Quality Control

The Laboratory's Quality Control (QC) Program is designed to assure the production of high quality data that is of known accuracy and precision. QC policies, procedures, and objectives are documented in the Laboratory's Quality Assurance Plan (U.S. EPA approved) and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).

The Laboratory's Quality Assurance Plan is in PDF format.

QA Plan

Laboratory Standard Operating Procedures:

All procedures used at the Laboratory are documented in Laboratory Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). Lab users may request the most recent SOP for lab methods.

Quality Assurance Project Plans:

If a project is funded in whole or in part by the U.S. EPA, includes sampling and analysis activities, the U.S. EPA requires that a satisfactory quality assurance project plan be submitted to EPA's Quality Assurance Office. The Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) supports this policy and requires that projects funded by state funds have acceptable quality assurance project plans. The information in these Quality Assurance plans will allow EPA and state project officers to determine the quality and defensibility of the data generated by the project.

The Laboratory's Quality Assurance Plan is designed to assist Laboratory users in preparation of Quality Assurance Project Plans. Department of Environmental Conservation Programs needing to meet EPA/state requirements for a QA Project Plan can reference the Laboratory QA Plan and will only need to submit to the EPA project officer and/or the DEC project officer a description of the project including its goals, its sampling program, and its relationship to the DEC Laboratory.

Laboratory Accreditation:

The DEC Environmental Laboratory is accredited through the National Environmental Accreditation Program, or NELAP.  NELAP relies on consensus standards representing the best provessional practices to establish the requirements for accreditation.

The Laboratory's Primary Accreditation Analyte List identifies the methods and analytes the Laboratory currently has NELAP accreditation for.

NELAP Accreditation Status

Contact: Dan Needham and Michael Tefft