May 5, 2014
Brooks Rand Labs appreciates how important a positive workplace environment can be to employee satisfaction. In response, BRL allows our staff to bring their pets to work with them (within limits). This contributes to a more pleasant, reduced-stress environment for people that probably spend more time at work than their waking hours at home! Does this sound familiar to some of you?
At BRL we have the pleasure of spending our time and sharing our office space with following canines…Lucy, Teddy, Balin, Oliver, and the sweetest girl, Princess!
Apr 1, 2014
Registration for the 2014 Department of Defense (DoD) Environmental Monitoring & Data Quality (EMDQ) Workshop from April 8-10 in Omaha, Nebraska has reached maximum capacity! Did you reserve your spot? If so, say hello to BRL Representative and Technical Sales Specialist, Elizabeth Madonick. She will be attending this important workshop to ensure that Brooks Rand Labs stays abreast of current developments with DoD environmental monitoring.
Apr 1, 2014
The controversial Alberta tar sands has sparked heavy debate amongst government agencies, politicians, industry, First Nations communities, concerned citizens, and Hollywood celebrities. Environmental degradation, water quality issues, human health, and energy demands are at the heart of the matter. But, what exactly are the tar sands? In short, Canada’s tar sands extracted oil product is not like conventional crude oil. The substance, also referred to as bitumen, is sticky, thick oil that cannot flow down a pipeline prior to intense processing. The naturally occurring oil present in the tar sands is comprised of clay, sand, water, and roughly 10% bitumen. Pollutant monitoring plans have been initiated to assess the impacts of the tar sands processing activities.
BRL has extensive experience testing for the metals and metals species of concern (such as methylmercury) or interest (such as rare earth elements). Such complex samples require a high degree of expertise!
Mar 3, 2014
Between recreation and brine shrimp commerce, Utah’s Great Salt Lake (GSL) contributes a significant amount of money to Utah’s economy. Therefore, it made big news roughly a decade ago when methylmercury results from the lake were found to be the highest ever seen in a body of water in the United States.
There are still many questions about mercury sources and mechanisms of mercury transport in the GSL, but great strides have been made in recent years. Research has shown that mercury bioaccumulation in the GSL is largely fueled by its unique geography that has caused the formation of a deep, anoxic, super-saline environment referred to as the “deep brine layer”. The highest mercury levels can be found in the deep brine layer and it is hypothesized that its existence is one of the factors involved with the unusually high methylation rates of the mercury observed in the GSL.
Erin F. Jones and Professor Wayne Wurtsbaugh of Utah State University just recently had their paper on the deep brine layer of the Great Salt Lake published in Limnology and Oceanography. This paper is very useful for understanding mercury issues in the Great Salt Lake and elsewhere. To find out more read the abstract online.
Brooks Rand Labs performed the low-level total mercury and methylmercury analyses reported in this paper for the Great Salt Lake water samples.
Mar 3, 2014
Join us at the AEHS Foundation’s 24th Annual International Conference on Soil, Water, Energy, and Air in sunny San Diego, CA from March 17-20. This popular conference brings together environmental professionals from across a variety of industries to present and discuss soil, water, and air contamination. Brooks Rand Labs representative and Technical Sales Specialist, Elizabeth Madonick will be attending the conference to stay abreast of these important environmental topics.
Michelle Briscoe, President of Brooks Rand Labs, and Frank McFarland, Vice President of Quality, will be traveling to our Nation’s capital March 18-19, 2014 for the annual American Council of Independent Laboratories (ACIL) Policies and Practices Conference. This conference combines government relations and business practices roundtable discussions for independent laboratories, both important topics to Brooks Rand Labs leadership.
Feb 4, 2014
Brooks Rand Labs participated in a recently-published interlaboratory certification campaign for trace metals and methylmercury in scallop samples for the Marine Environmental Studies Laboratory (MESL) of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Environment Laboratories (IAEA-NAEL). Of the sixteen laboratories that participated in the study, Brooks Rand Labs was the only one whose results were used in the certification of every analyte that appears on the resulting IAEA-452 CRM Certificate. View the Certification Report for CRM IAEA-452 (Scallop). In this report, Brooks Rand Labs is referenced as Laboratory Code 9.
Feb 3, 2014
In case you missed us at the 2014 Winter Conference on Plasma Spectrochemistry in Florida from January 6 through January 11, our Trace Metals Research Chemist, Tamas Ugrai, presented a poster on a Brooks Rand Study, entitled “An International Intercomparison Study for Arsenic Speciation in Food”. The study focused on arsenic speciation in four food matrices: brown rice flour, white rice flour, kelp powder, and apple juice. Read more about the study by downloading the poster and the final study report. Brooks Rand Labs specializes in Arsenic Speciation and metals analyses of food products. To find out more contact us today!
Feb 3, 2014
The daunting question of how to manage land and wildlife with respects to impacts made by mercury cycling and bioaccumulation are difficult to address on a local, regional, national, and international level. In a collaborative effort lead by the Biodiversity Research Institute and the U.S. Geological Survey, with involvement of mercury researches from many agencies and institutions, the Western North American Synthesis (WNAMS) Project was created to take on these questions. WNAMS is comprised of the world’s leading mercury researchers who are compiling data (sediment, water, invertebrates and other biota, emissions, mining, etc.) and formulating a holistic synthesis of the western regions of the U.S., Canada, and parts of Mexico. The intent of this project is to better determine the factors which drive mercury methylation and accumulation. This knowledge is essential for management and long term planning, and will hopefully reduce mercury impacts.
An endeavor such as this worthy of much more coverage; Brooks Rand Labs would encourage you to read about this project further at the Biodiversity Research Institute website. Also, data sets that have not been made publicly available would be welcomed for evaluation; please contact one of the four principal investigators listed on the website regarding submittal.
For more than 25 years, Brooks Rand Labs has been involved in supporting vital mercury research such as the WNAMS project with our specialized mercury speciation services.
Jan 22, 2014
In the Seattle Public School District, the Jane Addams K-8 ESTEM (Environmental Science, Technology, Engineering, & Math) school is going to be temporarily housed at the John Marshall School building for the 2014-2016 school years while a new school building is built to house their program. Recent studies of the drinking water quality at John Marshall, an older building with mainly galvanized steel water pipes, have indicated that at least a third (10 out of 34) of the drinking water sources tested do not meet the criteria for lead (Pb) and/copper (Cu). In addition, sinks in bathrooms, which are sometimes used by students for refilling their water bottles, were never tested.
In support of the Jane Addams K-8 Working Group on Air and Water Quality at John Marshall, Brooks Rand Labs is donating analytical services to perform additional drinking water testing for lead (Pb) and copper (Cu) at John Marshall School, and volunteers from Brooks Rand Labs’ staff are donating their time to perform the sample collection services at the school.
Dec 4, 2013
Mercury is a dangerous neurological toxin and too much exposure has been responsible for several poisoning outbreaks around the world. Routes of exposure and metabolism have been well documented for elemental mercury, organic mercury, and inorganic mercury. In general, organic mercury forms are considered to be the most toxic; however, some studies have indicated that ethylmercury and methylmercury are handled differently by the body and therefore have differing toxicities. Ethylmercury is a breakdown product from a commonly used preservative in vaccines for humans and animals, as well as in some cosmetics, and it needs to be studied more comprehensively before its safety can be determined. Annie Carter, VP of Operations at Brooks Rand Labs, along with Elizabeth Madonick, Technical Sales Specialist, recently published an article on ethylmercury analysis in Environment Industry Magazine. View the Environmental Industry Magazine featuring the Ethylmercury and Human Health article on page 134.
