6.3 Soil

6.3.1 Human Resources Requirements

For the efficient operation of the Soil Testing Laboratory it will require aspects mentioned below.

(i) One National Reference Laboratory with:
- One Head of Laboratory, M.Sc or Ph.D in soil Chemistry or Biology.
- Two Soil Chemists, B.Sc in Soil Chemistry.
- 3 Analysts/Technicians; Higher National Diploma (HND) Level in Analytical Chemistry
- 2 Analysts/Technicians, HND in Analytical Biology.

(ii) One Laboratory in each District/Province with:

- One Head of Laboratory - B.Sc Soil Chemistry.
- Two Analysts/Technicians with HND in Analytical Chemistry.
(iii) Inspectors/Environment Protection Officers:
- Initially one per district - B.Sc in Soil
Chemistry.

(iv) Prosecutor:

- Initially to be based at Headquarters,
1 Environmental Lawyer.

(v) Computer Analyst:

- One computer analyst at the Headquarters
- 2 Computer Operators at Headquarters; one per
District/Province.

(vi) Equipment Specialists:

- Initially based at Headquarters.
- One Physicist/Electronic Engineer.
- Two Technicians, Diploma in Electronics/ Instrumentation.
(viii) Training Officer:

- B.Ed. in Science, Chemistry, Biology.

6.3.2 Human Resource Development

During the initial stages of institutional building, human resource training needs will mainly consist of attachment to more established testing laboratories, for example, KARI and Ministry of Public Works Materials Department and also to overseas institutions.

Later it will be necessary to have a training department at Headquarters to formulate programmes for university level, polytechnic and on-the-job training; attachment to other institutions; group training, overseas training and creation of public awareness.

6.3.3 Facilities Required

a) Office space to accommodate staff.

b) Laboratory - National Reference Soils Laboratory and Provincial/District Soils Laboratories. The laboratories should be air-conditioned to 23°C ± 2°C. It is proposed that the National Reference Soils Laboratory should be given priority during the initial stages of institutional building.

The preliminary indicative list of equipment for the National Reference Soils Laboratory is as follows:
(i) Soil Chemistry and Biology
Research and Analytical Facilities.

Description

- Laboratory Glassware
- Temperature controlled enclosures
- Ovens
- Light sources (such as white fluorescent tubes) - capable of delivering a constant light intensity of 400 lx - 800 lx at a controlled light/dark cycle of between 12h/12h and 16h/8h.
- Greenhouses
- Conductivity meter
- Analytical balances
- Thermometer
- Shaking machine
- Filter paper
- Desiccator
- pH meter
- Glass electrode and a reference electrode or combined electrode. Scheiber Apparatus, adapted for carrying out a single sample termination
- Reaction vessels, 150 ml capacity with wide neck
- Plastic cap, 10 ml capacity (2)
- Tongs acid-proof(3)
- Watch glass(1)
- Digestion flasks/tubes, 50 ml capacity
- Digestion stand
- Distillation apparatus - Parnas-Wagner type
- Gas chromatograph
- Infra Red Spectrophotometer
- Spectrometer - to measure absorbance in wavelengths
up to 900 mm
- Optical cells, of path lengths 10 mm
- Vortex stirrer
- Water bath (2)
- Crushers, mills, mortar and pestle
- Plate sieve, complying with ISO 565, with an aperture of 2 mm1
- Mesh sieve, apertures of 250 µm complying with ISO 5651
- Test sieve, aperture 0.15 mm with gauze cloth made from nylon
- Mechanical sieve shaker
- Mechanical mixer(s)
- Sample divider
- Grinding mill, capable of grinding dried soils, sludges and sediments to sizes less than 150 µm
- Reflux condenser(1)
- Absorption vessel, non-return type
- Roughened glass beads
- Temperature - controlled heating apparatus capable of heating contents to reflux temperature 1
- Funnel, diameter 110 cm
- Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer
- Drying Oven
- Soxhlet extractor capacity 150 ml.
- Glass fibre filters, diameter 60 mm.
- Chromatography column, with closed circuit.
- Concentration Apparatus, Kuderna Danish or rotary apparatus.
- Gas Chromatograph.
- Chromatography column.
- Data System.

(ii) Information Management - Data Centre

Description/Quantity

- IBM PC Server, 520 8641-SEZ, Pentium 100 MHZ CPU, 64 MB Ram, 6.75 G B Hard Disc, 14" SVGA Colour Monitor, Enhanced Keyboard/1
- Epson LQ 1170 printer/2
- HP Laserjet 4M Plus Printer/2
- Victory Micro 1 KVA UPS/1
- HP Scanjet 4C with software/1
- Victron Lite 600VA off-line UPS/4
- Multi-user Lan Software/1
- CD-ROM Drive/1
- Heavy duty Copier/1
- E-mail Software/3
- Ulta 14.4 Fox Modems/2
- Aldus Page Maker V 5.0 Wind1, 5-User
- Network Cards/4
- Printing Adapters and Accessories

6.3.4 Use of Resources in National Institutions

(a) As the districts will be the principle centres for the implementation and enforcement of regulations on environment they will require easy access to testing facilities. It may not be possible to provide these facilities in every district and consideration should be given to accrediting of other testing institutions, including private sector institutions, to provide some of the testing services.

(b) Through the data centre, information exchanges should be developed with other scientific institutions.

(c) The Soils Laboratory, through the proposed National Inter-laboratory Proficiency Testing Scheme to be organised through the KEBS, should regularly compare its results with other testing laboratories.

(d) The laboratory should also organise technical committees composed of experts from itself and other institutions at which scientific and management issues can be discussed.

(e) Exchanges of experts with other institutions should be encouraged