SOLVENT SAMPLER FOR SCAPS

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@igc.org>]

SCAPS for Solvents
The Army Environmental Center (USAEC) and Army Waterways Experiment 
Station (WES) recently demonstrated sensors for the SCAPS sampling 
system capable of measuring concentrations of solvents and other 
volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in both soil and groundwater to 
depths of about 150 feet.
SCAPS (Site Characterization and Analysis Penetrometer System) is a 
truck-mounted real-time sampling system now being used by the Army and 
Navy. Its principal use thus far has been to detect and measure 
petroleum products. Now, according to USAEC and WES field tests at the 
Aberdeen Proving Ground, it can be used for the more hazardous VOC 
contaminants. The Army reports, "After only three days with the 
hydropunch-sparge sampler [one of the sensors], the demonstration team 
had established the dimensions of the affected soil in the test area, 
the concentration of solvents in that area and the likely source of 
those solvents.... Traditional lab analysis of the samples tested 
showed that lab and field results matched up about 92 percent of the time."
Source: "Environmental Update," U.S. Army Environmental Center," 
January, 1996.
Lenny Siegel