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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 #41
October 25, 2006
1:00 – 3:00 p.m. EST

The call-in number for all calls is 866 299-3188 and the participant code is 202 566 1045#. The schedule of future Technical Work Group conference calls is:

Action Items

Ken Miller will:

Triangle will:

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Welcome and Introductions

Bob Wheeler, facilitator, welcomed participants to the call at 1:00 p.m., conducted a roll call of Technical Work Group (TWG) members and observers, and briefly reviewed the agenda for the meeting. He said the group would focus on reaching agreement on the Normalized Matrix and its interpretation document and the Procedures 101 PowerPoint presentation. Mr. Wheeler added to the agenda an item on MMA data.

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Meeting Summary Approval

Mr. Wheeler asked for comments to the draft October 11 meeting summary. There were no comments and the group approved the summary as drafted.

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Status of Pilot Study and Data Calculations

Ken Miller reported that the labs are finishing the third week of analyses. He noted that data packages are being received. He stated that the next task is for the labs to analyze the Aroclors.

Ken Miller presented a question to the group about spiking at the estimated ML value. Members of the group suggested it be 2 times above and one-half of that ML value. Ken Miller will confer with both John Phillips (Consensus Group procedure) and Richard Burrows (ACIL procedure) about this issue.

Mr. Miller confirmed that the long-term schedule for the Pilot Study remains two weeks behind schedule but that the overall schedule should be on track. Richard Reding reported that the process to extend the committee's charter remains underway. He said EPA will not send a letter to committee members until a final determination of the extension is made.

Regarding the additional calculations and analyses, John Phillips reported that he had previously talked with Ken Miller and will talk with Mr. Reding following the meeting in order to craft a recommendation. He noted that his thoughts were to add some distribution analyses if manageable and within the scope of the project.

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TWG and Pilot Design Team Schedule

Bob Wheeler outlined the December evening session and topics for the group, noting that the session will run from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM and will be in the same location as the regular sessions during the day. It is anticipated that the sessions will be as follows:

Mr. Wheeler then reviewed the outline of TWG assignments with the group, noting the current status of each:

  1. Monitor Pilot - underway with regular updates
  2. Further refine/develop calculations, analysis document - will be a report out at the December FACDQ meeting
  3. Normalize matrix - underway; to be considered at today's meeting
  4. Develop procedures - new, modified, and existing - pending the outcome of the Pilot Study
  5. Modify "Features of a Pilot" document to more comprehensively include what will not be accomplished in the Pilot - completed; for May 2007 FACDQ meeting
  6. Consider intermittent method blank contamination and make any recommendations - verbal report at the December evening session
  7. Consider ongoing verification and make any recommendations (interpreted to be ongoing confirmation/verification that a lab would do to assure quality control) - underway by Policy Work Group, may be an assignment to TWG
  8. Rationale for current definitions - update from Richard Reding today; anticipated discussion at the December committee meeting
  9. Consider matrix effects - focus will be in December evening presentation
  10. Develop guidance for not meeting qualitative criteria - this is indefinitely on hold
  11. MMA Evaluation - the group discussed at today's meeting
  12. Any assignments from the PWG especially related to Uses or MQO's Procedures 101 - to be discussed at today's meeting

A question arose about assignment #6 and whether or not it should be a part of the regular FACDQ meeting since it has policy components. The group agreed to review the latest documentation on intermittent method blank contamination in order to decide its fit in the December FACDQ agenda.

Returning to the TWG schedule, Mr. Wheeler noted that the tentative dates of January 11-12, 2007 were initially proposed for a Pilot Design Team face-to-face meeting, possibly in Seattle. The purpose of the meeting would be to develop Pilot Study recommendations to bring forward to the Technical Work Group. The protocol would be the same as that previously used for the Pilot Study design phase. Mr. Wheeler reminded everyone that the prior face-to-face meeting in Denver was successful and instrumental in getting the design to an 80%-completion level going into Technical Work Group review.

Mr. Wheeler noted that the purpose of the January meeting is to take all the data from the Pilot Study and put it into an organized format for TWG review. The current question is whether or not January 11-12 is too early in the process; and, if so, if January 18-19 or January 25-26 would be better options.

Some Design Team members indicated that for a face-to-face meeting to be effective it would be important to receive pilot study results and analyses with enough of an advance to thoroughly review the results. Richard Reding noted that the Pilot Study contract deliverable has an early January deadline. He will have an update on contract status approximately the last week of November. He and several group members noted that they would need at least two weeks to review the information prior to meeting face-to-face. The group recommended that a pre-review conference call be scheduled and that an agenda for the face-to-face meeting be developed at that time.

Pilot Design Team members Bob Avery, Larry LaFleur, Rick Rediske and Zonetta English all noted that they could be flexible in holding the suggested later January dates for a face-to-face meeting. They, along with Mr. Reding, Larry LaFleur and Ken Miller, also confirmed availability for a Friday, November 3 conference call (1:00 ET). Mr. Wheeler noted that he would check with Richard Burrows separately regarding his availability for the call and other updates.

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Agreement on Normalized Matrix and Narrative

Mr. Wheeler referred everyone to the Comparison Matrix of Detection and Quantitation Procedures document in order to go through a section by section review and comment. Ken Miller referred the group to the changes, indicated in red font, that were made based on input from the prior meeting. Minor formatting and wording revisions were agreed upon and relayed to Ken Miller, who will revise the chart and narrative documents accordingly. At the end of the review, Mr. Wheeler polled each caucus, and all were in agreement on the final version crafted through the discussion. Mr. Wheeler congratulated the group for finalizing the Normalized Matrix to go forward to the FACDQ at its December meeting.

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Review Procedures 101 PowerPoint Presentation

Mr. Wheeler noted that the Procedures 101 document will be revised based on the group's discussion. Because there was not enough time to go through the entire document, the review will happen at the next meeting. Ken Miller agreed to check with John Phillips and Richard Burrows regarding any revisions needed to the slides related to the Consensus Group and ACIL.

The current presentation document contains 65 slides. Given time constraints, the group agreed that the current presentation format needed reconsideration, possibly limiting the presentation of each procedure to 5 minutes or less. Triangle will contact the presenters in regard to presentation timing issues and format. Mr. Wheeler noted that if necessary, adjustments can be made, as needed, in the overall agenda in order to allow for the time needed for presentations. Mr. Wheeler suggested the group review the presentation at the next TWG meeting.

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Intermittent Method Blank Contamination

John Phillips reported that the subgroup had another meeting, but there was not yet a revised document addressing intermittent method blank contamination. He noted that the document will be improved by eliminating unnecessary processes for addressing contamination issues and include a more streamlined procedure. Ken Miller said that the pilot might provide some insight as to how best to address intermittent blank contamination.

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Matrix Effects Subgroup

Jim Pletl requested that one of his lab representatives (from Hampton Roads Sanitation District) be added to the matrix effects subgroup. Members of the subgroup asked Triangle to arrange a conference call of the subgroup to address their task for a report out at the next TWG meeting. Mr. Wheeler said that it has been hard to coordinate schedules for a meeting to date, so Triangle may look for an alternative approach to addressing this issue.

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Definitions Rationale

Richard Reding reported that he did not yet have anything to report on the issue of following international definitions. The group agreed to address this in a future meeting.

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Public Comment

There were no public comments.

Wrap-up and Closing

Mr. Wheeler summarized the items coming forward for the November 8 meeting:

  1. Updates: Pilot Study; MMA Data Evaluation
  2. Procedures 101 Presentation Run-Through
  3. Intermittent Method Blank Contamination
  4. Matrix Effects Subgroup Report Out
  5. Definitions rationale

Mr. Wheeler thanked everyone for their time and adjourned the meeting at 2:58 PM, ET./p>

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Attendance

Technical Work Group Members

Triangle Associates: Robert Wheeler and Vicki Shapley

Observers

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