Ethics and Data Integrity in the Environmental Lab

Ethics and data integrity are crucial in almost all professional industries, including environmental labs. It is the results gathered in these labs that ensure that governmental health and safety standards and regulations are being maintained. If the data collected or the results reported are inaccurate, this tremendously hinders the governmental agencies, such as EPA's (Environmental Protection Agency) ability to properly track the results, and they will not be alerted if a problem arises that threatens the health and safety of the surrounding people or environment.

Falsified Records

Unfortunately, there are numerous reports in the news where environmental lab workers are caught falsifying records that are sent into the various protection agencies. Here is just a brief sampling of some of the recent fraudulent cases involving environmental lab workers.

• A 45-year old Oregon woman, working as the Water Treatment Plant Supervisor for her locality found guilty of submitting false reports to OHA (Oregon Health Authority).
• The owner of a testing center plead guilty to falsifying lead paint records for a housing development in Detroit. To make matters worse, he knew these apartments were likely to be rented to family with children under the age of six-years old.
• An environmental lab worker in Missouri was found guilty of gatheringwater samplings at false locations. He submitted these incorrect samplings to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.
• An environmental service company in South Carolina intentionally did not report certain samplings data that were related to toxicity levels.

These are just a few of the dozens of reports released just over the past few years. While all of these past employees and owners lost their job and were charge with a crime, it does shows that there is clearly a problem with ethics and data integrity in some environmental labs.

Signs of an Ethical Environmental Lab

The EPA now requires all environmental labs to develop a comprehensive Ethics and Data Integrity Program to help curb these types of offenses. This governmental agency takes these offenses seriously and is committed to ensuring all environmental labs operate with the utmost integrity. Whether you work for a business, municipality, community, or are a homeowner, there are several things you should look for in an environmental lab to guarantee its integrity.

• Seal of Approval - While the EPA requires an ethics and data integrity program be set in place, environmental labs can go one step further and earn the Seal of Excellence Award offered by the ACIL (American Council of Independent Laboratories). This seal ensures the lab's data integrity quality and high performance standards.

• Proper Documentation - The lab should also have a standard documentation process. The more activities that are documented within the lab the greater chance of obtaining accurate data collection and testing results.

• Uniform Services - Each service offered within the lab should have a uniform procedural process that is followed. This process should include the same steps in the same order. This will ensure accurate and reliable results no matter which employee is performing the service.

• Daily Monitoring - Daily monitoring within the lab is also essential for accurate testing. This helps to ensure all services are running smoothly and can alert the staff immediately if there is an issue within the lab.

• Trained Staff - It is also vital that the staff working within the lab received proper training, that include ethics, data integrity, and technical training of all lab practices, regulations and procedures.

If you need to have your water tested or other environmental testing done, it is best to use a company that is committed to providing accurate and honest sample collection and testing services. Otherwise, your company or community could be out of compliance with various health and safety regulation, or you could receive inaccurate results. Be sure to ask the environmental lab how their collection and testing process works and ensure that they have the seal of approval.

Editor's Note: Written by Suburban Laboratories, a company who specializes in safe drinking water testing for municipalities, businesses and homeowners.