Extras · 1 of 4

A typical day

Half the year is field work: load the truck at 6am, drive to a site, pull groundwater or soil samples, label everything, fill in the chain of custody forms and ship the cooler to the lab the same day. The other half is at a desk. The lab results come back as a spreadsheet, you compare them to the limits in the permit, and you write what it means. The real skill is explaining a number to someone who does not want to hear it, in language a lawyer and a plant manager can both use.