National Water Quality Laboratory-A Profile
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"Changing water into data" |
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Fact Sheet FS-053-01
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Leadership |
Front view shows north wing of the National Water Quality Laboratory, Denver, Colorado. |
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| The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water Quality Laboratory (NWQL) is a full-service laboratory that specializes in environmental analytical chemistry. The NWQL's primary mission is to support USGS programs requiring environmental analyses that provide consistent methodology for national assessment and trends analysis. |
This mission directly supports the USGS, which, in part, is charged with providing the Nation with reliable, impartial earth-science information to help decisionmakers manage the Nation's water resources. To contribute to this information base, the NWQL provides the following:
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High-quality chemical data
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Consistent, published, state-of-the-art methodology
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Extremely low-detection levels
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High-volume capability
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Biological unit for identifying benthic invertebrates
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Quality assurance for determining long-term water-quality trends
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Professional staff
| The NWQL has a highly trained and talented work force, and a history of quality and leadership in development of analytical methods for water, sediment, and tissue. The NWQL offers comprehensive services through a modern facility designed for efficient and safe operation. It was moved into a new building in spring 1999 on the Denver Federal Center campus. | 
Glass-walled center module connects the north and south wings. |
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The NWQL provides environmental analyses to meet a variety of water-quality objectives for the USGS and its customers. Some USGS customers have data-quality objectives that require routine methods of analysis, such as inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry for trace metals. Other customers ask the NWQL to detect minute quantities (low levels) of organic compounds, thus requiring more advanced methods of sample preparation and analysis. These "trace" and "ultratrace" concentrations require methods of analysis that, in some instances, are more stringent than that required for many present standards of water quality and include compounds that are not available from any standard analysis. Detections of even trace amounts of compounds can be important when classifying or defining the environment in which water quality might be changing.
Whatever the need¾chain-of-custody requirements, development of new analytical methods for emerging contaminants, custom methods, or biological assessment¾the NWQL is prepared to meet the request for analytical services. NWQL data are used by the USGS to describe and understand the earth's hydrology through the professional application of science and technology to physical, chemical, and biological analyses of water, river and lake sediment, and aquatic biota.
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