Day or Night the Sampling Team’s Got It Covered

The Environmental Sampling team includes Patrick Maes, Anthony Pino, Craig Thomas, Natalie Lundell, Darnell Tullock, Gabriel Sisneros, and Jay Halliwell (left to right).

At Metro Water Recovery we’re proud of the many different careers, skillsets and people that make up our organization. If you like to be on-the-go and constantly presented with problems to solve, the Environmental Sampling Team may resonate with you.  

The sampling team works at both of Metro’s treatment facilities and out in the service area collecting samples of raw, pretreated, and treated wastewater for laboratory analysis. At the Robert W. Hite Treatment Facility, they also sample the biofilters, biosolids, hauled wastes, and stormwater.

Information gathered by this team is used to:

• Ensure that industrial dischargers meet Metro-issued permit requirements and permittees are not putting anything in the Transmission System that would damage our facilities.
• Report compliance with the Colorado Discharge Permit System permit issued to Metro by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE).
• Calculate Annual Charges for Service for connectors.

For Environmental Sampling Field Technician Anthony Pino, it’s the on-the-job challenges that make his days exciting. He says with a smile, “It’s very rewarding to fix what breaks. I enjoy the physical and mental challenges required by the work and working with the crew. The different steps to the sampling procedures make me feel like a scientist.”

Ingenuity is required often, as these employees maintain equipment and collect samples from 50+ industrial monitoring locations. Quality control measures are closely followed and documented on the chain of custody forms to assure the samples and data are legally defensible.

This team works seven days a week, and CDPHE requirements mean sampling could be at any time of any day or night.