“We don’t know what to look for” What utter dogshit. I work in environmental testing and it’s really not hard to blanket test soil samples for pretty much anything we currently recognize as “bad.”
They don’t want to spend the money on testing only to lose more money when they can’t sell their product.
Most soil testing services offer a panel via mass spec. It’s like $100 per sample. The health official deserves to get hung from the flagpole by their underpants and/or assigned to a different job.
Didn’t mean to counter your comment, just meant that even If I were to run with the premise of “how ever should we know what to test for after a lithium fire!?” - stupid as it may be - that still seems easily solved by calling Mr. Meyers from the Salad Bowl Highschool (go greens!)
The SAME society that has deemed me and many young people “unemployable” because…well no reason actually are the same groups of idiots that are too stupid to test anything.
“Oopsie daisy! We messed up! SO QUIRKY AMIRIGHT!?!?!?”
I swear, I feel my Reddit atheist particles surge every day.
It’s not as accurate as mass spec but generally speaking you can test for geavy metals using certain acid and color changing indicators (in known concentrations) over a range of sample dilutions. Even better if you have a reference sample of a known concentration of the target, like manganese. Sometimes the chemical is not itself an acid but nevertheless reacts with the target.
For example, high concentrations of manganese will react with peeiodate to make a red/broan color. You can buy a set of 100 pouches of periodate for manganese testing on Amazon for $50.
Yeah seriously. It’s not even expensive either. I can get a soil sample tested for a whole suite of heavy metals (+other elements that plants crave) for <$60.
Plus if you’re “not sure what you’re looking for” you still can take the samples. Heavy metals are famously stable in soil; it’s not like you have to run the test immediately.
“We don’t know what to look for” What utter dogshit. I work in environmental testing and it’s really not hard to blanket test soil samples for pretty much anything we currently recognize as “bad.”
They don’t want to spend the money on testing only to lose more money when they can’t sell their product.
I feel like you could ask your local high schools chemistry teacher what metals you should test for after a lithium fire
At least one answer to the question is in the question.
Most soil testing services offer a panel via mass spec. It’s like $100 per sample. The health official deserves to get hung from the flagpole by their underpants and/or assigned to a different job.
Didn’t mean to counter your comment, just meant that even If I were to run with the premise of “how ever should we know what to test for after a lithium fire!?” - stupid as it may be - that still seems easily solved by calling Mr. Meyers from the Salad Bowl Highschool (go greens!)
I’m a different user! Didn’t mean to argue, either, just wanted to add some emphasis. Go greens!
The SAME society that has deemed me and many young people “unemployable” because…well no reason actually are the same groups of idiots that are too stupid to test anything.
“Oopsie daisy! We messed up! SO QUIRKY AMIRIGHT!?!?!?”
I swear, I feel my Reddit atheist particles surge every day.
It’s not as accurate as mass spec but generally speaking you can test for geavy metals using certain acid and color changing indicators (in known concentrations) over a range of sample dilutions. Even better if you have a reference sample of a known concentration of the target, like manganese. Sometimes the chemical is not itself an acid but nevertheless reacts with the target.
For example, high concentrations of manganese will react with peeiodate to make a red/broan color. You can buy a set of 100 pouches of periodate for manganese testing on Amazon for $50.
Yeah seriously. It’s not even expensive either. I can get a soil sample tested for a whole suite of heavy metals (+other elements that plants crave) for <$60.
Plus if you’re “not sure what you’re looking for” you still can take the samples. Heavy metals are famously stable in soil; it’s not like you have to run the test immediately.