A day in the life.....

I haven't really talked much about what I do for a living, so I thought I would give some insight into what it is I do that helps pay the mortgage. I work in the contaminated land industry. I assess land and groundwater for contamination and ensure that it is fit for human habitation. All well and good, and it's probably a good thing that this industry has come to light as I have seen some pretty horrendous stuff. Service stations are the primary problem, especially old ones. People don't know this, but have you ever stopped to wonder why there are so many abandoned service stations around? It's because alot of them have corroded underground tanks and have leaked all sorts of nasties over the course of decades. So the big petroleum companies just leave the problem alone and write off the land rather than spend millions of dollars cleaning it up. By far the worst one I have seen was when I was out supervising some soil sampling when the excavator dug into what can only be described as a hidden oil dump. All this black ooze just started flowing into the pit and it stank, by god, all I could smell for days after that was oil. Then there are the clients to deal with. It's not our fault that there is contamination on their land, but they make out that it is. But we have a job to do and it's not something you want to sweep under the carpet. If a future resident contracts cancer, and it is somehow attributed to the soil, then it could cost alot more than the $10,000 soil clean up bill. Some clients are great though, and are happy to do what it takes. I spend most of my time in the office writing reports now, but I do get out and do field work occasionally. But we have juniors now who do the grunt work. The amount of work around is simply staggering and at the start of the year we had three people working at the firm, now we have seven. If the director wanted to, it would be easy enough to expand even further I would think. It's a good job and I enjoy it, more than I could say from when I was a primary school teacher, which I shall talk about another time.