Managing the Quality of Environmental Data at EPA Region 2
Region 2 is committed to a Quality Assurance (QA) Program aimed at improving and assuring the quality of all environmental measurements performed by, or for the Region. The goal of the QA Program is for all environmental data to be of known quality, adequate for its intended use, with all aspects of its collection and analysis thoroughly documented, with such documentation being verifiable and defensible.
The Quality Assurance staff within the Region accomplish these goals through a number of QA activities to assure that quality assurance requirements are met, including:
- reviewing grants
- cooperative and interagency agreements
- permits
- contracts
- study plans
- protocols
- quality assurance project plans
- data
- standard operating procedures
The overall responsibility for the QA Program in Region 2 rests with the Regional Administrator (RA), who is committed to ensure that QA is an identifiable activity with adequate resources allocated for accomplishment of program and Regional goals in the development and execution of all projects and tasks involving environmentally related measurements, both in-house and extramural. The responsibility for planning, oversight and policy recommendations resides in the Division of Environmental Science and Assessment (DESA), specifically with the Regional Quality Assurance Manager (RQAM).