Environmental Assessment > Quality Assurance

Quality Assurance at Ecology

The Department of Ecology relies on Quality Assurance (QA) to monitor and improve its scientific practices, especially those involving generation and assessment of environmental data. Ecology's QA system is based on requirements established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and incorporates guidance and methodology from many standards-setting organizations world-wide.

Ecology uses established QA principles to plan, execute and assess all of its data-generation projects. Additionally, QA planning is often required for businesses or agencies submitting data to Ecology.

QA Documents

All documents are provided as PDF unless otherwise noted.

QA Policies

• Establishing Quality Assurance, Executive Policy 1-21
• Requiring Use of Accredited Environmental Laboratories, Executive Policy 1-22
• Roles and Procedures for Coordinating the Review of Quality assurance Project Plans Prepared by Water Quality Grant and Loan Recipients - EAP/WQP Joint Procedure 2-03

QA Management Plan and Periodic Quality Reports

• Quality Management Plan
• 2005 Quality Report to Management
• Washington State Department of Ecology′s Quality System for Fiscal Year 2006: System Structure, Activities, and Assessment

QA Planning Guidance

• Guidance for the Preparation of Quality Assurance Project Plans

QA Coordinators

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Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for sampling, auditing and field methodology

• SOP Master Index
• SOP Policy
• EAP001 - Use of Semipermeable Membrane Devices
• EAP002 - Determination of Total Dissolved Gas
• EAP003 - Pesticides Sampling in Fresh Water
• EAP007 - Resecting Finfish Whole Body, Body Parts or Tissue Samples
• EAP008 - Resecting DNA Samples and Aging for Finfish
• EAP009 - Collection, Processing and Preservation of Finfish Samples
• EAP010 - Field Measurements of Conductivity/Salinity with a Conductivity Meter and Probe
• EAP011 - Instantaneous Measurement of Temperature in Water
• EAP012 - Sampling Bacteria in Water
• EAP013 - Determining Global Positioning System Coordinates
• EAP014 - Surveying Morphology and Surface Flow of Headwaters Channels
• EAP015 - Grab Sampling - Fresh Water
• EAP016 - Freshwater Drift Collection, Processing and Analysis
• EAP017 - Litterfall Collection, Processing, and Analysis
• EAP018 - Turbidity Threshold Sampling
• EAP019 - Estimating Streamflows Using a Flume
• EAP020 - Bedload Collection, Processing, and Analysis
• EAP021 - Estimating Large Woody Debris Loads Intersecting Headwaters
• EAP022 - Estimating and Delineation of Headwaters Wetlands
• EAP023 - Winkler Determination of Dissolved Oxygen
• EAP024 - Estimating Streamflow
• EAP025 - Seawater Sampling
• EAP026 - Chlorophyll a Analysis
• EAP027 - Seawater Dissolved Oxygen Analysis (Dosimat)
• EAP028 - Reagent Preparation
• EAP029 - Metals Sampling
• EAP030 - Fecal Coliform Sampling
• EAP031 - Collection and Analysis of pH Samples
• EAP032 - Collection and Analysis of Conductivity Samples
• EAP033 - Hydrolab^®, DataSonde^®, and MiniSonde^® Multiprobes
• EAP034 - Collection, Processing, and Analysis of Stream Samples
• EAP035 - Measurement of Dissolved Oxygen in Surface Water
• EAP036 - Benthic Flux Chambers
• EAP037 - Time of Travel Studies in Freshwater using a Dye Tracer
• EAP038 - Collection of Freshwater Sample Cores using a box or KB Corer
• EAP039 - Sampling Marine Sediment
• EAP040 - Freshwater Sediment Sampling
• EAP041 - Collecting FreshwaterSuspended Particulate Matter Samples using In-Line Filtration
• EAP042 - Measuring Gage Height of Streams
• EAP043 - Marine Macrobenthic Sampling Analysis
• EAP044 - Continuous Temperature Monitoring of Fresh Water Rivers and Streams Conducted in a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) Study
• EAP045 - Hemispherical Digital Photography Field Surveys
• EAP046 - Hemispherical Digital Images - Computer Analysis
• EAP051 - Marine Moorings Field Services and Maintenance
• EAP052 - Manual Well Depth and Depth-to-Water Measurements
• EAP055 - Operation of Teledyne Instruments Stream-Pro Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler
• EAP056 - Measuring and Calculating Stream Discharge
• EAP057 - Conducting Stream Hydrology Site Visits
• EAP058 - Operating SonTek® FlowTracker® Handheld Acoustic Doppler Velocimeter (FlowTracker)
• EAP059 - Operating Mechanical Velocity Indicators

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Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for laboratory accreditation

• Accreditation of Environmental Laboratories
• Assessment (Audit) of Environmental Laboratories
• Laboratory Accreditation Renewal Applications