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Procedures for Detection and Quantitation

Technical Workgroup

Federal Advisory Committee on Detection and Quantitation Approaches and Uses in Clean Water Act (CWA) Programs

Summary of Technical Work Group Conference Call #10
October 5, 2005
1:00 – 3:00 p.m. EDT

The next Technical Work Group call is scheduled for Wednesday, October 19, from 1:00 - 3:00 PM EDT.

Action Items

Richard Reding will will contact the Office of Solid Waste to confirm there is not a written procedure for quantitation.

Jim Pletl will review comments and questions from FACDQ members related to the Technical Work Group document on "Interpretations of Detection and Quantitation Procedures Evaluation Characteristics." He will provide more descriptive text based on those comments as well as clarifications requested by Technical Work Group members. The group will discuss these comments and questions at a future meeting.

Richard Burrows will lead a new subgroup (TWG - Single Lab Sub) of members charged with developing purposes and objectives for a design study to pilot test detection and quantitation procedures in a single lab. They will begin by assessing existing data that might be used in evaluating single lab procedures, and work on developing concepts and ideas for a study design to pilot test those procedures. Other subgroup members include:

Larry LaFleur will lead another new subgroup (TWG - Multi Lab Sub) of members charged with developing purposes and objectives for a design study to pilot test detection and quantitation procedures in multiple labs. They will begin by assessing existing data that might be used in evaluating multiple lab procedures, and work on developing concepts and ideas for a study design to pilot test those procedures. Other subgroup members include:

Cliff Kirchmer will provide clarification to the written procedures for the Water Research Centre detection limit and the ISO/IUPAC quantitation limit.

Ken Osborn will provide clarification to the written procedure for the Osborn Lab QC detection limit.

Steve Wendelken of EPA and an observer to the Technical Work Group will provide clarification to the written procedure for the Hubaux-Vos detection limit.

Triangle will:

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Welcome and Introductions

Robert Wheeler, facilitator, welcomed participants to the call at 1:00 PM EDT. He conducted a roll call of Technical Work Group members and observers, and briefly reviewed the agenda for the meeting. Mr. Wheeler emphasized the purpose of the meeting was to review the assignments from the federal advisory committee as discussed at its last meeting.

Mr. Wheeler explained how pleased federal advisory committee members were with the time and detail that went into Technical Work Group products. He also explained that federal advisory committee members further narrowed the definitions and reminded Technical Work Group members that they received the revised definitions document via email. He reported that committee members also discussed the matrix, although they did not discuss the interior cells of the matrix. However, federal advisory committee members did express the need to eventually normalize the responses.

Mr. Wheeler said assignments to the Technical Work Group were influenced by the timeframe with which Technical Work Group members have to complete them prior to the next federal advisory committee meeting on December 8-9, 2005. He suggested products from the Technical Work Group would need to be complete and ready for distribution to the federal advisory committee by Monday, November 21, 2005.

The federal advisory committee asked the Technical Work Group to:

Members of the Technical Work Group, who are also members of the federal advisory committee, added that committee members acknowledged the responses in the matrix had not been normalized and acknowledged that may not feasible until the pilot study is complete. Also, many members commented that the interests at the table have a lot in common in terms of addressing data quality objectives and policy issues early in the process to ensure the statistics are achieving what they are supposed to.

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Discussion of the Pilot Study

Mr. Wheeler asked Technical Work Group members who heard or participated in the federal advisory committee discussion on this topic what suggestions they had for moving forward.

Federal advisory committee members who are part of the Technical Work Group started by articulating their suggestions for moving forward with the design and conduct of a pilot test. Suggestions focused mostly on approaches for a single laboratory pilot approach. David Kimbrough of public utilities cautioned that his caucus suggested at the federal advisory committee meeting, and still believe, that the cart is before the horse in terms of making decisions on pilot testing before critical policy decisions have been discussed and absolved at the committee level.

Technical Work Group members then discussed the purposes and objectives that a pilot test should accomplish. All agreed that a dual multi- and single-lab approach would be necessary in order to test the suite of procedures currently being evaluated. Everyone also agreed that Technical Work Group members should investigate the feasibility of using existing data for the pilot test.

The following purposes and objectives were identified as a starter list for two subgroups (TWG - Multi Lab Sub and TWG - Single Lab Sub) to work through in designing a pilot study:

  1. Is the procedure clearly written?
  2. Can the data be easily processed in the laboratory?
  3. Was the procedure correctly implemented?
  4. Does the experimental design unduly influence the outcome of the study?
  5. Does the procedure achieve its intended purpose (i.e., does it implement the definitions adopted by the FACDQ)?

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Discussion of the Matrix and Characteristics

Mr. Wheeler started the discussion by clarifying that the assignment to the Technical Work Group does not include normalizing the responses in the matrix. Rather, Technical Work Group members were asked to further refine the parameters of the matrix (listed procedures and characteristics) based on the discussion at the federal advisory committee meeting. He finished by saying that Triangle was working on summarizing the federal advisory committee meeting which would help the Technical Work Group in reviewing what the committee discussed. Once the draft meeting summary is complete, Mr. Wheeler said they would be distributed to Technical Work Group members via email.

Jim Pletl said that the immediate focus of the Technical Work Group should be to ensure that there is equal understanding of each of the characteristics among the group. He suggested that the group spend time in the next call or two going over each of the characteristics and make any necessary changes or clarifications. Larry LaFleur suggested there may be different ways to measure the characteristics that further exposes the differences among the procedures. Mr. Pletl offered to lead the effort to refine the characteristics and suggested that individuals send via email to all Technical Work Group members questions of clarification they have on any of the characteristics. With that input and comments from committee members, he will draft revisions to the descriptions of the characteristics.

Mr. Wheeler asked members to also focus on the list of procedures. He said that federal advisory committee members clearly articulated the need for a clear, written procedure. He asked Technical Work Group members if there were any procedures currently in the matrix that did not have a clearly written protocol. The following people were identified to provide additional clarification to the written protocols for each of the following procedures:

Mr. Wheeler suggested the two subgroups look at the five procedures identified above and make a recommendation back to the full group on how to move forward. Keeping in mind that the federal advisory committee will ultimately want to narrow the list of procedures being pilot tested, the subgroups recommendations could help move this discussion forward.

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Public Comment

There were no public comments.

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Wrap-up and Closing

Mr. Wheeler reminded participants that the dates and times (all are EDT) of future Technical Work Group meetings are as follows:

Mr. Wheeler briefly noted the action items from the call, and said the agenda for the next call will focus on pilot testing, characteristics and modifications to the procedures identified above. He thanked Technical Work Group members for their time and closed the meeting at 3:00 p.m. EDT.

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Attendance

Technical Work Group Members

Triangle Associates: Derek Van Marter and Robert Wheeler

Observers

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