Environmental technician

Change begins with accurate measurements. Environmental technicians assess and monitor pollution levels in air, water, and soil. To become an environmental technician, you need a high school diploma, with advanced-level credits in... 

Environmental technicians gather gas samples from smokestacks and PCBs from transformers. They also set up equipment in the field to create baseline studies and monitor changes in the environment. 

Human Resource Development Canada has offices in every province. It also has a web site where you can access descriptions and requirements for many careers, including that of environmental technician. What other environmental career opportunities can you locate Prepare a brief report of your findings, and present it to the class. 

An environmental technician collects a sample of rainwater. A light on her portable pH meter indicates low battery power, so she uses indicator solutions to estimate the pH. A piece of litmus paper turns red, indicating acidity, so she divides the sample into thirds and obtains the following results thymol blue turns yellow bromphenol blue turns green and methyl red turns red. Estimate the pH of the rainwater. 

Total smelter employment is approximately 280 hourly personnel among the various departments, including maintenance. The smelter s supervision and support staff includes accounting, payroll, purchasing, environmental technicians, safety and hygiene, medical, human resources, information systems, technical services, engineering, and management. In total, there are approximately 90 support staff personnel. 

I recently met a group of environmental technicians who perform rapid-response cleanups in the hazardous waste area. These workers at a minimum might typically be required to receive two general performance reviews and one salary review per year. The written performance reviews took place in March and September, with a salary review in December and any increases taking place in January. This would mean that this worker s supervisor would be formally assessing this worker s performance in March, September, and December of each year. 

Csuros, M. Environmental Sampling and Analysis for Technicians, Lewis Boca Raton, 1994. 

The storeroom techs must protect the mechanical seals handling them with extreme care. The engineer or technician must specify and select the seal components correctly. The mechanical maintenance technician must protect the seal at the moment of installation. Once the seal is installed into the pump, the seal requires the correct environmental controls to assure optimum life. At this point the work of the maintenattce technician ends. 

Aides (administrative, data reduction, engineering, environmental health, laboratory, sanitarian, and unspecified), assistants (administrative, fiscal, laboratory, and legal), draftspersons, laboratory workers, mechanics, project illustrators, samplers, and technicians (air pollution control, air quality monitoring station, electronic, engineering, instrument, and unspecified). 

Safety assessment scientists and technicians and even QA personnel sometimes overlook the importance of environmental control equipment to valid study results. Animals stressed by extremes of temperature or humidity may 5ueld spurious data reproductive toxicology studies may be compromised by malfunctioning timers for the control of light/ dark cycles inadequate air filtration may expose experimental animals to environmental contaminants that confound experimental results. 

An incursion into the fill room by a quality control technician to perform routine environmental monitoring is conducted to simulate actual production monitoring. 

This book is intended for chemists, toxicologists, laboratory technicians, manufacturers, safety professionals and government personnel involved in environmental and industrial safety and health matters. The ability to identify the actual manufacturers of hazardous materials is important where detailed background information is required when investigating chemical accidents, exposures, product contamination, faulty labeling and other incidents involving chemicals and their effect on workers or the environment. 

The National Sanitation Foundation, is an independent, nonprofit environmental organization of scientists, engineers, technicians, educators, and analysts. NSF frequently serves as a trusted neutral agency for government, industry, and consumers, helping them to resolve differences and unite in achieving solutions to problems of the environment. 

Under the enormous ever-growing volume of needed analyses for production controls, environmental needs, and medical test programs, protocols have to be designed to be executed reliably by trained technicians. That protocol development, however, is and must be understood to be exclusively the proper role of the analytical chemist. 

The remote laboratory has the advantages of providing carefully controlled temperature, humidity, ventilation, and background conditions with adequate space and utilities to support a large array of major analytical instrumentation and a staff of skilled analytical chemists and technicians working in a convenient, comfortable, and safe environment. The major disadvantage is that environmental samples must be carefully preserved, shipped, and stored prior to analysis. Furthermore, the analytical results may not be available for several days or weeks because of the time required to transport the samples to the laboratory, incorporate the analyses into work schedules, and service the multiple clients of a remote laboratory. 

In order to have this information, the parameters that define the level and type of pollution need to be evaluated. Therefore, scientists and technicians have to find the best chemical analytical tools that identify potential and existing pollutants. They also need to determine their properties, particularly those affecting the fate, transport, bioavailability, toxicity, and stability/degradation of the chemical constituents in a sample. Tools such as these may be considered a part of Environmental Chemistry. 

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