U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Regional Laboratory System: EPA Regional Laboratories...Advancing the Agency's Science Agenda Page: 24 of 46
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US EPA Regional Laboratory System
Priority - Building Strong State and Tribal Partnerships
States and Tribal nations bear important responsibilities for the day-to-day mission of
environmental protection, but declining tax revenues and fiscal challenges are pressuring state
agencies and Tribal governments to do more with fewer resources. Strong partnerships and
accountability are more important than ever. EPA regional laboratories do their part by
providing technical assistance, training, expertise and capacity to bolster state and tribal efforts.
Some examples of Regional Laboratory efforts to support and bolster state and Tribal efforts
include:
* Work-Sharing to Support the States: Regional laboratories work closely with its states
and the EPA regional program offices each year to identify priority field and lab work that
the regional lab can provide to support the states' environmental programs and fill gaps
where the states are unable to conduct important monitoring or sampling work needed to
protect human and ecosystem health. During FY10, this support has been particularly critical
due to severe budget cuts in the states. On an ongoing basis, regional laboratories provide
support to the states' air monitoring programs by conducting audits and other QA/QC
activities. Some water program projects conducted during 2010 to support the states
included aquatic toxicity testing for impacts of aircraft de-icing chemicals, characterization
of sediment toxics for four impaired streams, flow measurement dye studies to support
TMDLs, field sampling and lab analysis of metals of more than 100 samples for a state's
probabilistic survey of wadeable streams, a sediment oxygen demand (SOD) study and
bacteria analysis of 160+ samples as part of an extensive study of the Merrimack River for
TMDL development, monitoring of coastal shellfish beds, dye injection studies in support of
NPDES permits, field sampling at 17 stations for water and sediment quality components of
the EPA National Coastal Condition Assessment for one state, microbial source tracking at
beaches, dissolved oxygen surveys, and buffer width determinations and littoral habitat
measurements in support of a lake habitat assessment project.
* L ow I mpact Development Studies: Grants were awarded to a number of local governments
to implement low impact development (LID) practices aimed at designing, implementing,
and studying sustainable stormwater management practices through a partnership effort with
EPA, a state, and several local governments. As an example, one funded project involves the
creation of a park and urban garden in a local community that incorporates pervious asphalt,
rain gardens and a green roof in shoreline community of Puget Sound. Goals for this project
include reducing stormwater runoff by as much as 70 percent, decreasing chemical
contaminants introduced into treatment systems and adjacent water bodies, and removing
potential biological contaminants completely. During the year, one of our regional
laboratories analyzed over 900 samples from six local LID projects for a number of chemical
and microbiological contaminants to help the local grant recipients assess the effectiveness of
their LID projects at removing these contaminants.
* Microbial Water Quality Test Using Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction or
qPCR: In a collaborative partnership with local New Jersey County Health Departments and
the state, the regional laboratory conducted a multi-phase study using the rapid Quantitative
Polymerase Chain Reaction (qPCR) method to assess enterococcus data from marine
recreational waters over a wide geographic range, including spatial, temporal, and instrument
variability. Rapid qPCR can be used to identify and quantitate the concentration of certain18
F Y 2010 P rogr ess R epor t
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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Regional Laboratory System: EPA Regional Laboratories...Advancing the Agency's Science Agenda, text, 2010; (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc948983/m1/24/: accessed May 6, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.