EPA's Water Laboratory Alliance Forum

Program Title: EPA’s Water Laboratory Alliance Forum

Program Date: May, 17, 2008: 1:00PM – 5:00PM

Location: APHL 2008 Annual Meeting & Second State Environmental Laboratory Conference Click here to register.

Description: The forum will discuss EPA’s developing Water Laboratory Alliance (WLA) program, which will be designed to provide the water sector (e.g. states, utilities, and the EPA Regional laboratories) with an integrated nationwide network of laboratories with the analytical capabilities to support monitoring surveillance, response, and remediation in response to an intentional and unintentional contamination event.

Continuing Education Credit: The Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) is approved as a provider of continuing education programs in the clinical laboratory sciences by the ASCLS P.A.C.E.® program. Participants who successfully complete the program will be awarded 3.5 contact hours.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this program, participants will be able to:

• Describe the goals of the EPA’s Water Alliance Program (WLA)
• Discuss the roles of the partners in the WLA
• List the support tools that are available to the labs participating in the network.
• Outline future outreach activities and opportunities within the alliance.

Program Agenda:

1:00 PM to 1:10 PM: Introductions of EPA Panel

1:10 PM to 2:30 PM: Water Laboratory Alliance: Programmatic Overview

2:30 PM to 3:00 PM: Break

3:00 PM to 3:30PM: ERLN Update

3:30PM-4:30PM:       Update on TAPP Branch activities

- Method Validation
- Tools
- WCIT
- Tools
- NEMI CBR Demo
- Data Management
- Training
- Sampling Guidance

4:30PM - 5:00 PM: Recap

Who Should Attend:
Attendees should include state, county, city and local environmental and public health lab directors, physicians and veterinarians concerned with hygiene, public health and communicable diseases, government and private laboratory personnel, and others interested in laboratory issues.

Registration Fee: None

EPA Faculty Members:

1. Ayaad Assaad, D.V.M., MS., Ph.D. Will present an “Update on Method Modification Activities”. He served as a principal investigator with the US Army chemical and biological defense systems, toxicologist with EPA Office of Pesticides Programs, and currently, he is an environmental scientist with EPA Office of Water, Water Security Division.

2. Latisha P. Mapp, MS Will present an update on EPA long-term planning in relation to the development of the Water Laboratory Alliance Program (WLA). She will also provide a detailed update on a number of activities supporting the foundation of the WLA. She is the Laboratory Team Leader with EPA’s Office of Water, Water Security Division.

3. Anand Mudambi, Ph.D Will present an update on EPA’s Regional Laboratory Response Plans (RLRP) developed in response to a large drinking water contamination event. In addition his presentation will detail lessons learned and outcomes of the RLRP functional exercises. He is an Environmental Chemist with EPA’s Office of Water, Water Security Division.

4. Patricia Tidwell-Shelton, MBA She is the Chief for the Threats Analysis, Prevention and Preparedness Branch with EPA’s Office of Water, Water Security Division.