Environmental Sciences Section (ESS) Phone Conference
August 25, 2011 Meeting Minutes
Participants: - Judy Morgan – Chair (Environmental Science Corporation); Jack Farrell – Vice Chair (Analytical Excellence); Bruce Godfrey (Curtis & Tompkins); Doug Leonard (L-A-B); Bob Johnson (Horizon Technology); Allison Mackenzie (Edward S. Babcock); Alfredo Pierri (Weck Labs); Jerry Singh (RTI Labs); David Speis (Accutest Labs); Jason Stine (L-A-B); Joe Weitzel (Agilent Technologies); Bob Wyeth (Pace Analytical Services); Milton Bush (CEO); Beth Horan (ACIL Secretariat); & Tony Anderson (SEO).
1.0 Call to order:
The Chair called the meeting to order at 11:02 a.m. EDT.
2.0 Introductions:
Mr. Anderson called the roll.
3.0 Anti Trust Statement:
The members acknowledged they had read and understood their obligations under the statement.
4.0 Minutes of previous meetings
4.1 Review and Approval of Minutes of June 16, 2011 Teleconference meeting :-
Motion to approve: Mr. Farrell
Seconded: Mr. Singh
Approved unanimously
4.2 Review and Approval of Minutes of July 21, 2011 Teleconference meeting :-
Motion to approve: Bruce Godfrey
Seconded: Mr. Johnson
Approved unanimously
5 Service Contract Act:
Mr. Bush explained that there has been a clarification on the Department of Labor’s (DoL’s) Service Contract Act activity based on Mr. Friedman’s call to DoL. DoL is interested in technician job descriptions and the spreadsheet attached to the agenda is trying to address this clarification. Mr. Bush went on to say that the section needs to firm up its comments so that it can be submitted to DoL. Ms. Morgan pointed out that the descriptions are not taking into consideration the level of the technician in the laboratory and the levels of pay are above the duties of some analytical staff. It was suggested that the ESS should come up with some additional categories to address the problem, as the current descriptions are inappropriate for some labs. The goal is to be generic enough to be applicable to all labs.
Action: Members of the ESS are requested to send comments to Mr. Friedman for him to prepare a second draft document on the issue.
Action: Mr. Wyeth will review the document that has been sent out and make some recommendations to come up with new general descriptions, in three main categories, with wage ranges and send out through Mr. Anderson.
Action: Following Mr. Wyeth’s action above Mr. Singh to lead a wage survey based on the ranges and affirm or not, or what range would be appropriate.
Link to Department of Labor - Wage and Hour Division (WHO) - SCA Directory of Occupations
http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/wage/p29000.htm
6.0 ELAB Report :
Mr. Speis reported that a face-to-face ELAB meeting was held at NEMC in Bellevue, WA last week. It was an opportunity to update the lab community on ELAB activities in the past year. The update covered EPA rules on which ELAB had commented. The most recent items were the proposed rule changes on PVC production and the new 524.4 drinking water method that resulted in the change of purge gas from helium to nitrogen, covered in the last ESS teleconference.
ELAB continues to follow recreational water quality criteria, and the monitoring of beaches for microbiological activity with respect to waste related bacteria. The item of most interest to the ESS is the program to monitor the health of national accreditation, stimulated by the ACIL white paper on third party accreditation. ELAB is compiling feedback on what issues are impacting the implementation of national accreditation and what would be the remedies.
Also a recommendation has been made to the Office of Water that included use of the TNI quality system standard. Feedback received from EPA was disappointing in so far as the level of misunderstanding amongst EPA staff members. To move forward ELAB will have to prepare information to better inform the EPA program staff regarding the relationship of ISO/IEC 17025 to the TNI standard and how ISO/IEC 17025 is applied within the standard.
7.0 3rd Party Accreditation initiative:
Mr. Speis reported that a stakeholder meeting had been held a few weeks ago as to where ACIL was going with this process. Following that, Mr. Friedman had put together a Gant chart on the 3rd part initiative. The meeting with Governor Christie’s policy staff is coming up in two weeks on September 9. Mr. Speis has been asked to give a presentation to NJDP internal Stakeholders on September 12. He is trying to change the focus away from just New Jersey, even though they are the first to be approached but to emphasize that it is a national program initiative. Ms. Morgan pointed out that in Washington State, use of a 3rd party assessor is allowed, but the State keeps the right whether to accept the assessment and the oversight of the program.
Based on Mr. Friedman’s spreadsheet, Mr. Speis recommended that ESS form a task force to focus on the initiative and that he would volunteer to be on such a body.
Motion: Mr. Speis proposed that a task force be formed to move the 3rd part accreditation initiative forward:
Seconded by: Mr. Farrell.
Passed unanimously.
Mr. Farrell volunteered and asked that Mr. Bush also be on the task force. Ms. Morgan, Mr. Wyeth, Mr. Godfrey and Mr. Leonard also volunteered to be on the task force.
Mr. Bush suggested that the group should meet and decide how best to deploy resources. He also pointed out that the ESS is not the only section concerned with state issues. The CMET is trying to develop a personnel certification program that will require state cooperation.
Action: Mr. Bush to set up a teleconference call for the task group volunteers.
Mr. Bush also updated the section on the financial situation with the lobbying effort in New Jersey. He noted that he was able to negotiate an additional three months of activities for the same fee, which will take the initiative through the end of the year.
8.0 NEMC Report:
Ms. Morgan gave a brief report on the NEMC conference. (see also ELAB report above.) She raised the issue of whether ACIL should be more directly involved with EPA as well as through ELAB. She pointed out that the ELAB route is more restrictive. Mr. Bush asked that the issue be discussed offline in a separate teleconference call.
Action: Ms. Bush to set up a teleconference call with Ms. Morgan and Mr. Speis to discuss ACIL involvement with EPA.
Mr. Speis said there was very good attendance at the ACIL session at NEMC. There has been very good feedback on Cabot Earle’s presentation. The next NEMC meeting is in July/August 2012 in Washington, DC.
9.0 Membership report:
Mr. Anderson reported for Mr. Bright. He highlighted the prospect list he had sent out and asked members to reach out to anyone on the list they knew, but to let Mr. Bright know if they were going to contact anyone. Mr. Anderson also asked if anyone had the registration list for NEMC electronically.
Action: Mr. Johnson to send the NEMC registration to Mr. Anderson. (already completed).
10.0 Update on MELA:
Nothing to report.
Action: Ms. Morgan and Mr. Wyeth to discuss offline.
11.0 Update - Laboratory Industry Survey
Ms. Morgan said she had had some comments back from Mr. Friedman and she had submitted them to the survey company. They in turn have sent some comments back.
Action: Ms. Morgan to re-organize the response back from the survey company and send to Mr. Anderson for distribution to the section.
12.0 Legislative Update:
Ms. Morgan had nothing further to add to issues already raised earlier.
13.0 Status of Action Items:
No report
14.0 A.O.B.
Mr. Bush stated that he was investigating state reporting services for the benefit of all sections in order to avoid the recent situation in North Carolina.
Mr. Bush also reported on the recent Board strategic planning session and that it should be discussed during the section meeting at the upcoming annual meeting.
Mr. Bush also asked that members start thinking about issues for the Policies and Practices meeting in March 2012, which will be an agenda item for the annual meeting.
Action: Ms. Morgan to work with Mr. Farrell, Mr. Friedman and Mr. Bush in drafting an agenda for the annual meeting.
Finally, Mr. Bush explained that based on feedback from the July conference call, pilot administrative are in order. He explained that in the future, agendas and minutes will be loaded on the ACIL website. Distribution will be coordinated and consolidated through Beth Horan, who will distribute an URL to section members to download the documents at their convenience. This will avoid member server issues as well as unify distribution of section documents within ACIL. Chairman Morgan commented that this was a welcome and logical solution.
15.0 Next Conference Call: September 15, 2011; 11:00 a.m. EDT
16.0 Adjournment: 12:20 p.m. EDT.
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ESS EC Minutes 08-25-11