Monitoring Potential Soil Contamination Is Cheap, Easy And Makes Good Business Sense.

Monitoring Potential Soil Contamination Is Cheap, Easy And Makes Good Business Sense.
Between provincial regulations and new, relatively inexpensive technology, there is neither a reason nor an excuse not to be testing for soil contamination frequently.
– by Isaac Rudik

Farmers have known for centuries that crops won’t grow in contaminated soil. Likewise, engineers have known for at least a quarter-century or longer that contaminated soil can make a plant – a manufacturing plant, that is – unusable.

Yet far too few factories, warehouses and similar businesses bother testing to see whether they are contaminating the land around their facility. Frequently, the stated reason for this is that it’s either “too complicated” or “too expensive.” But as countless companies have learned the hard way, it is much more complex and costly to clean up soil contamination than it is to monitor it regularly.

Indeed, between provincial regulations and new, relatively inexpensive technology, there is neither a reason nor an excuse not to be testing for soil contamination frequently.

The Gong Show

Early last year, the three owners of a mid-sized manufacturing company not far from Toronto were surprised when pollution inspectors from the province showed up to sample the soil around their facility, which is located in a semi-rural area. Two days later, the owners were stunned when they were served with a sworn complaint that discharge from their factory was seeping into the soil and, eventually, ground water.

The inspection and grievance was prompted by calls to the Ministry from nearby farmers who suspected that contamination from the facility was both damaging crops and causing birth defects in livestock. To make matters worse, not only did the company not realise it was causing problems, the owners had no idea that anything in their manufacturing process was potentially harmful.

The company faced two unpleasant and hugely expensive propositions. Either it could pay for decontaminating the soil or close down; in any event, the business and its owners were facing enormous fines and possible criminal citations.

“It was like being on The Gong Show,” one of the owners told us not long ago. “No matter what we did, we were going to be rung off stage.”

In the end, the business negotiated a settlement with the province and neighbouring farmers, and assumed responsibility for part of the clean-up costs. But threatened with its very existence, the company learned an extremely costly lesson.

An Ounce Of Prevention

Whether located in an urban, semi-rural or country setting, monitoring soil contamination is critical. All companies with a potential risk should be doing so at least one a week; daily testing is even better for businesses that know they are dealing with hazardous material. Moreover, farms should also be testing frequently since agriculture has the most to gain – and lose – by knowing soil quality.

Fortunately, keeping an eye on possible contamination is easy thanks to one of the many “handy” measuring instruments that are available today.

There are four smart, simple ways of providing protection through an ounce of prevention:
· Depending on the industry, there are specific test kits available to determine the contamination level of land surrounding a plant.
· Agribusinesses may use a pH-Meter to determine whether a specific crop has the best condition to grow in a given soil.
· Both industry and agriculture should use dissolved salt meters to determine if drainage is working properly.
· Use standardized samplers to obtain a standard soil sample ensuring all tests are showing comparable results.

Today, new, rapidly emerging technology makes it increasingly easy to manage and prevent soil contamination at an affordable cost. As the Ontario manufacturer and its farm neighbours learned the hard way, testing is cheap and cleaning up a mess is awful.



Isaac Rudik is a compliance consultant with Compliance Solutions Canada Inc., Canada’s leading provider of health, safety and environmental compliance solutions to industrial, agricultural, institutional and government facilities.

E-mail Isaac at irudik@csc-inc.ca or phone him at 905-761-5354