SYMPOSIA PAPER Published: 01 January 1988
STP26434S

RCRA Laboratory Certification

Source

The Office of Quality Assurance (OQA) within the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection develops laboratory standards for the Department's Safe Drinking Water and NPDES (NJPDES) programs, and administers a laboratory certification program. The existing certification program was first promulgated for drinking water in 1977. Certification for water and wastewater was offered beginning in 1981. The USEPA Region II RCRA staff incorporated a work output in the FY 1986 USEPA/NJDEP RCRA Interagency Agreement which requires the Department to begin evaluating compliance and performance of analytical laboratories which report measurement data to the Agency and the Department with respect to the RCRA program. OQA made a decision to develop a laboratory certification program for waste analyses (RCRA) and to incorporate such a program into its current regulations.

The RCRA laboratory certification program, as it is currently proposed, would provide laboratories with certification in four major categories: waste characterization, inorganics, organics, and miscellaneous analyses. Laboratories will be certified by individual parameter or analysis under the categories of waste characterization, inorganics (AAS), and miscellaneous analyses. For organics analyses, laboratories will be certified for entire analytical methods rather than by individual analytes (for example, a laboratory will be certified for all parameters covered under SW-846 Method 8240 rather than by each individual analyte listed in the method). Laboratories will be requested at the time they apply for certification to designate which matrices (aqueous and/or nonaqueous) will be analyzed under their RCRA certification. The program will require, along with NJDEP's RCRA regulations, that all laboratories which submit RCRA compliance data to the Department must be certified for the applicable parameters or methods.

The new regulations will cover administrative procedures for the program, such as annual fees for certification, laboratory personnel qualifications, proficiency evaluation, on-site inspections, and enforcement. Many new administrative proposals are incorporated into the proposed regulations, including a more efficient enforcement procedure which will apply to drinking water, water/wastewater, and waste analysis certifications.

Development of the waste analysis certification program has also raised many other issues which are under review at OQA, such as development of performance evaluation samples, analytical method development and validation, method equivalency procedures, and, in the long term, establishment of laboratory performance standards and uniform quality control procedures.

Author Information

Hirst, RR
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, Office of Quality Assurance, Trenton, NJ
Stainken, DM
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, Office of Quality Assurance, Trenton, NJ
Fischer, RL
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, Office of Quality Assurance, Trenton, NJ
Stauber, KL
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, Office of Quality Assurance, Trenton, NJ
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Details
Developed by Committee: D34
Pages: 81–86
DOI: 10.1520/STP26434S
ISBN-EB: 978-0-8031-5068-3
ISBN-13: 978-0-8031-1175-2