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R9 Laboratory SOP 840
NOTEBOOK DOCUMENTATION AND CONTROL
Summary
This SOP is applicable to all procedures conducted at the USEPA Region 9 laboratory and by FASP at all sites. The requirements apply to analytical documentation such as instrument runlogs, digestion logbooks or percent solids determination as well as instrument maintenance logbooks, miscellaneous documentation such as temperature monitoring of refrigerators and ovens, or personal notebooks maintained by individual analysts for method development, training or troubleshooting purposes.
Laboratory notebooks are employed extensively by the Environmental Services Assistance Team (ESAT) in the Region 9 laboratory and by the Field Analytical Support Program (FASP). All notebooks are considered to be the primary analytical documentation and as such must stand up to technical and legal scrutiny. In order to meet these goals, laboratory notebooks are designated as controlled documents, all documentation is submitted to second party review (sometimes referred to as peer review), and adherence to strict procedures for documenting all work is mandatory. Laboratory notebook audits are conducted monthly by the ESAT QA/QC Coordinator and cover a minimum of 10 percent of all notebook entries. All ESAT Region 9 and FASP employees are provided with a copy of this SOP and are required to comply with all the procedures presented.