Staying Safe In The Field

Maintaining safe working environments for staff while meeting the needs of clients has been challenging in light of the recent pandemic.  Social distancing requirements and restrictions on sharing vehicles could reduce efficiency and increases travel costs; yet Aspen has innovated ways to maintain both safety and efficiency. Typically, environmental firms use ride shares and carpooling to reduce their carbon footprint and limit the number of vehicles that are needed when conducting surveys. In addition, field crews often stage vehicles at key locations when surveying large areas for safety and to reduce the time spent walking back along the same survey route.

While there is no easy solution, Aspen field staff are working through these challenges with a number of innovative solutions, including:

• Crews break up the transects to shorter areas that allow them to walk up one side then back the other. This reduces unnecessary walking and keeps the vehicles close at hand.

• Staff can stage mountain bikes at the top of the survey area and ride back to their vehicles at the end of the day. This increases efficiency and prevents extended walks back to the truck at the end of the day.

• Crews focus on short difficult segments where they may walk over land then return to their vehicles along existing roads.

• In rare cases, if staff must share a vehicle, staff sit on opposite sides of the vehicle, wear masks, keep the windows open, and limit exposure time to no more than ten minutes.

• Use drones to remote survey areas for high level data collection.

Until the situation changes, Aspen will continue to work on survey methods that allow for safe working conditions while meeting client needs.