EPA Releases Two New Contamination Guidance Documents

Late last week, EPA’s Water Security Division released two new documents – Sampling Guidance for Unknown Contaminants in Drinking Water and Sampling and Field Testing During Water Contamination Incidents.

The Sampling Guidance provides procedures for conducting routine and baseline monitoring in response to a triggered event and sampling procedures in support of remediation or decontamination efforts.  It offers recommendations for collecting, storing, preserving and transporting samples of potentially contaminated water as well as recommendations to support the detection and identification of many types of contaminants in drinking water.  None of these recommendations are mandatory; rather they are intended to aid coordination between the utility, emergency response and laboratory communities during the response to a contamination incident.

The Field Testing Guidance outlines basic and advanced field response activities and also provides information pertaining to staffing, quality assurance, and other procedures.  Additionally, the document contains useful resources; downloadable and customizable report forms and templates; supplemental information on the application; and relative costs of field testing instrumentation and test kits.