Environmental Monitoring Capability
Our environmental monitoring expertise and experience is mostly related to water, soil and rock materials related to mining. Our team possesses expertise in advanced sampling and laboratory testing of both solids and liquids, as well as analysis and data processing. In-house mechatronic engineering knowledge has also enabled us to develop monitoring instrumentation, which can be monitored remotely using appropriate communications technologies. These combined skills enable us to design appropriate and efficient monitoring programs and systems.
Field Programs
Terrachem provides specialist expertise for development and implementation of sampling programmes. Services include project management, QA/QC, sampling strategy development, field sampling, laboratory support, management and interpretation of analytical results and reporting.
Sampling is generally the costliest component of an exploration or monitoring programme due to several factors, including personnel, equipment, logisitcal and laboratory costs. Despite this, sampling is often where errors originate for various reasons. This tendency is compounded through deployment of inexperienced field staff with inadequate guidance, in an attempt to save costs. These errors can propagate through the entire evaluation process, leading to incorrect conclusions and poor decision making. This can limit project progress or cause unexpected impacts and / or liabilities. Terrachem can assist in collecting representative samples and applying suitable QA/QC procedures. We also provide support with reporting, classification and interpretation of data.
The Terrachem view of environmental monitoring is that it is more than a legal obligation or a feed-in to management reporting. It is a means for responsible companies to identify potential environmental risks in advance, when it is still possible to act proactively, to eliminate or minimise risks and ultimately avoid unnecessary liabilities in the longer term.
Adequate empirical data (with appropriate QA/QC) is also necessary to ensure that any associated modelling is representative and that baseline data is available to measure impacts against. This is necessary to demonstrate that risk management is effective and to measure the level of impact that has occurred (or not) to regulators and other stakeholders. Data, and models that depend on it, are often used for legal compliance, assessment and / or management purposes.