Providing Education for Clients as a Consultant

I believe it is often forgotten that as consultants, our primary role is customer satisfaction.  This is difficult if the client assumes you are an unnecessary expense. This may be a common thought from our clients because they have not been educated in the business we do. 

It is our duty to educate our clients on the situation they are in and the repercussion of their decisions including a do nothing option. In the long run, we are there to provide consultation that will save them money and/or allow them to continue their operations on the site.

In addition, we are often compared by price. I understand why, however, I don't think is the optimal method of comparing consultants.  In life, we don't pick the cheapest items because we know the quality we will get. The same idea should be applied for consultants. 

The client can be educated that by paying a fair price they will get a service that benefits them with minimal headaches because their problems now rest with us. As a consultant, our role is to provide a painless service that will accommodate the exact solution they require at a lump sum they have agreed to upfront. 

There have been many incidents when clients come back and inform that while they used a cheaper consultant at first that either the extras have been horrendous or the work was not sufficient to meet their needs. That would then increase their costs significantly, not to mention headache, loss of time and potentially loss of profits from their operation. 

I believe the best approach is to educate the clients with upfront actual costs, maybe even promise them that if the project were to exceed by 10% that they will not be charged for it. Then educate the client the foreseeable costs, even if it means losing the client.  This has been an ethical barrier and I find that sleeping well at night much easier if I inform the client of everything that is to come.  There is nothing worse than dealing with an angry client who thinks you didn't tell him the whole truth to make an extra buck.  That just loses their trust and honestly you would feel awful. 

Monitoring Well Basics

Monitoring wells can provide several types of information to the consultant.

A monitoring well is installed by first drilling a borehole with a diameter somewhat greater than the intended outer diameter of the well. While this may seem obvious, note that the increase in radius must also be somewhat significant for several reasons.  There is always a change of cave in, therefore a wider whole is preferred to acquire the desired depth for the monitoring well.  The sand pack may not be deposited properly for the installation of the well due to limited space. Geotechnical personnel tend to install piezometers, which I feel does not serve the purpose required for Environmental investigations.

The purpose of a monitoring well is to provide access to the groundwater table. This is provided by means of slotted Poly Vinyl Chloride (PVC) piping (or other material) in combination of a sand pack that permits the groundwater to flow. The groundwater will flow through the well if the well was properly installed and developed (this concept will be explained elsewhere).

The general structures of the wells can be depicted as follows:

Monitoring wells can be either flush with the ground surface or stick up.  Both serve different purposes, such as an operational commercial property may not want something sticking out of their parking lot. At the same time, you may have difficulty finding a well in the middle of a farmer's field if you install flush mount wells. 

Monitoring wells are typically 50 mm (2 inches) in diameter (the consultant can always change that). The slotted PVC pipe comes in 5 ft and 10 ft lengths (the lengths can be customized, however, you will need to invert the monitoring wells to do so). Typically, I have installed Schedule 40 50 mm PVC as well as High Density PolyEthylene (HDPE) pipes.

The sand pack is paced to approximately 1 ft above the slotted pipes. Then the rest of the void is filled with a Bentonite seal to mitigate infiltration of undesired fluids from certain depths as well as to mitigate cross contamination from sources from the surface. 

The flush mount and stick up casings are usually made of metal and have a locking mechanism to prevent vandalism and introduction of impacted material to these wells. 

The correct installation of monitoring wells is key in the Environmental investigation and may get you into trouble if not completed properly. 

The drawing on the left depicts a monitoring well that has been installed properly for sampling of Light Non-Aqueous Phase Liquid (LNAPL) such as gasoline. The slotted sections have been isolated so a clay layer without allowing the fill layer to cross contaminate the sampling section. This is more of an ideal installation if we were not concern about impacts to the fill layer.

The groundwater sample collected here would represent the quality of the water within this layer. 

The final depth of the monitoring well is not shown, however, is important as well.  You do not want to penetrate another layer and potential provide a new pathway for contaminants to be transferred. 

Obtaining Maps for Phase I/One Environmental Site Assessment

The following maps and drawings are typically presented in Phase I/One Environmental Site Assessment (ESA) reports.

Bedrock Geology - This information can be downloaded and viewed on Google Earth
https://www.ontario.ca/data/1250-000-scale-bedrock-geology-ontario

Surficial Geology - This information can be downloaded and viewed on Google Earth
https://www.ontario.ca/data/surficial-geology-southern-ontario

Topograhic Maps - This information is available for review by the public from Natural Resource Canada
http://atlas.gc.ca/toporama/en/

Ontario Base Map (OBM) - This information is available to the public
http://www.geographynetwork.ca/website/obm/viewer.htm

Physiography - This information is available for public view by the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines
http://www.mndm.gov.on.ca/en/mines-and-minerals/applications/ogsearth/physiography

Searching Well Records

The well records information for Ontario can be found at:

https://www.ontario.ca/environment-and-energy/map-well-records

This information can assist with identifying potential depth to groundwater. However, wells that are too deep would only present an artesian aquifer.

It has been noted through my experience that certain Hydrogeological personnel do not like the term aquifer misused. I have been informed that the preferred terminology during investigations within 10 m below the ground surface (bgs) or more should use the term "water bearing horizon".

TSSA Request

As part of the Phase I/One Environmental Site Assessment (ESA) we typically use the Technical Standards & Safety Authority (TSSA) for information available to the public.

You can request for information on Aboveground Storage Tanks (ASTs) and Underground Storage Tanks (USTs) by emailing:

publicinformationservices@tssa.org

You can request a maximum of ten addresses at one time for free!

Fire Insurance Plans Resources

Fire Insurance Plans (FIPs) can be collected from various sources.

City of Toronto FIPs can be found in the University of Toronto website. I typically use:

https://mdl.library.utoronto.ca/toronto-fire-insurance-plans

These FIPs can also be found in the reference library.

Aerial Photograph Sources

Aerial photographs can be collected from various sources.

Google Earth can provide historical satellite photographs for the year 2000 and beyond at certain intervals.

Certain municipalities have their own website with free access to aerial photographs such as the City of Toronto.  Typically I would get them from the following:

http://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/contentonly?vgnextoid=fb38757ae6b31410VgnVCM10000071d60f89RCRD&vgnextchannel=7cb4ba2ae8b1e310VgnVCM10000071d60f89RCRD

The other way would be to go down to the reference library and request the staff for aerial photographs. This is rather time consuming and cumbersome.