Winter 2006 Meeting Minutes
Tucson, Arizona
USGS Arizona Water Science Center
Feb. 7-9, 2006

Attendees

Tues, Feb 7

Board business/Outreach meeting: 8:30a.m.-11:30a.m.

Conference Preparations: Abby gave overview 

• Very large conference, much work to do, fewer contract support dollars
• Need help with a variety of activities the week of the conference
• Contact Tetratech (Abby/Maggie) if you’re willing to help with whatever
• Moderators: sign up soon if you want.  Realize you have work to do.

Outreach Discussion

• Consider a tri-chair arrangement for the Methods Board in which NOAA is a partner as well as USGS and EPA.  May get more buy-in and resources from NOAA.  May want to check with Peter Grevatt (EPA) and Gail Mallard (USGS) about this.
• ACTION: Eric will talk to Peter and Gail
  
• Check out other conference vendors beforehand and open dialogues with those that might be interested in the Board’s activities / products.  Vendors could be a good source of input for what the Board should work on and might be a source of resources.
• ACTION: divide up list of vendors and create lists of who will contact who. (Abby will circulate list)
• ACTION: Franceska will contact ASTM
  
• Need to keep asking those involved in water monitoring: what can the Board do to help them?  Not just inform them of what we do.
  
• Need top focus on how to get more extramural support to assist the Board in developing products.
  
• Need to develop more synergistic relationships with partners:
  
• Volunteer monitoring groups (they will be at the conference)- Jerry talk to Abby, Revital
• TVA, other types of monitoring agencies besides states
• Private laboratories (e.g., the Andy Eaton model); Larry Keith and several others should identify several good bets
• Manufacturers of sensors and other instruments (e.g., on-line nutrient monitoring; PDAs and WQDE) Cary knows some
• Homeland security – domestic water supplies / drinking water

National Monitoring Conference Planning

Methods Board Booth

Should be designed to not only display what the Board’s mission is and what we have done but to also solicit input, help, resources, etc.

Booth Committee is Eric, Dan, Ed Santoro, Franceska Wilde, and Jennifer Young.  This committee will coordinate and lead the effort to make the booth a success.

Have a suggestion box or better yet, pre-printed input cards that people fill out.  ACTION: Cary will take a stab at developing the input card with help from Jerry, Eric, and Dan.  Some topics for input might include event monitoring, expert system for sampling, DQOs, etc., others?

Need 2 PCs – one for loop powerpoint display of the Board and what we’ve been doing and the other for NEMI displays.  May need real-time hook up (wireless?) for a real NEMI demo?  Do we really need?
            Jerry will check with Abby about web access
            Dan will start developing powerpoint display of NEMI
            Good to have a larger screen or projection capability there.

Need some key materials at the Booth for show:
            Previous Across the Boards
Publications (PBS Council report, COD Pilot Report, WQDE Guide– get printed in time?; journal articles on COD pilot; Impact issue; others??
Fact Sheets – WQDE (Jerry will revise and get to LeAnne and Revital for review); Comparability, Accreditation, NEMI, Green Methods (Larry will create) with Jennifer, Bioassessment Comparability project (Jerry will create with LeAnne)

Be good to have a list of the Board presentations at the conference

Key Posters: Dan will update Board poster

Magnets – Dan will get more made if needed.  (Will have new URL “acwi.gov”)

Need Invitations to give out to key people for Strategic Planning meeting

All booth materials need to be at Reston by April 18.

Hospitality Suite

ACTION: Franceska will talk to Judy about this idea and if the Council will support.
Reserve in the Marriott or Hilton for Wednesday afternoon?

• ACTION: Abby: will look into getting a room.  Wednesday afternoon or Evening 

Use for strategic planning meeting to discuss observations from the conference and any input received.
Start recruiting key vendors, NOAA, other people NOW; 

• Ed S. and Eric – NOAA
• California Water Quality Board – Ed S.  Jerry

Other issues raised during brainstorm session

• Forego a summer Board meeting in lieu of acquiring support for more people to attend the conference.  Use Webcast format for the summer meeting.

• Bioassessment comparability – lots of abstracts from San Jose; could be a major thrust for the Board.  What is next?  Taxonomy?  Field methods?  Data elements? (Abby)
• approach NOAA – integrate coastal sites with Network sites (Ed S).  Abby: get involved with discussion sessions at conference.
• Water-quality data elements (WQDE) tie-in with ESAR. How to tie-in with these other efforts:  EDSC, Exchange Network, etc.?  (LeAnne)
• Grants: How to apply?  Find partners.  Examples: ASTM, ASC, etc.
• ACTION: Gil will talk to Len Morrissey about getting a new representative from ASTM for the Board. 
• Barry had a grant to fund ASTM to do a project.

• Eric: Outreach still needs a co-chair.  Eric, Dan, and others contribute but we need someone dedicated to the task
• Larry: Revital Katznelson will be entering California’s methods in NEMI.

Tuesday, 11:30a.m.

Eric gave his presentation from ACWI to the Board. Major points:

• EPA co-chair needed
• WQDE co-chair needed – Revital may be temporary
• Need Board moderators for Wadeable Stream Assessment sessions

ACTION: Add Jim Eychaner (USGS Western Region QW specialist) to Board email group (Done)

Conference Booth – support for State people?  Ed S, LeAnne, Katherine 

• ACTION: Eric will talk to Toni about support.  UPDATE: Will offer at least partial support (travel, per diem).

Recruitment Meeting – Weds. p.m. business/strategic planning

ACTION: Franceska will talk to Judy Griffin about getting a hospitality suite

Booth: plenty of volunteers

• Rent a projector
• Real-time hookup? ACTION: Jerry will find out if Internet connect
• Create a ppt display that rotates through a presentation
• Committee: Ed, Dan, Eric, Franceska, Jennifer
• Handouts:  Can Toni and Judy bring handouts?
• NOTE: Need to send stuff to Reston by 4/18
• ACTION: Dan make more fridge magnets
• Sign-up sheet
• ACTION: Publish COD report as NWQMC Tech report
• Posters – WQDE, NEMI, Overall Board poster to reduce clutter?
• ACTION: Dan look at posters and try to make one out of many – talk to Jen about “flow chart” to show how the Board works
• Cary: Pre-invites? Franceska – NOAA?
• Connect the Dots

Web site:  “Testimonials” section – add linked page from new Methods Board homepage.

Discussed memo from Chuck Spooner to Eric suggesting that the Board create a “Methods Manual” that defines best practices.  Big undertaking, lots of discussion of difficulties and pitfalls.

Larry:  might be best designed as a guidance document (“if-then” format)

ACTION: Need more information from Chuck.

Biology

• Jerry: got work assignment from Laura G.  Will have workshop at conference.
• Sent critical review out before meeting to several people.
• Would like reviewers from inside the Board
• MBAG to prepare recommendations to states on how to prepare data.

Water Quality Data Elements

• LeAnne gave her presentation on the Nat’l Env Information Exchange
• ACWI’s opinion on Data Elements has not changed, but EPA is going towards ESAR
• EPA and States
• ACTION: Update WQDE poster for the conference in context of entire Board display.
• Franceska:

Roster

• ACTION: Add Raj Brahman to NEMI workgroup

Outreach

• Eric – target vendors – how to do?  Visit vendors on Monday.
• California water quality board
• Chattanooga invitation
• Target vendors: for example, try to get one to sponsor us to develop PDA applications for WQDEs
• ACTION: make another couple hundred fridge magnets
• ACTION: Dan to make one pager with publications
• ACTION: Cary – index card with checkable boxes? w/ input from Jerry and Dan

NEMI

• Discussed presentation and content of bio and tox methods
• Jennifer presented update on Green Chemistry project (summary of expert panel review)
  

Wednesday Feb 7

Accreditation

(Merle Shockey and Barry Lesnik)

The three big issues at hand are:

1. What should our position be regarding state lab accreditation?

2. What should be done concerning field method accreditation?

3. How should we be working with NELAC/INELA?

Discussion—generally realized that we need to put more energy into Accreditation

• Need new blood
• Tom Maloney – old USGS rep
• Jim Eychaner – new USGS rep
• Barry Lesnick – USEPA rep
• Jim Purcell – State of VA, replaces VanSoestbergen
• Dick Redding (EPA OWOW)
• Marion Kelly (Trinky)
• Jack Krueger – State of ME (player in the past)
• Bart Simmons – State of CA past player

• Publications
• Fact Sheet – related only to Federal labs – need for accreditation
• Do we need a white paper for states?

• Suggest Dick Redding for USEPA Co-Chair
• ACTION: Eric will contact EPA concerning Richard Redding as a possible co-chair and also will contact him with a specific invitation to NWQMC and the Board strategic meeting on Wednesday afternoon of that conference.

Laboratories

• Ambient monitoring is the problem more so than regulated water programs like DW and RCRA
• How do we build accreditation into the NMN?
• Ditto for River Basin compacts
• Lab associations getting hit with accreditation fees
• What can the Forensic Accreditation group learn from the Wheel of Monitoring?
• Barry L. mentioned that there is a Forensic Chemistry accreditation organization that has accredited some labs that he works with. He could obtain contacts for us. Given that current NELAC/INELA accreditation procedures rely on prescriptive methods and analytes and we endorse PBS, a forensic chemistry accreditation process might well fit our workgroup needs better than those of a prescriptive accreditation process. We should follow up on the forensic chemistry accreditation group – find out what it is and what it does and how it works to provide accreditation – using Barry’s contact information.

Field accreditation

• “Clean hands dirty hands”
• Problems between states not accepting other states data
• NJ will not accept DRBC data from other states because of CH/DH issues
• Not all states will use CH/DH methods
• Need to get Leslie McGeorge involved—new Council rep from NJ
• Accreditation across state lines
• Ed Santoro—need a statement as to why we need field accreditation

Nutrients/PBS (Ed Santoro)

• Journal article on nutrients still out there
• Need to make progress
• Have Katherine pass along to Jerry and Ed S.
• Move PBS title to Accreditation
• Should the Accreditation Workgroup merge with the PBS Workgroup? The reason is because the Accreditation Workgroup needs to encompass PBS issues. Ed will ask his workgroup first since the PBS Workgroup is currently merged with the Nutrients Workgroup.
• PBS Nutrient Pilot
• Compare results with USGS methods developed by Charlie Patton
• Unable to obtain funding
• Look into working with Green Chemistry Institute (new green method)
• Alternate test procedure—must meet DQO
• Combine PBS with Green Chemistry
• Look for funding with NSF
• ACTION: Ed S. put together 1-pager to Jennifer Young of GCI
• Summary of project
• Benefits

Quote of the Week

• “Let’s take a 5-minute break and meet back here in half an hour.”  Eric V.