Wastewater & Stormwater Sampling Tips from Georgia-Pacific’s Water Quality Expert

In our Coffee & Compliance webinar with Georgia-Pacific’s water quality expert, Diane Rosseter, we dug into stormwater and wastewater sampling best practices from preparing for things to go wrong to coordinating with vendors and labs to ensure hold times are met.

Diane is Georgia-Pacific’s internal consultant specializing in water quality compliance across the US. Prior to joining Georgia-Pacific, she worked in the private environmental engineering and consulting field and also spent several years as the quality assurance officer and operations manager for a large commercial environmental laboratory.  Here are some of the key takeaways we discussed: 

• Ensure hold times can be met (e.g. fecal coliform) especially if sampling close to weekends or with COVID-19 changing operating hours for labs

• Prepare ahead of time (e.g. check bottles and clear a path to the sampling location) and prepare for things to go wrong (e.g. paper forms get wet…use digital instead)

• Communicate with regulators before things go wrong — have an open and ongoing dialogue

• Check the reporting limits in a permit with what the laboratory will be using as it is critical the lab analyzes to a low enough limit that is below the permit limit or action level

• Coordinate on-site staff to ensure adequate coverage for sampling events, especially with work from home (WFH) occurring frequently now with environmental and EHS staff

Watch the full recording below! For more sampling tips:

• Industrial stormwater sampling best practices

• Sampling technique errors that could cost your facility

• What is a chain of custody form

• pH meter calibration and how to calibrate a pH meter (video) in three languages