Quality assurance and quality control data validation procedures used for the Love Canal and Dallas lead soil monitoring programs

Abstract

Public awareness of soils contamination has increased in recent years due in part to the notoriety associated with the indiscriminate release, packaging, transporting and disposal of hazardous materials. In 1980, and again in 1982, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was responsible for designing, implementing and conducting environmental monitoring programs at Love Canal in Niagara Falls, New York, and in Dallas, Texas, that dealt with suspected contaminated soils. Both of these monitoring programs were conducted over a relatively short time with the collection and analysis of over 4000 soil samples. The methods employed by the Environmental Protection Agency for providing soil data that was scientifically valid and of defensible quality for each of these monitoring programs are presented. Also, methods for identifying data bias, its precision and its uncertainty are identified.