Skip to main content

Defining Moments

By March 17, 2014September 3rd, 2014General CQA

In looking at my last three blog posts, I realized that they offer insight into the question I initially posed in February: What is Geosynthetics CQA?

When I ask this question to industry personnel who have either been in the field for years or managed projects primarily from the office, the answer usually is summed up with two words: documentation and observation. When ask to further define these two words, the primary definition for observation is simply stated as observing what the contractor does; the primary definition for documentation is recording everything that the contractor does and making sure there are no gaps in the paperwork. Do you agree with these definitions?

Personally, I think they fall short.

Any definition of Geosynthetics CQA has to include ownership. You need to be willing to do whatever it takes to make sure the project is a success. You need to own the responsibility that you have, not only to your employer, but the consequences that failure could have on the environment and local communities.

Geosynthetics CQA should be so much more than just following installation personnel around and documenting what they do. While you may have successfully kept up with the contractor and have every panel, trial weld, seam, non-destructive and destructive seam test, and repair documented, the project may not be a success if you have not done proper CQA.

If you go through the course of a project and haven’t touched the liner with your hands to inspect something, I would question whether CQA has really been done. There always seems to be something that needs to be inspected more closely. And in this case, it is how we currently define the process of geosynthetics CQA and our overall expectations.

For years, the industry standard has been to accept that a certain amount of holes in the geomembrane are just going to occur, and we have been designing around that philosophy. While I think the design should remain conservative and plan for a certain amount of leaks, I have seen first-hand that you can economically build geosynthetic containment units that have zero leaks without breaking the budget!

So how do you obtain zero leaks? One key ingredient is comprehensive and proactive CQA that goes far above the observation and documentation mentality that is common today. I will elaborate on this as we move forward, but before I do, I would like to ask the following question:

As an owner, engineer, or regulator, how do you define CQA for the projects in which you are involved? As an installer, how do you define the role CQA should be playing (other than being a pain in your butt) and any value added to your projects?

Join the discussion 2 Comments

  • Jeff Breedlove, P.E. says:

    Glen, I applaud your efforts to “raise the bar” in the industry and challenge the paradigm that “leaks are inevitable.” I cringe at the assertion that CQA is the “pain in the installer’s butt.” I would hope that installers, who are offering a warranty on their product and have a vested interest in quality, would welcome CQA as an opportunity to catch mistakes (which all human beings make). After all, we’re all really on the same team — to protect the owner’s and installer’s investment in protecting human health and the environment through sound (and reasonable) application of engineering solutions.

    I think CQA is summed up with three words — verification, observation, and documentation. I think the verification is a critical piece of CQA. Verification — that the materials are the specified materials, that the materials meet the required specification, that the installer handles and installs the material appropriately, and that the installer’s QC is appropriate. Verification is handled both through testing (conformance testing) and observation (observing MQC data, installation means and methods, QC means and methods, etc). President Reagan said it best with his version of an old Russian proverb — trust, but verify.

    Our observation and documentation go hand in hand. Without documentation, there is no observation — without observation, there can be no documentation (or can there?).

    You use a key word — inspect — that many CQA firms, especially if their roots are in geotechnical engineering, stay away from. ASFE guides them to stay away from inspect in place of observe. My computer’s definition for inspect is: verb – examine, check, scrutinize, investigate, vet, test, monitor, survey, study, look over, peruse, scan, explore, probe; assess, appraise, review, audit. I think that pretty well sums it up — good CQA requires those actions, not just observation. All you CQA techs out there, your job is to examine, check, scrutinize, investigate, vet, test, monitor, survey, study, look over, peruse, scan, explore, probe, assess, appraise, review, and audit.

    Love the blog … keep ’em coming.

    • Glen Toepfer says:

      Jeff, Great response! I think you have accurately summed up quite a bit here, and I especially like your addition of “verification”. I have learned a lot about the need for a thorough examination of material certifications over the years. Often, the MQC data and conformance data for geosynthetic materials is quickly scanned over just to see if it passes; however, in taking time to look closely at the results, you can find trends and potential weaknesses in the material, particularly geomembrane. I have a free e-book coming out soon which will also touch upon this thought, but I will give a quick example here. Many of the conformance testing acceptance criteria are based on average values of the replicates but no one looks to see if there is a huge deviation in values, or an extremely high value carrying the average–looking at these values a bit closer can identify things like blemished rolls. Take for instance thickness, which has 10 replicates per ASTM D 5199. For 60 mil HDPE, common acceptance criteria for thickness is having a minimum average of no less than 60 mils, and no single test values less than 54 mils. I have seen many samples where the average is met, but you have high values in the low 70’s and low values in the mid 50’s. Although the average may be over 60 mils, you still have a thickness difference of over 20%. This may not matter much to the certifying engineer in terms of numbers, but it could be a huge obstacle for installers and result in inconsistent fusion and extrusion welding. For this reason, I encourage installers to look closely at the data submitted to them as well.

      I have been pushing the teamwork concept for quite a while between all parties and have also been pushing the concept of proactive CQA–if you spot something wrong, or even questionable, talk with the installer right away, before it gets out of hand. My “pain in the butt” comment above is somewhat tongue-in-check but I am sure if you ask most installation foreman I have worked with, they probably would consider that a mild phrase! But, that being said, they usually have a respect for me (and I for them) and what I am doing, as well as what I bring to the table in terms of both finding problems and working with them to prevent the problem from becoming something major. I’m not sure the sentiment is the same towards all CQA personnel–especially those that are only there to document. From an installer point of view (as well as an owner point of view), there is little value added by the CQA tech that is only out there documenting. If all CQA techs apply your job definition above, I think it would benefit us all!