An Overview of Quality Assurance Project Plans

1. An Overview of Quality Assurance Project Plans Kuskokwim Watershed Council Water Quality Training Workshop August 2007 Facilitated by Zender Environmental Health & Research Group

2. Outline • What is a QAPP? • Why do I need a QAPP? • Planning a water quality monitoring program • Preparing a QAPP • Things to consider • QAPP terminology • Any questions?

3. Quality Assurance Project Plan • Blueprint for your investigation • Allows you to think things through before you begin • Ensures that you are collecting the right information to answer your questions • Gives you an opportunity to receive feedback and advice from people who have a lot of experience

4. Why do I need a QAPP? • “All work performed or funded by EPA that involves the collection of environmental data must have an approved Quality Assurance Project Plan.” • -Great Lakes Coastal Wetlands Consortium • ADEC also requires a QAPP • If you find contamination while sampling now (or if it’s clean now and contaminated in the future), EPA/ADEC will need your QAPP to consider the data credible.

5. Overview of Planning a Water Quality Assessment Program: 1. What is already known about your watershed (studies by agencies AND traditional knowledge)? 2. Why do you want to monitor? 3. What variables would you like to monitor? 4. How accurate do you want your data to be? 5. Where will you monitor? Reference: G. Dates, River Network. Presentation, “Are My Waters Impaired?”

6. Overview of Planning a Water Quality Assessment Program: 6. When will you monitor? 7. How will you assure the data are reliable? 8. How will you manage, analyze, and report your data? 9. Who will do which tasks? 10. Cost considerations for supplies, etc. Reference: G. Dates, River Network. Presentation, “Are My Waters Impaired?”

7. Preparing a QAPP • 1. Draft the QAPP (templates help!) • 2. Get feedback from your technical committee • 3. Revise & submit for approval • 4. Once approved, begin your assessment • After approval, changes can be made by sending a letter to EPA

8. QAPP Resources • EPA http://www.epa.gov/quality/qapps.html • -Contains many helpful documents • -EPA’s Volunteer Monitor’s Guide to QAPPs • Examples of others’ QAPPs on web • Many communities/tribes in Alaska have developed QAPPs • -Nunapitchuk, Chickaloon, Kokhanok, Chenega Bay, Newhalen, Nushugak-Mulchatna, Kiana, Igiugig, others

9. Other things to consider • More than one community can sample under a QAPP • Example: Kobuk River watershed may develop one QAPP to include 5 communities

10. QAPP Terminology • Precision-how close measurements are to one another • -Example: Measure pH of water twice and get 7.14 the first time and 7.16 the second time. • Accuracy-how close measurements are to a standard • -Example: Measuring a pH 7.0 standard shows a pH of 7.05

11. QAPP Terminology • Representativeness-how representative a measurement is of the true environmental condition • Ex: Measure turbidity of a stream during a flood and get value of 100 NTU, when under normal conditions, turbidity would be 10 NTU • Completeness-how much of the data you planned to collect is usable and valid • Ex: Dissolved oxygen meter malfunctioned and we realize after the fact that the data aren’t realistic. We would therefore reject the data and have a less complete data set.

12. QAPP Terminology • Quality control (QC) samples • Usually a “blank” sample—distilled water • Recommend 10% blanks or once per day • Allows you to find out if you have contaminated or malfunctioning equipment • Example: You get a turbidity reading of 3 NTU using distilled water. You know it should read 0 NTU, and you realize that your sampling tube was not cleaned since the last sampling.

13. QAPP Terminology Comparability-how the data compare between sample locations or between projects Example: One study measures turbidity using settling cones (units=mL of settled material) while another study measures turbidity using a turbidimeter (units=NTU (reflect how much light is able to pass through sample))

14. Any questions?