Insights
  • Success Stories, Uncategorized
  • Environmental Resource Assessment & Management

Assessing Contamination in Abandoned Mines

Entrance to an abandoned mine in a hillside
Man sits on a cooler holding a bottle of clear liquid and a syringe

CSS supports the Environmental Protection Agency with assessing contamination within abandoned mines. There are thousands of abandoned mines throughout the western United States. Many of these mines are leaching heavy metals into nearby streams or have contaminated soils causing vegetation die off.  

CSS employee owners conduct field work to assess the extent of this contamination. During field excursions, staff collect soil and water samples and characterize the extent of contamination. The team analyzes sample on site and in the laboratory for heavy metals. This information informs remediation plans for contaminated sites.

Feature image credit: Peter Robbins, Unsplash

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Bare Earth with sparse grass
  • Success Stories
  • Environmental Resource Assessment & Management

Remediating Soil Surrounding Abandoned Mines 

CSS employees have been providing field, lab, and horticultural support for the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to develop and test methods for the remediation and revegetation of contaminated soils around selected abandoned mines in the western United States. One of the promising approaches is to incorporate biochar into the soil. Using biochar helps effectively adsorb trace metals and reduce their…

map of globe with swirls of orange around the center and blue around the poles
  • Success Stories
  • Satellite Science & Environmental Intelligence

Atmospheric Processing System Support

The NOAA Unique Combined Atmospheric Processing System (NUCAPS) is an operational retrieval algorithm that NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Services has been using since 2002. This system generates near real-time atmospheric profiles of temperature, water vapour, and trace gases, as well as Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR) needed for weather forecasting. CSS Remote Sensing…

  • Success Stories
  • Safety, Health, & Environmental Compliance

Overcoming COVID-19 Challenges

Great job to our team supporting our contract with the U.S. General Services Administration on assisting the client with conducting a year’s worth of environmental, health, and safety surveys in just six months! Due to limitations with COVID-19, the team was unable to conduct their surveys on their usual timeline and instead had to work…