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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 #15
November 30, 2005
2:00 – 4:00 p.m. EDT
- Action Items
- Welcome and Introductions
- Draft Meeting Summary
- Desired Detection and Quantitation Procedures
- Blank Subtraction Issue Paper
- Product Presentation Approach
- Public Comment
- Wrap-up and Closing
- Attendance
- Back to Technical Workgroup home page
The next Technical Work Group call is scheduled for Wednesday, December 14, from 1:00 - 3:00 PM EST.
Action Items
David Kimbrough will revise the Blank Subtraction Issue paper and the policy paper of prescriptive versus descriptive procedures, and will forward both to Triangle Associates.
Triangle will:
- Revise the summary of Technical Work Group questions document based on today's discussion.
- Format and send three additional Technical Work Group products to the federal advisory committee: blank subtraction issue paper, prescriptive versus descriptive procedures informational paper, and summary of Technical Work Group questions being posed to the federal advisory committee.
- Add questions from the Single-lab and Multi-lab Subgroups on PowerPoint slides for presentation at the federal advisory committee meeting.
Welcome and Introductions
Robert Wheeler, facilitator, welcomed participants to the call at 2:00 PM EST and thanked the group for their flexibility in changing the meeting time. He conducted a roll call of Technical Work Group members and observers, and briefly reviewed the agenda for the meeting. Mr. Wheeler confirmed that members had received the materials for the call. He explained that the purpose of the call was to discuss two issue papers with the expectation that they would be sent to the federal advisory committee. He said the group would also discuss its approach for presenting products at the federal advisory committee meeting next week.
Draft Meeting Summary
Mr. Wheeler asked for comments to the draft 16 November 2005 meeting summary. Cliff Kirchmer commented that he still did not fully understand why there was a debate with the "blank versus zero" issue. Mr. Wheeler responded that the issue developed from two new statistical LC definitions introduced at the last federal advisory committee meeting. Richard Reding added that EPA has had several internal discussions on the subject and is willing to drop the LC definition proposed by Brad Venner at the last federal advisory committee meeting (September 29-30 FACDQ meeting summary) (PDF48 pages, 171 Kb). There were no other comments and the summary was adopted as revised. Mr. Wheeler then asked for comments to the draft 21 November 2005 Technical Work Group meeting summary. There were no comments and the summary was adopted as drafted.
Desired Detection and Quantitation Procedures
Mr. Wheeler reminded participants that a subgroup was asked to further develop the questions originally posed by the Single-lab Subgroup regarding prescriptive versus descriptive procedures. He said the subgroup met via conference call on Monday, November 28 to discuss the issue. He reported the following recommendations from the subgroup to the Technical Work Group as a result of that conference call:
- A supplement to the Single-lab Subgroup Progress Report should be prepared and distributed to the federal advisory committee as informational material for its discussion.
- The LD utility issue should be dropped from the discussion at this time and that LD deletion is more appropriately addressed and included as part of the policy discussion on the decision trees.
Richard Burrows reported that his constituents felt quite strongly about this issue and that he would likely have a letter from the Executive Council of the ACIL to share at the federal advisory committee meeting.
David Kimbrough then briefly reviewed the document titled "Fundamental Questions Related to the Level to Which Detection and/or Quantitation Should be Determined," explaining that this draft was a result of the subgroup discussion. The Technical Work Group discussed the need for this document to go to the federal advisory committee. Members suggested several revisions that would further clarify and frame the issue for the policy discussion of uses. Members also agreed that the issue should probably go to the Policy Work Group for further discussion after the federal advisory committee meeting. The Technical Work Group agreed to send the document to the federal advisory committee with a few revisions.
Blank Subtraction Issue Paper
Mr. Wheeler introduced the issue of blank subtraction for discussion. Mr. Reding asked whether the Technical Work Group had a recommendation for the federal advisory committee on the issue. After a lengthy discussion, members agreed that while they did not have a specific recommendation for the committee, it is an issue that needs resolution before moving forward with the pilot test study design. Members suggested framing the question slightly different to ask whether the federal advisory committee was willing to explore any procedure requiring EPA to change analytical methods to allow for blank correction. The group agreed to reframe the question and with other minor revisions approved the document for distribution to the federal advisory committee.
Product Presentation Approach
Mr. Wheeler asked the group to review the summary of questions being asked of the federal advisory committee throughout all of the Technical Work Group products. He asked for comments on the summary of questions - whether it was helpful, whether there was anything missing. The group agreed to delete reference to #5 "Potential Technical Work Group Assignments" and replace it with the revised questions from the Blank Subtraction Issue paper. Members also agreed to send this document to federal advisory committee members.
The following were identified to present the various Technical Work Group products:
- Matrix Characteristics - Jim Pletl
- Glossary of Terms - Robert Wheeler
- Pilot Testing
- Purpose and Objectives - Robert Wheeler
- Multi-lab Progress Report - Larry LaFleur
- Single-lab Progress Report - Richard Burrows
- Blank Subtraction - David Kimbrough
Public Comment
There were no public comments offered.
Wrap-up and Closing
The dates and times (all are EST) of future Technical Work Group meetings are as follows:
- Wednesday, December 14 from 1:00 - 3:00 p.m.
- Wednesday, January 4, 2006 from 1:00 - 3:00 p.m.
- Wednesday, January 18, 2006 from 1:00 - 3:00 p.m.
Mr. Wheeler briefly noted the action items from the call and said the agenda for the next call was to review the assignments from the federal advisory committee meeting next week. He asked members to think about the assignments that should come from the federal advisory committee in preparation for its March meeting. He thanked Technical Work Group members for their hard work over these last couple of months and closed the meeting at 4:00 p.m. EST.
Attendance
Technical Work Group Members
- States: Cliff Kirchmer and Bob Avery
- Environmental Laboratories: Richard Burrows and Steve Bonde
- Environmental Community: Richard Rediske
- POTWs: Ken Osborn, David Kimbrough, and Jim Pletl
- Industry: Larry LaFleur and John Phillips
- US EPA: Richard Reding (Office of Water) and Brad Venner (Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance)
- Other Federal:
Triangle Associates: Derek Van Marter and Robert Wheeler
Observers
- Ken Miller (Consultant to EPA Office of Water)
- Steve Wendelken (US EPA Office of Groundwater and Drinking Water)