Acting like a big syringe, a porewater sampler or piezometer is used to pull water samples from aquatic or semi-aquatic environments. While fairly simple, commercial versions are expensive, limiting the number that can be deployed at a study site, as once a sampler has been installed, it’s ideally left alone during the sampling period (to avoid contamination from surface conditions).

Making them in-house meant we could lower costs while also customizing them to better fit our particular needs. Although the machining would prove fairly simple, this project ended up being more a less in production, as we needed over 50 samplers total.

What we settled on was lengths of 316 stainless steel pipe, which we threaded on one end to receive a sintered bronze filter, capable of removing particles down to about 40µm. The other end was attached to some tough PVC tubing, a Luer-Lok hose-barb, and a one-way valve. Using a syringe, water could easily be sampled from below-ground without worry of surface contamination.

While thick and UV-resistant, the tubing was, however, no match for a browsing moose.