Lab Accreditation:

ELAP Publishes Proposed Regulations

On October 11th, 2019, the California Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Program (ELAP) published notice of its proposed regulations concerning the accreditation of environmental laboratories. The proposed regulations make changes to California’s state laboratory accreditation program and affect the requirements that the environmental testing laboratories must meet to analyze environmental samples for regulatory purposes in California. ELAP has called for the incorporation of the 2016 TNI Standard with two California-specific exceptions.

The Initial Statement of Reasons for ELAP’s proposed regulations cited findings from the external review conducted by the Expert Review Panel (ERP), as well as internal reviews of the program by executive management at the State Water Board. The 2015 findings included inadequate accreditation standards, organizational issues, late and ineffective assessments, a lack of financial resources, and lack of enforcement constituted the major program deficiencies. Although great strides have been made in most areas since the reorganization of ELAP, the overarching problem plaguing ELAP continues to be the “woefully outdated and inadequate requirements in the current regulations.” For this reason, ELAP has proposed regulations that will best address existing obscurities, the inconsistency of lab assessments, and the general lack of trust in analytical data generated by ELAP accredited labs as a result of the program’s past deficiencies.

ELAP engaged in a multi-year, stakeholder-involved process to evaluate the accreditation standard options and select the best accreditation standard for the program. The State Water Board considered two alternative accreditation standards to incorporate into the proposed regulations... read more.

PFAS in CA: Phase I Results

This month the State Water Resources Control Board posted the first results of testing for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) for nearly 600 drinking water supply wells. This testing was performed as part of a comprehensive effort to assess the presence of harmful per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)—coined “forever chemicals—in water systems and groundwater statewide.

In this initial phase of the State’s Phased Investigation Approach, public water systems were ordered to sample drinking water supply wells near landfills or airports, locations where these chemicals are believed to be especially prevalent. They were also ordered to test wells near sites where the contaminants had been found previously during the third round of the EPA’s Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR 3).

An analysis by the Los Angeles Times on the recently released results found that PFOA and PFOS were detected... read more. 

Water News: PPIC Policy Update

Below is a water policy update from the Public Policy Institute of California:

It’s been an eventful year for California water policy. A milestone law to address the state’s drinking water challenges, which was signed by Governor Newsom earlier this year, established a $1.3 billion Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund. In line with its broader policy focus on climate resilience, the administration is also creating a Water Resilience Portfolio Initiative, a collaborative effort by various state agencies to ensure water resilience in the face of a changing climate. A number of bills recently signed into law build on the progress made in this area. Here are some highlights:

•    Safe drinking water: Continuing the forward momentum of the drinking water fund, two new laws tackle water quality and supply, especially in rural, disadvantaged communities. Assembly Bill (AB) 508 authorizes the State Water Board to order water system consolidations in communities with domestic wells that consistently fail to provide safe drinking water. The bill also requires the board to ensure the consolidation is financially and technically possible, and to compensate for financial losses experienced by the water system that takes over the small system. And Senate Bill (SB) 513 authorizes the State Water Board to provide immediate relief for households whose wells have gone dry due to droughts or other disasters.

Groundwater recharge: A new law will also make it easier for water users to bring their groundwater basins into balance—another key to long-term water resilience. AB 658 seeks to enable... read more.

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