear me out.<br />
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For a while, I lived in the downtown core of East Coast Big City and also did quite a bit of long-distance travel to other cities. <br />
<br />
To start my trip, I'd call the taxi company, have a 20 second conversation with dispatch: "It's Short Geologist. I need a taxi at (my address) at 6AM tomorrow. Going to the train/airport... yes, you can use this number as the contact number" and that would be it. The only problem was that the taxi was invariably 10 minutes early and the dude (it was always a dude) would be impatient. I said 6AM, and I meant 6AM, damn it! There were a million taxi companies I could call, but the first one I ever called was fine and so I never tried a different one.<br />
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I'd arrive at my destination city and there would be a long line of taxis at the cab stand for the airport/train station, and I'd walk up and just get in.<br />
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I stayed at a hotel close to where I was working, so I'd just walk (or take public transit) during the week - no need for a taxi or ride-sharing.<br />
<br />
At the end of the week, I'd go back to the hotel, ask the front desk to call me a taxi, and head home. Go to the cab stand at the train station/airport and get home within 15 minutes (it helped that I was always getting back long after rush hour).<br />
<br />
I get that flagging down a random taxi can be uncomfortable, but that's never anything I had to do for work travel. And in my years of living in the city, I ended up using a taxi that way only a handful of time (coming home from a bar across the city) because we usually either walked everywhere or drove to a friend's place where we had an "in" for visitor parking.<br />
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I don't have any particular animus against ride-sharing, but I never saw the point of it for myself. Short Geologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08047258159927129336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950727852821572506.post-10560290090066762342018-01-09T06:34:00.000-05:002018-01-09T06:34:02.509-05:00New Year, new startI sort of lost the thread of this for a while. It was the usual hiatus: have a few (or more) long/rough weeks, and fall out of the blog posting habit. After those rough weeks, I kept busy doing work that was hard to anonymize and not particularly relevant to this blog, which I keep to certain focus areas (see labels!), so I didn't have immediate new post ideas.<br />
<br />
But I'm still hanging in there - hopefully I'll be able to more consistently post in 2018!Short Geologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08047258159927129336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950727852821572506.post-10868841779367713952017-07-25T19:28:00.000-04:002017-07-25T19:28:09.370-04:00fieldwork and wedding planningIt seems to be wedding planning season for the field folks that I know, so I've heard quite a bit about the stresses of wedding planning while in the field. I planned my own long-distance wedding at a time when I was in the field essentially non-stop, and I have a few pieces of advice:<br />
<br />
1. Pick the <i>very few</i> things that are important to you, and gloss over/ignore the rest.<br />
<br />
We had one major priority for our wedding: make things easy for our guests, many of whom were some combination of poor, far away, disabled, and/or elderly. We also wanted to have an open bar and not worry about anyone needing to drive. So that meant that we were looking for a reasonably handicapped-accessible place where we could have a ceremony, reception, and cheap hotel rooms all in the same place. Everything else was secondary.<br />
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2. Have a not-short engagement, if you can, so that you don't feel utterly pressed for time.<br />
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3. It's ok to have a non-unique wedding. If you're working a ton of erratic hours, traveling, and have lousy internet, it's far easier to find a "wedding factory" that has a standard plan to follow, rather than trying to corral a bunch of contractors who don't usually do weddings.<br />
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4. It is the era of the internet. You can easily organize 95% of the party from afar. If there are certain vendors/items that you <i>need</i> to buy/look at in person, you can at least cut down the list of places that you need to go.<br />
<br />
I ended up using three vacation days to make long weekends to take care of all of my long-distance pre-wedding planning:<br />
a. one to test drive the hotel rooms at the venues we were considering,<br />
b. one after venue selection to confirm the photographer and make sure we were on the same page (I had two that I was considering), meet the DJ, and check out dresses, and<br />
c. close to the wedding, to do a taste-testing for the dinner/cake, pick a color scheme for the decorations that were included in my package, and do a test hairstyle with a local salon.<br />
<br />
5. Have fun, and remember that if you have some major crisis, it will make for a great story someday. We had various wedding snafus before the wedding, during the ceremony, during the reception, and after we got back from the honeymoon, but really, we were married and that was all that mattered.Short Geologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08047258159927129336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950727852821572506.post-55280927956696735292017-07-21T18:08:00.000-04:002017-07-21T18:08:40.722-04:00field selfieI <i>still</i> do not have a good <a href="https://shortgeologist.blogspot.com/2011/06/fsp-has-new-post-here-regarding.html">professional photograph</a> of me looking like a Serious Geologist In the Field. But I had some downtime in a scenic area, waiting for yet another part to be delivered, I wasn't actively burnt and/or rashy from poison ivy, and I thought, "hell, I'm just sitting here. I'll take my own damn photograph!".<br />
<br />
Man, hot day + sunscreen + logging soil samples and brushing at stray bugs means I am <i>really</i> not going to get a professional looking photograph in the field. Ladies in the movies can look dewy and/or artfully grease-stained. I just look gross.Short Geologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08047258159927129336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950727852821572506.post-9579213707697167662017-07-18T19:00:00.003-04:002017-07-18T19:00:42.608-04:00big picture writing issuesI have <i>so many</i> pet peeves when it comes to writing, often triggered by reviewing reports that annoy me in some way. That’s why I have a whole separate “writing" label. <br />
<br />
I've recently been in multiple conversations where someone (not me!) turned the discussion to “training young professionals to write the reports we need”. Usually the complaints boil down to a few major issues.<br />
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<i>Mechanics:</i> the easiest to blog about, and the easiest to fix. I can note abbreviation issues, misused words like they’re/there/their, table and figures don’t match the text references, etc. and send the report back for revision. I can pull together checklists to handle the vast majority of these.<br />
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<i>Writing style/voice</i>: this one is relatively easy to explain to someone who’s already a good writer, whether they are familiar with the mechanics of environmental report writing or not. Minimize the passive voice and “there are” constructions. Mix up your sentence structure so that you don’t say the exact same thing six times in a row, just with different nouns. Break up 300-word sentences and two page paragraphs so that your reader is not faced with a wall of text. Don’t use a 10-dollar word if a 10-cent word fits just as well.<br />
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I’m not trying to force a “house style” on young professionals (although with other good technical writers, we definitely have differences of opinion and covertly/not covertly “fix” things our way), but am aiming for a basic level of writing that is not going to make the organization look bad. One problem I run into when trying to train someone on writing style is that they don’t hear/see the difference between brain-numbing text and ok text, and so they can’t replicate it on their own. They may be able to explain/say something but somehow what they say doesn’t actually make it to the page. Or they may read something and not actually hear how it sounds. Reading the text out loud can help with this.<br />
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I don’t know of any training that will help someone “get” how to write clearly, within a reasonable time frame, and without requiring massive revisions. Usually we limit the struggling writer to very simple reports that are essentially the same and can be copied/pasted almost entirely, in the hopes that they will gradually pick things up and be able to move to more complicated reports. I can suggest that the struggling writer read more to pick up an ear for language, but it’s really hard with someone who has already reached their early 20s (or later) and just doesn’t have an ear for these things. I have limited time to push/cajole/produce major revisions so that a document can go out the door, and honestly, it becomes career limiting to the writer because I’ll either give up and do it myself or find someone else who can pick up these things without so much handholding.<br />
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<i>Big picture: </i>what to include in the report? The easiest report to write is the one that requires only minor changes from a template, but even that requires some intellectual curiosity and an ability to spot potential issues. If we’ve been sampling the same set of wells for 10 years and there’s a persistent issue (high turbidity, anomalous chemistry, doesn’t recharge quickly), is there something we can do to redevelop the well? Does the existing monitoring well network actually capturing what’s happening? Are there “stray” detections that suggest that something is changing or getting worse? And if there are field observations/notes that there are access issues (such as a well at the edge of a parking lot continually getting buried with sand), are they getting into the report? <br />
<br />
Small issues that can point to big-picture problems can be tough to evaluate for a reviewer because if the writer and/or the field crew (a whole other issue) don’t flag them, the reviewer may not know enough about the project to catch them and ask those questions.<br />
<br />
Many writers want to slap together a report and move on with their day without worrying about quality or critical evaluation, which is ok for a while. But if the site ends up contested in some way, or a big client wants to rebid a bunch of work, those reports are sitting out there, just waiting to be critically evaluated. A poor body of work, in environmental consulting, is a time bomb. On the flip side, a critical mass of well-written, coherent, and scientifically reasonable work is a great foundation for future work. Short Geologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08047258159927129336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950727852821572506.post-74840799720062938852017-07-11T06:34:00.000-04:002017-07-11T06:34:25.705-04:00dear housekeeping<a href="https://shortgeologist.blogspot.com/2016/01/room-service.html">I seldom use room service </a>when I travel. So when I actually put away the "do not disturb", it's because I actually need something. Either I've <i>totally </i>used up all of the little towels (it's amazing how filthy I get with a combination of dirt and sunscreen) in the shower, or I'm running out of something critical like toilet paper.<br />
<br />
So after a long day in the field, I was somewhat irritated to find that housekeeping had indeed gone through as requested, but the only apparent impact to the room was that they had short-sheeted all the blankets. This was more annoying because of what happens when I come back from the field:<br />
<br />
1. Close door behind me.<br />
2. Draw deadbolt/latch.<br />
3. Immediately strip off all clothing and drop it in the vicinity of a closet.<br />
4. Jump in shower.<br />
<br />
Checking whether or not I got the toilet paper I needed is way down on the priority list, and then it's a bit late to go running down to the lobby.Short Geologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08047258159927129336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950727852821572506.post-15413124728599801902017-07-07T20:28:00.000-04:002017-07-07T20:33:54.273-04:00hatchback elegyAs I mentioned <a href="https://shortgeologist.blogspot.com/2009/01/at-recent-environmental-conference-i.html">before</a>, my hatchback was a great model for a field/life car – it was quick, relatively cheap, fit a bunch of stuff, could fit into most any parking space/make excellent u-turns, and had terrific mileage. But after close to 15 years and 200,000 miles of trouble-free use, it had started to become Unreliable. Various systems started to go, state inspections had started to become hairy, and the rust from years of fieldwork and driving around East Coast Big City had started to become unsightly and, um, structural.<br />
<br />
When I had first started out in environmental consulting, I was a traditional young staff scientist. I spent all my time on the road, working 60-plus hours and coming home to do laundry and decompress. I had no food expenses during the week, and I didn’t have the time or inclination to go shopping when I got home. After a few years, my original car (a family legacy that I was told later wasn’t expected to last 6 months) died of rust everywhere/major system collapse and I was able to buy that hatchback: the first big “adult” purchase that was new and all mine. I named it immediately: Jane.*<br />
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Jane took me to field sites all over the region, made the long haul back and forth when my sweetie and I were separated during grad school, went off-roading to get to hiking trails and interesting vistas, and survived the daily commuting grind in two separate metropolitan areas not known for, um, easy going drivers. Thanks to my precision driving and a healthy dose of luck, Jane survived with no more damage than the occasional door ding and a mangled license plate from when someone rolled backward into me in traffic (it was that sort of commute).<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">So, it was a bittersweet moment when I turned Jane in. But then, I got the keys to a faster, more gas-efficient, and <i>way</i> more technologically advanced hatchback! Future adventures await with Jane II.**</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">*not the car’s real name, which was both distinctive and in the same language as the manufacturer.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">**<i>Also </i>not the car's real name. </span>Short Geologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08047258159927129336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950727852821572506.post-42809291727827579622017-06-27T18:07:00.000-04:002017-06-27T18:07:22.710-04:00Small SUV, pleaseI occasionally go to remote sites that have bad access roads, and for those I need something with all-wheel drive <i>and </i>clearance to get all the way to where I need to go (otherwise, it's a loong hike). The rental company's default appears to be a giant-ass SUV and/or extended-cab pickup truck (and sometimes those inexplicably don't have the all-wheel drive that I specifically requested, but I digress).<br />
<br />
Here's the problem: a huge SUV is not only heavy (as I complained about <a href="http://shortgeologist.blogspot.com/2008/10/off-roading.html">a long time ago</a>), but it's decidedly less maneuverable than a smaller vehicle. If you have a bunch of remote locations to check, that's a huge number of 78-point turns as you attempt to turn around in tiny clearings and wide spots in logging roads.<br />
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The other thing about a huge SUV, often with out of state plates, is that it's a big old flashing light saying "I'm associated with big government/big business and I'm not from around here" and that can be downright dangerous in many areas. At the very least, it makes things awkward when you're residential sampling or trying to find something you need in the only store within 30 miles.<br />
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I once ended up with a Kia Sportage while I was on a drilling job in the mountains. The drillers thought it was the most ridiculous thing they'd ever seen, and then it turned out that they couldn't get their pickup truck up to the drilling site after a rainstorm and <i>I </i>became the primary crew transport because my silly little Korean box could.*<br />
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I have zero ego bound up with my choice of vehicles (unlike certain coworkers), so I'm always happy to take the runt of the lot.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">*Point to the pickup truck, it was carrying a full water tank and had bald tires. Point to the Kia, I wasn't nearly as willing to hit the hill at maximum speed to try and get over a particular steep/slippery spot. </span>Short Geologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08047258159927129336noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950727852821572506.post-65290078144675591152017-06-22T05:53:00.000-04:002017-06-22T05:53:48.082-04:00computation allocationI occasionally need to manipulate a bunch of data, either to input into another program or to pick out trends/issues, that are for whatever reason not easily reducible or have issues that are not immediately obvious. And sometimes this data manipulation takes the form of tedious and relatively simple excel crunching to simplify things. <br />
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I have a couple of options here:<br />
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1. I can offload the manipulation to an intern/low level scientist, give them extensive directions, set them loose with the first iteration, and then look at what they have and have them refocus/redo a bunch of stuff. They will spend an exceptionally long time doing this, but they have a very low billing rate.<br />
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2. I can give the data to my data manipulation colleague, who will do some sort of macro/program building magic. I will get the data back relatively quickly, but it's a bit of a black box and I will need to go through her results and figure out what might have been missed/what didn't sort correctly. My colleague has a very <i>high</i> billing rate, and depending on how much massaging is required, it may take a while to get set up.<br />
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3. I go ahead and do all the crunching myself, even though it's tedious and <i>surely</i> there must be a better way for me to get what I need, because I need the data evaluated <i>now</i>, not when the cheap staff member or the expensive specialist are available.<br />
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If I have a forgiving schedule and the data set isn't ridiculously large (can be conveyed in one spreadsheet file of less, than, say, 4 MB), I go with #1. If the data set starts to get out of control, I either go with #2 entirely (less often) or use #2 to cut out the data that I'm sure I don't need and focus on what I think I may need. But at crunch time, when it looks like it would just take me a day or so, it's all me. Short Geologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08047258159927129336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950727852821572506.post-72373391059174790592017-06-19T06:54:00.000-04:002017-06-19T06:54:04.642-04:00seasonal blahsThis is the second year that I've fallen off the blogging wagon in starting mid-February to late March, and I think you can look back to previous years and see at least a fall-off at the same time. The problem has gotten more pronounced since I've moved to mostly office work.<br />
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Back when I was out in the field all the time, I had access to <i>light</i> in the winter. Sure, it was weak winter light, and there were short days, but I was absorbing <i>something</i> even if I wore a million layers and had no skin exposed. After all these years, it's clear I have a bit of seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and everything sort of... grinds to a halt after a couple months of darkness. I keep writing for a couple months after November/December out of stubbornness, but then it's so hard to get motivated to keep up.<br />
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I don't have any real solutions, except to try and come back up for air sooner rather than later. But in the meantime, I'll keep plugging away.Short Geologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08047258159927129336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950727852821572506.post-30398809439540646732017-03-01T19:49:00.000-05:002017-06-17T06:58:22.342-04:00bad organization comments<a href="http://shortgeologist.blogspot.com/2017/01/fantasy-comment-response.html">This</a> recent post on technically bad comments reminded me about organizationally bad comments.<br />
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On numerous occasions, and with different reviewers, I have received a comment along the lines of "but what was the result?" or "but what does it <i>mean</i>?" in clearly inappropriate places. Let me explain:<br />
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Almost all scientific papers are broken into several sections. First you have a background section to give enough context for what you'll be discussing. Then you have a methods section to explain what you actually did. Then you have the results, then the conclusion.<br />
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Environmental reports are the same way. They generally go as follows:<br />
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1. Introduction: says what sort of report this is (remedial investigation, phase II site investigation, whatever) and who it's for. If it's for a site with a bunch of different focus areas (operable units, areas of concern, etc), we may briefly describe the overall site and how that particular focus area fits in. We may also outline the report sections (although I personally think this is a waste of space).<br />
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2. Site description: we describe the site itself, starting with a basic description of what it looks like, how it relates to the area, etc. We also describe the history of the site, which may be anything from "the current structure was built in 1988 and we have no records before then" to a dissertation on all the investigations and cleanup actions performed. Sometimes the discussion of geology and hydrology of the site gets added here, sometimes it gets its own section later.<br />
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3. Methods/investigation: Usually a report is based on a particular investigation. We sampled here, we talked to these people, we collected these other data using these subcontractors.<br />
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4. Results: What we found. We may have separate sections for discussion of geology/hydrology based on the investigation, and for the chemical results.<br />
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5. Conceptual Site Model (CSM): We may have a separate section tying all the chemistry and geology into a CSM that explains where the contamination started, how it came to be where it is, and where it's going. Or for smaller reports, we just fold that discussion into a conclusion section.<br />
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All these sections came to be for a reason. They are building up the pieces of evidence leading to the report conclusion. If you start throwing conclusions in the methods section or geology in the chemistry section willy nilly, the report will quickly turn into a mess where nothing can be found and nothing is properly explained, and random points will be repeated over and over. Also, we include a table of contents so that if you read something in the "methods" section that leads you to wonder what the result is, you can quickly <i>find</i> that section!<br />
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Okay, now I think I've vented enough to write a properly diplomatic comment response!Short Geologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08047258159927129336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950727852821572506.post-64808514244857041782017-02-27T20:06:00.000-05:002017-02-28T19:13:50.994-05:00Trapped in the hotelThis is not at all related to environmental geology, but it's a good story and I do have a "travel" label. A <a href="http://shortgeologist.blogspot.com/2013/10/alone-in-hotel.html">while back</a>, I mentioned getting trapped inside a hotel room with an intruder:<br />
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My senior year in high school, I went on a class trip to Europe. One of our hotel stays was in the middle of nowhere, Greece. It was not exactly updated for the modern era, and it had a particularly interesting room key system: There were two keys. Each key locked or unlocked <i>both</i> sides of the door. So you could easily be locked inside. I'm not sure what passed for fire safety in that area back then, but the rooms also connected to a single outside balcony that you could leap from if you couldn't get out the normal way. The hotel also had a policy that you had to leave your keys with the front desk if you left the hotel.<br />
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There was some sort of local bar/discotheque, so everybody immediately vacated the hotel to go dancing, and all the chaperones followed. My friend Jane and I were not big drinkers/partiers, so we came back around 9 or 10.<br />
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Let's go back to the key situation for a minute. Everybody had relinquished their keys upon leaving, including the other two girls who were sharing a room with me and Jane. The keys were hanging up behind the desk. You could see at a glance who was in the hotel, and you could just <i>take</i> the spare key if there was just one, and unlock the door of an occupied room.<br />
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Imagine my surprise when the door to our room opened and some dude let himself in. We didn't really know any Greek, and he at least pretended not to know any English. We tried to explain/pantomime that he should leave, and eventually he did, but not before pocketing <i>our</i> key, which was on the table right next to the door. And then he locked the door from the outside.<br />
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So we were locked in our phone-less room in an empty hotel, long before the era of cell phones or internet or anything. I immediately ran out to the balcony and started trying the other doors, but they were all locked. It would have been pointless to get into another room anyway, since they were all locked as well.<br />
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15 minutes later, the dude comes back bearing a little tray with three glasses of what he says is ouzo, snack cakes, and the keys. As we uselessly flutter around him, trying to tell him that he needs to get out, now (remember, he claims to not understand English), he sets down the tray and locks the door, trapping us inside with him. When he sits down and I go to unlock the door, he gets up and shoos me away with a torrent of Greek.<br />
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So. We are teenagers in a foreign country, locked in a hotel room in an empty hotel with a guy who is making outward gestures at being friendly and gregarious. Strange dude sits on the bed, right next to Jane, and over the course of his conversation, his hand comes to rest on her thigh. Both of us together <i>maybe</i> weigh as much as he does. Jane is frozen in fear, and I'm mobile but have the size and outward appearance of a 12-year-old. Is the guy volatile? Does he have a weapon? He's cheerfully ignoring my "you really need to go" pantomime. What would be the tipping point for me to yank Jane out of there and jump off a balcony?<br />
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Eventually, someone else came back - I heard female voices in the hallway. I was "casually" leaning against the door in order to secretly unlock it, and I immediately turned the key and yelled for help, and the four of us bodily yanked the guy out of the room and locked the door behind him, this time retaining <i>both</i> keys.<br />
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When we got home, we made an Official Complaint to the tour organizer that they had booked a school group into a hotel tailored for sexual predators. We got a $200 voucher for our <i>next</i> tour (ah ha ha!) and that was the end of it.<br />
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I've internalized two things from that experience: 1. in a pinch, I know that I will not freeze up and will at least do what I can to resolve a bad situation, and 2. I hate the loss of control involved in group tours. I'll make my <i>own</i> travel arrangements.Short Geologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08047258159927129336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950727852821572506.post-37912562216729817742017-02-22T19:49:00.001-05:002017-02-22T19:49:29.933-05:00not atwitterPeople have been announcing the death of the blog and the great migration to twitter for a while now. A good example is <a href="https://dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2015/03/10/blogs-are-dying-long-live-science-blogs/">here</a> at Dynamic Ecology.<br />
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I have zero interest in twitter. I'm not really a 140-character person. Blogging is more my pace because I like to let my posts gestate for a while, and then write up exactly how much I feel works for a particular subject.<br />
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I also don't care to follow my scientist friends on a real-time basis. When I'm at work, I work. When I'm at home, sometimes I sit back with a glass of wine and relax on the couch with a book. Perhaps I'm inherently antisocial, but I'm not interested in the back and forth of discussion on twitter - or other platforms. It's not a surprise that I'm not a terribly active facebook user either.<br />
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For me, blogging is a way for me to build up a repository of <strike>opinions</strike> experiences that I can share for anyone who's interested in the environmental biz or geology or working outside for a living. I'd like to be <i>somewhat</i> relevant, but I'd prefer to have more freedom with what I write than to be timely.Short Geologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08047258159927129336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950727852821572506.post-26879884712408840802017-02-15T19:21:00.000-05:002017-02-15T19:21:12.707-05:00administrative record failMany federal cleanup sites (and a large number of state cleanup sites) have publicly available administrative records. Depending on the agency involved, this may include just the legal records and the major reports used to document completion of the cleanup, or may include just about every piece of correspondence written along the way.<br />
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I've reviewed my fair share of administrative records. Most of the time, I can get what I need online and don't need to trek to a records facility or local library. <br />
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I was reviewing one administrative record online, however, and apparently some additional documents got shuffled in accidentally. The EPA technical lead's performance review (for his annual review for his job) was attached to the end of a very long, very dry technical report.<br />
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I'm happy to report that Mr. EPA technical lead was considered to be generally competent, and his peer reviewers had only positive things to say. That's nice, since his review is permanently enshrined online.Short Geologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08047258159927129336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950727852821572506.post-9426835773947959732017-01-25T18:34:00.002-05:002017-01-25T18:34:55.105-05:00fun stuff to drill through (4)This post a while back on <a href="http://shortgeologist.blogspot.com/2016/11/liquid-waste-storage.html">water handling</a> reminded me of another geologic feature that's a pain to drill through: faults. (see my last post on this topic and some links to older posts <a href="http://shortgeologist.blogspot.com/2014/03/fun-stuff-to-drill-through-3.html">here</a>).<br />
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Now, I haven't overseen drilling into any spectacular or famous faults, per se. But I have very rarely drilled into faults of at least local significance - local enough to be mapped and named, anyway.<br />
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Drilling into faults or fault zones at any depth of significance (say, more than 50 feet or so) leads to two major issues: water production and borehole instability.<br />
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Larger scale faults tend to be more than just a single fracture in the bedrock. They may include a fault zone, where the rock for a certain distance is much more fractured and may possibly have a different structure than the parent rock. This may hold a <i>lot</i> of water. And if you're flying along, doing some sort of fast, aggressive drilling such as air-rotary, and creating a borehole with a reasonably wide diameter, you may end up tapping into a lot more water than expected. And depending on the air pressure the driller's using, the drilling rate, and the structure of the rock, the water flow may not just stop once the driller turns off the air pressure. Nothing like watching your frac tanks fill up with contaminated water while you wait for the water to stop pouring out of the borehole!<br />
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So, water production is a thing that you can deal with. You get the frac tanks on-line, make sure that you have pumps capable of moving a lot of water, and maybe stop drilling for a bit every once in a while to see how much water you're getting back. Borehole instability is another problem.<br />
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Once we install a borehole, we usually like to do a bunch of testing, which involves lowering instruments down there to collect samples and geophysical measurements, installing packers to seal off certain zones for testing, and maybe putting in a permanent system with multiple sample ports. If you have a fracture zone that's at a reasonably steep angle, and bedrock that is not super hard (like a siltstone or sandstone) you may find that the walls of the borehole pinch back in almost immediately. This makes it hard to fish the drill rods out of the borehole, let alone any $10,000 geophysical tooling you'd like to use. You can always try and bang in some steel casing past the obstruction, but at that point you may have shrunk the effective size of the borehole so you can't get the other stuff you need down there, and then you've shut off the rest of the bedrock from evaluation. And multiple boreholes get expensive fast. Another option is to be a lot more cautious up front, and do all your sampling/testing in 10-foot intervals as you drill (with casing above the interval in question), but that does slow the drilling process down and requires much more coordination between multiple contractors, all of whom are being paid for their standby time.<br />
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Intercepting a fault/fault zone actually can tell us quite a bit about the regional geology and the structure of the bedrock. We just have to be able to get a borehole in there long enough to <i>do</i> the evaluation.Short Geologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08047258159927129336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950727852821572506.post-31071111986937622432017-01-20T19:03:00.000-05:002017-01-20T19:03:27.680-05:00Bloom County and the EPA, part 3Here's the last bit regarding the EPA. The previous installments are <a href="http://shortgeologist.blogspot.com/2017/01/bloom-county-and-epa.html">here</a> and <a href="http://shortgeologist.blogspot.com/2017/01/bloom-county-and-epa-part-2.html">here</a>.<br />
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I just finished the new <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Bloom-County-Episode-XI-Hope/dp/163140699X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484782701&sr=8-1&keywords=berke+breathed">Bloom County book</a> yesterday - highly recommend!Short Geologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08047258159927129336noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950727852821572506.post-88477588116919926072017-01-18T18:30:00.001-05:002017-01-18T18:30:14.957-05:00bloom county and the EPA, part 2This is the 2nd day of my week of old Bloom County comic strips from the early 1980s. See my <a href="http://shortgeologist.blogspot.com/2017/01/bloom-county-and-epa.html">last post</a> for the first installment.<br />
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Reading these old strips, its amazing how little has changed. Final installment later this week... Short Geologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08047258159927129336noreply@blogger.com0