Underground Storage Tanks, Working in Government, and Fostering Rescue Dogs with Natalie Hendricks

Laura and Nic interview Natalie Hendricks, a leaking underground storage tank case manager with Washington D.C.’s Department of Energy and Environment, to explore how a geology background can lead to a career in environmental remediation and public service. From underground storage tank cleanups and vapor intrusion to career pivots, government work, and fostering rescue dogs, this episode offers an inside look at the diverse paths and people that make up the environmental profession.

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Connect with Natalie Hendricks at natalie.hendricks@dc.gov. 

Guest Bio:
Natalie Hendricks is an Environmental Protection Specialist for Washington D.C.'s Department of Energy and Environment, where she manages Leaking Underground Storage Tanks (LUST) cases and Voluntary Cleanups of LUSTs throughout the District. She has been at this position for 12 years since joining DOEE in 2014. Prior to joining DOEE, Natalie was in private sector consulting with her start in LUST and project management at a small but successful startup in Florida and moved to Maryland in 2007 where she joined a larger international consultancy. She took a 2.5 year break to have her now 14 year old twins before moving to the public sector at DOEE where a number of her former colleagues were already happily transitioned! Natalie has a B.S. in Geology from the University of Florida and maintains her PG license also from the state of Florida (no PG licensing in Maryland or DC!). She was born in the Panama Canal Zone to military family life (11 schools before graduating HS in Orlando, FL). She is the mom of fraternal twins and one rescue chihuahua named Miss Pearl!

Music Credits
Intro: Givin Me Eyes by Grace Mesa
Outro: Never Ending Soul Groove by Mattijs Muller

Transcript

Hello and welcome to EPR with your favorite environmental nerds, Nic and Laura.

On today's episode, we talk about doing a lot of things. We interviewed Natalie Hendricks about underground storage tanks, working in government, and fostering rescue dogs.

And finally, here's some fun facts about animal shelters and animal rescuing. Adopting from a shelter comes with a built-in support network. Workers and volunteers know each animal's history, favorite games, and preferred types of cuddles, and some shelters even offer classes to help you bond with your new pet. Shelters aren't just for dogs or cats. Many have rabbits, hamsters, rats, mice. Pigs, some have turtles, chickens, and reptiles. I did not know.

Shelters often spay or neuter animals as part of the adoption process. So adopting one animal can actually help prevent the births of hundreds of future animals that cat or dog could have produced over its lifetime. Hit that music.

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Well, people always say to me like, because I have different names for the things that I do, like, oh, you're doing publishing and social media and the podcast or whatever, but it's like, yeah, but even under one umbrella, you can be doing 1000 things, it's, you know, it just looks from the outside like I have more things than anyone else, but I don't think that's really the case.

Oh man, maybe we can compare it. No, I'm kidding. Because you might have 20 projects that all have their own project deadlines and timelines and customers and nuances, you know, and I have 20 things with different titles, but they're still, I mean, you know, people, I don't know, I don't work, I think, as much as people think I do.

Uh, well, you know, having seen you work, I would say that you work plenty, but I would say like for me, a lot of my job, it's very funny. I think the more senior you get, the more you have to accept delegation as a task of yours, right? You, you are not allowed to do all of the work. You can't because you know, it's like if I have two proposals and you know one of them is a million dollars and one of them's $6 billion there's still a coordination for both of those that's pretty intense.

And one, they're both big in their own way and so you can't just write off one. The priority is the larger one generally, but you have to spend a considerable amount of effort, time and effort doing something like that and so you can't, but you can't do all of that.

You can't be an expert and if it's a large company. And you have a large region of influence that you need to cover, you can't know every single state's requirements for what you're doing. That would be almost impossible, right? So you need to rely on other people. You have to, and so you get to a point where you can do that. But that's just my job, right?

I mean, like there are other jobs at, you know, bigger companies where you don't rely on that. You kind of have to rely on, you do have other people to help you, you have a lot stronger reliance on you specifically. I mean, I assume anyway.

Yeah, I delegate a lot, and I feel like that is the position I want to be and you mentioned in the interview that you love doing a lot of different things, and you'd be bored. I would be bored if I was doing the same thing every day, but I also Want to share this with other people and bring this together as a team.

I also would be bored if I was doing all of this by myself, myself, yeah, yeah, I think that's maybe that's the trick is like sometimes people think that you're doing things on your own. Good leaders don't do that. Good leaders bring people along, and we had an all hands meeting at my company and I was like, OK, so you're going to say these things, you're going to say those things, and you'll talk about this, and like, oh, you. You want us to talk? I'm like, why wouldn't I? Yeah, we're doing all this together, of course I want you to talk. I want you to have a voice. I don't want to be the only one talking.

Absolutely. I would prefer to have everyone involved in a project doing majority of things that even if I know them, I want to see someone else do it and then me give some feedback or just put my, my idea of the vision on it, but other people's ideas and I just, I'm, I'm lazy. I want the work to be finished, but I definitely don't want to do all of it. And I don't want to do things over, and I don't want to, some things I don't want to do the first time if I can automate it, or, you know, like you said, get someone else who is the expert to do it. Fantastic. The hardest part is getting the budget to bring on as much help as you feel like you need, really.

Yeah, and that's like, you know, one of the things I have to focus on a lot. It's like, OK, how do we do all of these things? How do we position ourselves to be in a place where everybody's busy, everybody's got work, everybody's got something to do. There's someone to delegate to because there's so much going on, right? That's where it's almost like the driving force for me is like, OK. We have to have more work, more projects, more work, more projects, so that, you know, delegation becomes a requirement, and some people have struggle with that.

I think that's one of the biggest things that I've seen the transition from, you know, project management to program management. The biggest change is you can't do everything and people struggle with that, especially people who are used to doing the work and Yeah, at some point you have to let the majority of that go.

Well, the hard part about that for me is we, you and whomever probably didn't get as far as you did because you're not good at what you do. So when you give someone who doesn't have as much experience or this is their first time doing it, or even if it's their 10th time doing it, and they're still not getting it like 100%, the tendency is to just jump in and do it, and then you're not helping them, you're not helping yourself in the long run.

You might be fixing something like right now, but You're gonna be back exactly where you were 6 months, a year from now, the same problem, and that, and I struggle with that too. It's like, oh, I just do it myself. I know it's because it's easier, it's faster. It's hard, especially as a consultant. You're like, time is money and you can't just give infinite time away, but that's a balance you have to learn because if otherwise, like you'll end up in a situation where I had a coworker complaining to me, hey, you know, this team isn't really doing what I need them to do. And then 2 years later, this team isn't doing what I need them to do and I'm like, well, that's your fault.

The not doing it initially is their fault. They don't know what they're doing. Your job to get them to where they need to be. After 2 years, that's on you. And so you got to find ways to sort out what the problem is and then address it and that's also not clear sometimes. It's not easy.

Yeah, well, it just takes a certain type of person who wants to work on multiple things at the same time, but there's a lot of project managers in this field, and that's part of the job.

I know, and honestly, there's there's like, I think really it's more about knowing what you are really genuinely good at and being honest with yourself about it because I think there's a place for everyone, there's a place for all kinds of leaders in many different ways, and the way you and I do things is not the only way that you can do them. I think it really matters a lot more like who you are and and understanding who you are and, you know, if you like to do the detail thing, it's harder to do lots of different projects and programs if you are a detail oriented person, so you would have to be like a program. You know, you get one, and that that is a way to do things. It's just, you know, but for me I needed to be as much as possible.

Yeah, I am not a detailed oriented person, so I need people around me who are, same, I'm the same, yeah, like, and I think that is, is normal, yeah, that's that's normal when as you advance because my goal is to get it finished. My goal isn't to spend an hour picking out grammar details, like, I just want it done.

Yeah, and I will give you like a great example I think of this working really well and like. When I was at my first company, I was part of a leadership program, and they put us 4 of us together to create a presentation based on our personalities, right? And when we start this process, when we start this process, it's really funny. Like there's, we have 2 engineers, well, there's really 3 engineers and me, and, so I stuck out. I stuck out like kind of like a sore thumb. I kind of felt like there was 1 other engineer that was sort of, we connected and we, we could have conversations. The other two were kind of like, Who is this guy and why is he here?

And the beginning part of the program, like this is the vision that we have, this is what we're doing, we're talking about these things. And then we start talking about how we present and then suddenly I became extremely valuable and I was like, oh this is what we have to say, this is how we have to say it, this is how we should frame these things, this is what I know how to do and by the end of it we gave like a fantastic presentation to like the C-suite. It went really, really well.

Everybody did a great job. And we did a debrief afterwards and and there was like everybody brought something completely different to the table and nobody thought that when we started. We all thought we're like, why are we all here? This is strange. Like we're all very different people. We had people who were really regimented and people who were really loose, and that didn't make any sense until we got to the end, and that was really cool. It was like my first experience seeing, oh, that everybody has value and you just have to find out. How?

Right, yeah, well, I think we have rambled enough today and uh I hope everyone figures out what the type of work they like to do is, but um let's get to them, yeah.

Welcome back to EPR. Today we're joined by Natalie Hendricks. She is one of 4 leaking underground storage tanks case managers for Washington DC's Department of Energy and Environment. Natalie, it's awesome to have you here.

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Fabulous. So you have a background in geology and you're currently working in tanks. So, I would like to know how that journey goes. I know several other geologists and I, and it's amazing to me always. How many different directions you can go with rocks. So give us, give us a, how did you get into geology? I find there's a lot of uniqueness about the people who are who love the rocks so much, and then how it kind of evolved into where you are now.

It's a great question on two counts. One, how did I get into geology and how did I get here? Yeah. I wasn't always, I never planned to be a geologist, like going into college. I was actually an English major for a minute. All right, yeah, and then I was taking these, you know, at most universities there's like a prerequisite like number of Hard science classes and hard whatever and I found myself taking these geology classes to fulfill that requirement. And then I was also taking more because it was fun, um, and the field trips, you know, yeah, um, yeah, and then I reached a point where I switched majors after I was just completely disenchanted with like 18th century British novels. You know, trying to cram 9 of those in one semester while studying for stats and all this other stuff, um, yeah, so that's when I just kind of dropped that and, you know, my professor convinced me, you're doing really well in my classes, you should probably pursue this, and so I did. I did.

There was a lot. Where did you go? What kind of sites were you going to for your geology projects?

So being in Florida, it's interesting because I don't think a lot of people think geology in Florida, it's, it's flat as a pancake. Gainesville is a little different in that it's having lived in Orlando and I went up to college when I was 18, it was so hilly and tree lined, and, you know, I learned more like why is it like that. We would go locally to sinkholes and look, it's a very karst environment in Florida, so we were really good to learn about karest environment and limestone and everything associated with that.

But we would travel up to, let's see what they said, I think it was the said field trip, we came up to West Virginia. To New River Gorge, we went to Bama, Southern Appalachians, you know, and I did my geology field camp out in the Four Corners area one summer for the, you know, the typical 7 weeks geology field camp, which was well timed in my life when I was questioning, what am I gonna do with this degree? What do I like this, you know, I've been looking at rocks and thin section.

For so long in labs and the geology department at the University of Florida back then was in a basement level of uh one of the buildings. So it was nice and like underground and hold up pretty well and I was looking at samples so that field camp was, was life changing for me and it helped me like, yeah, actually this is where I wanna be doing this kind of stuff, being outside.

Yeah, that's amazing. I had a similar experience kind of going to school for biology, and I was like, what part of this am I gonna do? And then I, one of our classes, I think it was a wetlands class, but we went to a wetland, which I've been to parks before and stood in wetlands, but until I stood in it with the understanding of what I was looking at, it just didn't hit the same, and then I was like, I would love to just stay all day here.

Yeah, I agree. I, I hear you.

Yeah, so then from school, how did you get to the DC program for

So, yeah, I've been at this for quite some time, you know, I've been in DC for 12 years, but before that, I started like my first like real geologist job. I was working at, well, I did some volunteer work at the USGS in the Altamonte Springs office there for a minute just to get My feet wet. I was just looking for work, looking for experience, and I ended up logging over 300 hours of volunteer work, and that gave me the opportunity to really, you know, free work. Yeah, those guys will take it.

I was able to go out to the Everglades on projects with hydrologists there. I was able to do a lot of spring gauging and a lot of field work because I'm free and it's government, and they don't have budget for that. Um, so it was a Really amazing experience for me to get, and I just like, literally just walked in their office, like, what can I do for you guys, you know, one summer, and they took me in, which led to a very low paid position at the Ocala Water Quality Lab.

Yeah. With the USDS and then I was closer to Gainesville. I was, that's in Ocala, Florida, or was in Ocala, Florida, which is 40 minutes' drive to Gainesville, which just through networking through my old professor, well, I won't say old professor, he was the chair of the department and one of my professors who knew a guy who's looking for project managers, entry level geology, project manager, project managers, and so I, I took a job at a startup.

Environmental consulting firm, it was more money, it was steady work, benefits, my parents would be proud. Um, benefits, mom, yeah, yeah, you know, and it was a great, great experience, and it was a great way into this whole thing, and that firm did mainly petroleum tanks cleanup work.

Yeah, that's great. I like the, the behind the scenes of it, cause there's so many people who are struggling to find jobs right now and unsure of themselves. What can I do? What can I do? Am I allowed to do this? So how did you get the courage to just walk in there and say, what can I do for you?

Oh, I don't know. I mean, I think I just needed to do something. I think that, I mean, I was babysitting on the weekends for local family. I was doing, taking more courses through at community college just to take classes, and I needed to find work and I knew that, you know, friends that went into um like oil and gas.

I think at that time, oil and gas, the big oils were hiring pretty top tier students, and I wasn't, I won't say I was a top tier student. Had a lot of fun in college, um, but I also learned that from a, a really close friend that did go calling me from a rig out in the Gulf saying, no, I don't think this is for you, definitely not for you, you know, described that life for me. It wasn't for him either. He got out a few years into Yeah, so I was just looking. It was just like, I don't know. I got brave and like, let me just go in and talk to these people and see what I can do. It was the 90s, not everything was on the internet.

Yeah, I think that's it. I think back then you had to go into places. Now people are, so there's this wall, you know, it has to be virtual, and am I allowed to come? Some places don't want you to just drop in, um, but, but I say if there's no sign that says don't drop in, drop in exactly, and try volunteering if you, I mean, I was living with my parents at that time in Orlando, so it was doable. I couldn't do that if I was not, you know, paying rent. I couldn't sacrifice that much time. It's too valuable.

But, you know, I think for the young folks that are still in college, if you've got a summer at home, think about doing something like that and volunteer your time, and it worked. I mean, I was able to get a lot of experience, have a lot of good conversations with hydrologists and geologists in that field, and I just kind of was hooked.

Yeah, that's great. And so you've been with the DC Department of Energy and Environment since 2014, you said?

That's right.

And how did you end up getting that position?

Yeah, so I was in private consulting between Florida and Maryland, and when I got pregnant with twins, um, in the consulting world, as you probably know, Nic, it's very, it's a hustle, it's very stressful, and the pregnancy was not very easy. For me it is a bit of a high risk situation, so I decided to take a break, you know, my husband works for the federal government, and I don't know, we had pretty good health benefits and all that.

We decided, you know, maybe I can just do this, stay home, get pregnant and be pregnant and have these twins and not pay. This is my life, you know, to infant care, daycare, right, and I took a break, yeah. Yeah, and that whole idea of going back into consulting when the kids were such babies was really daunting, and I had friends at DOEE, you know, it's a circle, um, that welcome, like you should apply here, and it was such a refreshing change of pace so that by the time, the twins were 2, yeah, it was a welcome change to go on the public sector side and so much less stress, you know, crazy time sheets.

Yeah, there is a huge difference between working for government and consulting for sure. Uh, we can dive into that another time, probably you and I, Nic, but, yeah, let's dive in more into your, your work now as a lust case manager, what is the lust program and what do you do with it day to day?

Yeah, so the lust program is one half of the UST branch. Which operates essentially two branches, the UST, the USST, and the LT, and the USST is basically, and this is how it is in most state governments where there's like a compliance and inspection component to the actual USTs, the nuts and bolts of these underground storage tank systems and keeping them operating and compliant with local and federal law, including all the, you know, the leak prevention type work that goes into that.

And then there's the less folks like me who operate, like, if there is a discharge, or if there is signs of a leak or cleanup required from an underground storage tank in particular. We are the, the cleanup folks, so we do a different job, you know, we're doing the, the, uh, assessment, the characterization, the remediation, we steward those things, and I say steward those things, not do the things because we don't, you know, we're not in the field doing that work, but we, you know, I get to just look at the reports and occasionally go out in the field like that.

Yeah, and so you basically, when you have like a, a lust come up, which is by the way the acronyms, you know, I love it, that's a great acronym for what it is, it's just, yeah, yeah, I'm working on, I work in lust, yeah, hm, I'm sorry, um, I know it's fun. Yeah, so you've gotta have, you know, you've got to have good office jokes around that.

So you basically like when you get a report and you're like, OK, we have, we have a leaking tank, um, then you, you hire a company to clean up the tank and then you review afterwards. Is that how the process typically goes? Is there, uh, how long does this take, for example?

It could take. Years. Typically, it's a year-long process, like with many environmental projects. I can tell you that DC operates a little bit differently than other states that I've, I've worked in, mainly like Florida and other states with a trust fund or some kind of pre-approval program that's typically set up for UST owners that are deemed. responsible party.

So my job is to basically, once we know that there's a, a leaking underground storage tank, a lust, we will verify or determine who the responsible party is. And they have to hire, we will give them a directive like, OK, you have a lust, and you need to hire an environmental consultant to do an assessment. A comprehensive site assessment that meets these guidelines and this technical framework.

We operate in a risk-based corrective action framework, which is how I think most of the country is operating under a risk-based approach to assessments and cleanups. So they have to do it and we do review the, the reports that come through and the work plans that come through, and we approve them along the way to make sure that it's meeting our goals, you know, to attain cleanup and compliant with the law.

Yeah, and it's like it's interesting. I, I think having this be such an urban environment, it's got one of the things I think about a lot of times when tanks were built, sometimes they were built before there were, you know, good guidance and regulations, sometimes they're built in an area that suddenly has, you know, utility on top of it. Like I've had that happen on a project site where we get to a tank we're like, oh, we're gonna replace the tank. Actually we can't because there's, you know, absolute, there's like a sewer line right on top of it. Um, do you have those kinds of challenges when you're working in, in

all the time, all the time throughout, you know, utility locating is part and parcel with doing this work. It's done first before you do anything intrusive. Everyone does their best to locate utilities, and we go careful. Those 1st 8 ft or so, you know, there are soft dig approaches to make sure that we're avoiding interrupting. Utilities or, you know, that we can make a a retreat if we have to, if we find something, but yeah, that happens.

Sometimes tanks are abandoned in place, sometimes they're removed, a proper abandonment, that word I think is kind of misleading, like we're not, people aren't just abandoning an underground storage tank full of. Fuel, there's a proper way to do it. So we'll say proper abandonment of tanks, um, when they can't be pulled out because they, they are too close to the edge of a building and could undermine a building or it's just inaccessible otherwise because, yeah, the urban environment in DC poses its own set of challenges for us, you know, in that regard, it's been interesting. Work for me in that it's different from non-urban, which is predominantly what I've, I've done before, yeah, yeah.

So like proper abandonment, it's such, such a, a great term. So you take the fuel out, right? You don't leave the fuel there. So that's what that's, that's number one. So you, you definitely don't. Don't do that, but you also, I think you have to, do you fill the tank with a different kind of material to kind of keep it inert or something like that? What is proper abandon?

100%, yeah, that's right. I think you know something about this, but yeah, they have to had to go wrong once. That's actually how you know. Decommissioned a tank, vents it, you know, it's always vented, um, and cleaned out, and then, of course, backfilled with an inert material that renders it safe for future exposure, you know, to basically render no exposure in the future.

It just sits in the ground like either foam, there's different materials too, and over the years, those abandoned tanks have taken on different. Materials, we've seen abandoned tanks that were improperly abandoned, of course, with fuel still in them or concrete, sand, a mix of stuff, you know, before there were regulations, before there was an EPA people Didn't know, didn't realize, or, you know, before there was a lot of regulation and enforcement and oversight, there can be filled with a lot, but I think we all recognize that foam or something lightweight is a great way to do it, that it, it's expansive and can maintain its structure, especially in those times where you need the structural component to stay there.

Yeah, yeah. That's very interesting. It's like I say, there's so many different things that go into this, like you're also You know, involved in different organizations as, as part of your job as well. So it was the Association of Vapor Intrusion Professionals and the Association of State and Territorial Solid Waste Management Officials. So how do these organizations help shape your career and the job that you're, you do?

Well, I attend annually, typically the Eswamo. I'm sorry, we call AST. I don't even know what do you say, the Association of States and Territories, Solid Waste. Yeah, we don't say that at all. I work in Eswamo. Eswamo, that's, that's cooler sounding. I'll say that.

Osmo is a great resource and it taps into so many different aspects of solid waste management and I think intuitively I never did it before I came into government, into public sector where there was just never that kind of opportunity, mainly time and resources for staff to kind of get that exposure, and that's one of the things I love about working for DC and that, you know, part of our job requires us to get. Training and participate in these types of organizations, and the Eswamu is just for government regulator, the regulated regulating community, I guess, and so it's a great resource to help connect peers.

That are doing what we do, like our many different Environmental Services Administration at DOEE participate in Eswamo from our pesticides group to our has waste and other, I'm sure there are other branches, but the USC branch does it too, and they have a tanks task force. That hones in on tanks related. Concerns, issues, agendas, you know, to help further the, I don't know, to have the further practice how to get better at the regulation of tanks, you know, what are some of the challenges, and it allows the country's regulators to come in together and share resources, ideas, experiences, all that kind of thing, so it's great.

I only just this year went to my first mid-year meeting. Which is usually held outside of DC and the only way I can go to the annual ones is the annual ones are always in DC of course. So if you haven't been, feel free to join one of the, well, I guess you can't if you're in private sector, but if you're in public sector, I think you're, you know, you can get in there, AIP. Which is the Association of Vapor Intrusion Professionals. That's something new as well to me, and that's, well, that's more, a lot more new to me because um it only just came into being a few years ago. I don't know anyone else that's really involved in it yet.

But I'm really looking forward to it because working in DC as you know, is a very urban environment and part of the risk-based corrective action framework that we look at or evaluate our sites with involves vapor intrusion as a pathway to indoor air under buildings, and it's often the driving exposure pathway that we look at. And until that is closed, we can't close a case for the most part.

And so it's kind of a burgeoning fast, quickly developing field with a lot of different players and aspects to it that I'm trying to learn as much as I can to get better about. I think that there's a lot of work to be done in this field, and so that's what I'm trying to focus on.

I'm gonna ask the, the dumb dumb question. That's my job here. And so vapor intrusion, what is it exactly for anyone else who doesn't know exactly, and because I'm curious how there's an entire group of professionals around this very specific topic.

You know, I agree, um, so vapor intrusion is an exposure pathway just because for the nature of USTs by and large are holding petroleum products. Fuel, diesel, heating oils, jet fuels, all those kinds of uh hydrocarbon products, which, if they leak, they will typically leak out of a tank going downwards through the subsurface soils, through whatever bedrock, whatever subsurface looks like underneath there until, you know, it reaches some kind of a groundwater table and it can, it turns into a plume, you know, but one component of the dissolve phase, the absorb phase, you know, there's different phases of hydrocarbons or any contaminant, you know, once it's leaked out of its source vessel will adhere to soil.

It'll basically sink downwards in the subsurface and off gas, if you will, vapor. Um, and that vapor travels through the subsurface and can get into cracks. No foundation is perfect, um, and there is a lot of work around this, you know, getting into the subsurface of buildings and folks are breathing in minuscule amounts of contaminants on a daily.

We have these in our indoor air anyway because of just the things that we have in our homes. Um, as well, but we focus on the hydrocarbon or the contaminant mass coming up through vapor from USTs, and it's not always fuel. It can be, I have sites with, uh, more hazardous substances as well that are even worse off than breathing in the typical usual suspects of benzene or naphthalle, so chlorinated solvents that come from. Operations using those dry cleaners and other people that use that, um, so that's the pathway that we are looking to protect a lot of the city from.

Yeah, which is, yeah, absolutely necessary.

Yes, thank you. That's, that was helpful and uh, yeah, so our containments, I mean, you, I think you picture them just going down. Yeah, it is helpful, I think, to realize that they also go up.

So that brings us to a section on our show called field notes, where we like to talk to our guests about their memorable moments doing the work in the field, whether they're scary, funny, awkward, or just memorable in some kind of way. And if you're listening and you have a story of your own, we would love to hear it. You can share it with us at environmentalprofessionalsradio.com. There's a form there or email us at infoenvironmentalprofessionalsradio.com. And Natalie, I think you've probably spent, it sounds like you don't go in the field every day now, but I'm sure you've done plenty. So any ideas of something you'd like to share?

Yeah, it's a funny question because no doubt I've blacked out a lot of my experience. Yeah, as we all have. You know, I have no doubt, but it like, I'm like, OK, think back. But yes, there have been plenty of times, especially in the field where a, maybe we hit something like, oh my gosh, what was that, you know, quickly pull up the augers, because we're, as a field geologist in this field, we're typically behind a drill rig or a direct push DPT like a geop probe, um.

Hydraulically pushing through the subsurface to pull up cores, and those cores are what we use to analyze the subsurface and evaluate the subsurface. So we got to do a lot of like hard drilling and stuff, but those moments are can be scary when you, we hit something we don't know. Was it a tank? Was it a line, you know, those kinds of things are always inherently scary, you know, and it's a risk that we try to mitigate as much as we can by good planning, but there's always the times when we just didn't plan for that or whatever, and I think that someone didn't write it down what was there, you know, that happens too, you know, you're like, oh. Why isn't this on the map?

Exactly. Or when I'm the one that's supposed to be drawing the map from the get-go, I could have missed it, you know, I, I think back to like one of my scarier moments where I was really sweating it out, like all of us, at the crew, me, the tech, everybody when we were, I was young and working on a site in Florida near a a river. Marina, we were gonna be putting in some wells to do some tidal study work to see how groundwater came up and down to kind of understand hydraulically how this little, this site was influenced tidally, which means I had approval to put some wells in really close to the edge of this seawall, which is a seawall, basically was just poured concrete down the edge of the, the riverbank, essentially, and then there's like a big boat storage shop behind me.

Nobody was really minding what we were doing. We were just trying to get our, our wells in the ground, and we were having such a time. And I thought all this concrete, all this construction debris, you know, cause a lot of times when you're in an urban place drilling, there's a lot of stone and debris and rock or whatever was there, especially in rivers with the dredge materials, but we were struggling and sweating it out. It was so hot and we have only 10 days to get this work. Done and so many hours in the day to get this work done when we finally just like gave up and we're like we're gonna move over.

We moved over probably and try a new spot and we'll try a new spot. When we finally like gave up to try another spot, um augers were just entwined with these. Heavy gauge cables. Like it was just like a rat's nest of cables, and none of us had drilled in this kind of environment. Nobody warned us of this. Neither the regu regulator recognized it as a risk or my bosses, you know, I think we were just going through sites so much so fast.

That we realized, oh my God, these are the tie backs that hold back a seawall. Um, so when you're at a seawall that's constructed like this, you might see big, I don't know, like, I don't know, depends on what it looks like rivets or some kind of metal thing that's the end of a cable tie back to kind of add pressure, keep pressure on this wall. Yeah, I didn't know what to think. I'm like, oh my God, let's go, you know. Let's go. Let's like abandon the spot, and I don't wanna do this anymore. Oh my God, I don't wanna be on the news. We're gonna sink everybody here, um, and that was really scary. That was really scary because I didn't know what was gonna happen, um, but you made it, you survived, you know, you're still here to tell the story.

Now that enough years have passed by, I'll tell that story, but yeah, yeah, um, that's the thing, sometimes, some time has to go by before you're like, OK, I'll tell somebody about it. That was funny. It wasn't at the time, it is now, yeah.

Yeah, very scary, um, yeah, there's been plenty of times.

Yeah, that's a great story. I mean, that's why we like to share them because every, I think every Environmental professional has that one time where they're like their their oh crap moment.

Yeah, I have more, I'm sure, but uh I just it's funny whenever we hear one of those. I just keep thinking we like I said, we all have them and I think I've shared my like lightning storm story and sometimes I was just like in the middle of a swamp and there's a lightning storm and I have a metal rod in my hands and I'm like I have, I have to get out of here. Like, do I abandon this thing? I don't think I've ever been more terrified. To be out in the field and like lightning is hitting in the forest where I am. Like I, I know it's close. It's like super close. Those are the kind of things that like you don't forget, you don't wanna remember, but yeah, and then real quick, there is a note here about when you first started working in winter in Maryland compared to Florida. I'm just really curious about that.

Wow, huge culture shock. I had no idea what I'm getting myself into. My husband took this job in DC and he wasn't my husband yet, but I'm like, you know what, I'm sick and tired of this heat. We should, you know, I find work that way. It's not a big deal, and man, I got this, you know, I took this position in Maryland and we moved right after Thanksgiving.

I remember that first week at in Maryland, it was so cold, but It wasn't so bad. One of the my direct reports was like, don't worry, Natalie, it's not gonna, it doesn't never snows here in Baltimore area. It's never hardly ever. And 3 weeks later we had like the biggest dump of snow. Yeah, exactly, and I'm like, I don't even know how to drive. I drive a Honda Civic. I don't know how to do this. How do you drive in snow? And we have to go in the field and people are still planning, and I thought we would just wipe off the field schedule like, oh, it snowed. Oh my God, you know what happens now?

And no, I was the only Florida girl there. Everybody else was New Jersey, New York, you know, from the area. They're all hardcore winter people, and I was just dying, and I couldn't believe I had to send people out to sample wells in the winter. What? And do fieldwork in the winter. I was not prepared. I didn't have a coat. I thought I had a coat. I didn't have a coat, so that was one of my first real purchases when I moved out.

Oh, and that coat, I still have it. It is like super bright, high high vis orange, yeah, and it's super heavy, and I remember getting it, and the, the woman was like, Well, this is kind of for snowboarders, you know, people who are really out. I'm like, yeah, that's, that's the one I need, and. I want it to be like really bright because if I get, you know, die out in the snow, I really need somebody to find me, right, right, right. I'm really nervous about all that.

That's so funny. Culture shock in a big way, yeah, but I, I think my blood got thick. I can do it now.

There you go. That's, that's all it is. It's, it's so fun. Like I had the first time I went to Maine in the winter, ho ho, same problem. I'm just like. How come no one told me I needed a hood? Like I'm like, like my head was frozen. I couldn't see, you know, it was so cold. It was, it was crazy. So I, I, I definitely feel you.

I think one of the things we also love doing on the show is giving people touch points to connect with you, and we love talking about hobbies and what people like to do for fun. And one of your interests is fostering rescue dogs. So you have a chihuahua named Miss Pearl. So how did you get into fostering? Tell us about her and that whole journey.

Oh, Miss Pearl. So Miss Pearl is probably like the 3rd dog I decided to foster. There's a group called Canine Rescue here in Maryland, and we are dog people. I should preface by saying that my husband's actually a veterinarian for the FDA. Oh wow. The FDA has a whole center for veterinary medicine, by the way, they do the show, 0 idea. Now you know, um, so we're dog people.

He and I both came into our marriage with dogs, and, you know, over the years they passed away at very ripe old ages, you know, we were very fortunate to have them as long as we did, and but the last one kind of really did me in, and I didn't think I could. Take on another one. So, oh, there's Miss, my daughter is gonna bring me Miss Pearl now if you wanna see, but I do.

Oh, sweetie, what a sweetie.

So that was my how I got into it because I miss Pearl. And she's really quiet, but um, is it, is it chunk? Yeah, yeah, our first chihuahua, we're still learning how to feed a chihuahua. We never had a chihuahua in our lives, but yeah, she was our 3rd foster, and my husband was like, why did you choose that chihuahua? I was like, it was those crazy bug eyes. I saw it. It's like they needed a foster, and he's like, that's the bitiest, craziest kind of dog you can probably. I love chihuahuas. She's not at all.

Yeah, so sweet. She didn't even say anything.

Well, like we didn't know she could talk for like 3 days. Oh, super sweet and super quiet and very small. I'm like, yeah, this is perfect.

Yeah, my brother has a goldendoodle. It is the opposite of that, just humongous. We'll pull you.

Yes, yes, she can pull too, believe it or not, but yeah, that's great. Yeah, so rescue, you know, fostering the occasional pup is something we do when we can, and it's a really rewarding experience.

Yeah, that's, that's really wonderful. I'm really thankful that you do that because all, all dogs need good homes, and, uh, yeah, so I mean, I hate to say this, but we are running out of time. These interviews always go by so quickly, but before we let you go, is there anything Else you'd like to talk about?

I'm really glad that I was given this opportunity to share Tank's talk with you. There's so much involved in this whole field. I think that, you know, there's a lot of ground we could cover and a lot of folks that could probably offer a lot of insight into this field and And where it might lead to, but I think EPR radio, I'm so glad Chantelle like turned me on to it because I had no idea he was not the most podcasting person, but now I am. I'm podcasting this and I'm podcast, you know, I'm listening to a few other podcasts as well, but, you know, I really appreciate this opportunity to share and learn more about what you're doing, and I support this a lot. It's great.

Especially Quick, quick plug, Shannon Olchers, who's been on 4 times. She was just on a few weeks ago. She does tanks in Alaska and she has started her own podcast for just for tanks. So we'll need to make sure the two of you get connected.

Yeah, I love that.

Yeah, it's a huge, huge following. Yeah, there's a whole national tanks conference, all the things, yeah.

Oh, that's very, very cool.

And then, OK, last but not least. Where can people get in touch with you if they would like to reach out?

Sure, they can always reach me via email. It's uh Natalie.Hendricks@DC.gov. That's N A T A L I E. H E N D R I C K S at DC.gov.

Perfect. Natalie, thank you so much.

Thank you so much. My pleasure.

That's our show. Thank you, Natalie, for joining us today. Please be sure to check us out each and every Friday. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. Bye. See you, everybody