Senior chemist working on the CSS contract with the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Superfund Technical Assessment and Response Team (START) supported the Guam Lab Chemicals Round Up in March of 2024 and July of 2025. During both mobilizations, START supported EPA’s mission to collect chemical waste items from across the U.S. island territory of Guam for off-island transport and disposal. As a field chemist, CSS employee owner supporting the effort conducted Hazard Categorization (HazCat) testing on hundreds of unlabeled waste items to help determine the most appropriate waste stream for safe shipping and disposal of each item. CSS employee owner used the EPA Region 9 GeminiTM Chemical Identification analyzer to identify chemicals that appeared to be in their original containers, but that had missing or weathered labels. START supported worker health and safety by conducting screening of the chemical collections and storage spaces for toxic and volatile gases, explosive limits, radiation, and mercury vapor prior to initiating work, and by conducting air monitoring for toxic and volatile gases, and explosive limits during all handling and packing of the chemical wastes.
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Rapid Reporting of a Close Call Incident
CSS Safety Protocols During a routine collection of waste, a container of white powder disintegrated without warning, causing the powder to spill and be expelled into the air. Thanks to CSS’s safety protocols and quick response, our Center for Disease Control waste disposal staff was able to assess the situation and respond to the chemical…
Training the Next Generation of Researchers
CSS staff support the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Division of Occupational Safety and Health by providing Safe Techniques Advance Research Science (STARS) training to summer interns. Following a pause during the pandemic, staff resumed training May 15, 2024. During the in-person STARS training, CSS staff cover key concepts from the pre-requisite NIH Lab Safety…
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…