Several action items were resolved at this meeting listed below:

Herb reported that Tetra Tech received an additional $7K to be used between now and the end of the fiscal year (September 1997) for Task Group support activities and other ITFM-National Council activities. Additional contract support for Tetra Tech to the Methods Board is underway for FY98. Herb presented a list of activities/tasks for Jerry given the additional contract support to Tetra Tech for the end of FY97. He noted that the EPA Work Assignment Manager, Sarah Lehman, was apprised of Herb’s list and concurred. Task Group members at the meeting also concurred with Jerry’s list of tasks. Jerry felt that most of the tasks could be done by the end of September, depending on the cooperation of Task Group members (e.g., comments back to Jerry on the Fact Sheet in a timely manner).

John Klein informed the Task Group that the first National Council meeting will be October 29-30, 1997 in Reston, VA. He also noted that October 28 has been set aside for a Task Group/Methods Board meeting, prior to the National Council meeting. John and Elizabeth Fellows are finalizing council delegate selection and most of the desired representation has been obtained. John noted that the council still lacks representatives from EPA Regions 7 and 8 (midwest and rocky mountain states). Representatives from industries have also not been finalized. Also, the Army Corps of Engineers says they can not join the council because of resource issues. John asked Ann if she could find out more about this. Final delegate selection should be completed by mid-September after which acceptance letters need to be sent out. The next issue, John noted is to determine who will need travel funding to National Council meetings. The council is planning on 4 meetings in FY1998.

John reported that the FACA committee, ACWI, which oversee the National Council and the Methods Board, will have its first meeting in January or February in Albuquerque, NM.

The National Conference on Water Quality Monitoring will be July 7-8, 1998 in Reno, Nevada. Call for papers has recently been sent out and Abstracts are due November 28 (Note: this is a change from the original late October due date.)

There is a break-out session, devoted to methods issues, scheduled for the second day of the conference. The Task Group needs to decide how to best use this session. It was agreed that this break-out session should highlight Methods Board activities. The issue of lab accreditation for water quality methods (field and lab) was brought up as a possible topic for the break-out session. Herb will work with John and Michal to define objectives for the break-out session.

Several possible Abstract topics were mentioned for the National Conference:

Herb - General paper on the Methods Board

Joe Ball - Wisconsin Pilot studies

Jerry - PBMS for biological collection methods

Merle - USGS/EPA drinking water initiative

Chris - Bioassessment comparability

Herb acknowledged the need for the Methods Board to have the backing of the participating organizations, especially EPA and USGS. Herb talked with Elizabeth regarding getting EPA endorsement of the Board. To this end, Herb will meet with Bill Diamond (Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water) and Jim Hanlon (Office of Water, and link with EMMC) to discuss Board issues. After that, Herb will arrange a meeting with the Office of Water Senior Advisory Management Group for Methods, and thereafter, discuss the issues with Bob Perciasepe. John indicated that he is seeking Department of the Interior endorsement of the Methods Board as well.

Jerry lead the discussion recapping priority tasks determined by the Task Group at previous meetings. Merle raised the question whether it would be beneficial for the Board to begin by tackling a major issue in obvious need of solutions (a "500 lb gorilla or amoeba" as dubbed at the meeting). The thought was that by tackling a large, visible issue, the Methods Board might command greater respect and thereby help address the authority question currently surrounding the Board. This strategy assumes the Board could in fact tackle such a large issue in a timely manner.

One such issue raised was that of lab accreditation and specifically, the current reluctance by some states to use USGS lab data because the Denver lab is not certified within that state. States do not often reciprocate certifications obtained by labs in other states and currently, certification is for drinking water compliance monitoring only. For labs such as the USGS lab in Denver which performs monitoring in every state (and almost exclusively non-compliance monitoring), the cost and necessity for certifications in every state seems unwarranted. Herb and Ann noted that the impending formation of NELAC is also slated to deal with this same issue.

After some discussion, it was agreed that perhaps it may not be advisable for the Board to initially put as a priority lab accreditation because there are many policy and regulatory as well as technical challenges, surrounding this issue. Furthermore, it was acknowledged that resolution of this issue is more than a year off. The current discussion confirmed that the issue of lab accreditation should be discussed and methodically addressed by the Board but that the Board should have other priorities initially and seek some shorter-term successes. It was agreed that the lab accreditation issue would be a good one to discuss in the Methods break-out session at the National Conference. It was also agreed that the Board should take an active role supporting NELAC’s mission.

Bill indicated that the impending ISO 13,000, dealing with European and U.S. method comparability will also impact the lab accreditation issue.

Merle reiterated that the Board needs to serve as a clearing-house, and coordinate perhaps, new method development as well as coordinating comparability assessments of existing methods. It was acknowledged that the Board, once formed, will need to revisit the priorities set by the Task Group.

Everyone at the meeting agreed with the types of expertise already agreed previously. Chris commented that it’s important that organizations which are data users as well as data generators are represented on the Board.

All agreed there should be 4 Board meetings in FY98 as stated in the charter, however, this will depend on available resources, particularly for travel. Herb will be discussing resource issues with Elizabeth around the time of the Council meeting and John is firming up USGS resources for delegate travel to meetings.

Herb suggested that Russ Sherer be honored in some way when the Board is formed since he was the Task Group co-chair and an instrumental participant in ITFM as a whole. Everyone concurred. People should forward any ideas or suggestions to Herb.

Gary has completed and mailed out the delegate profile to Task Group members. The profile form should go out to prospective delegates along with the information package prepared by Herb and mailed out by Gary as well. Completed delegate profiles and resumes are due back to Gary by October 10.

John indicated he had some people considered for the Council but who are better suited for the Board perhaps. He will contact those people.

It was agreed that our initial efforts should be focused on obtaining the 15 voting delegates. Then, we will proceed to obtain the 15 alternate delegates.

The point was raised that we need to get the word out about the Methods Board at other conferences: for example, AWWA, WEF, ASTM, SETAC, Chuck Job’s Source Water Conference, and Telliard’s Norfolk Conference. We need to be giving presentations describing the Board, its mission and objectives, and on-going activities.

Table 1 attached, lists the potential delegate and/or organizations named at the meeting under federal, state/tribal, and private sector categories. Thus far, there appears to be 3 definite federal agencies represented (EPA, USGS, ACOE) and perhaps a fourth (NOAA-Adrianna Cantillo). Potential delegates representing either state/tribal organizations or the private sector are not as well defined yet.

Jerry drafted a letter based on the one sent out to states for the National Council. Herb, Chris, Merle, and others will review and get comments back to Jerry by September 12. Jerry will send out another revision for review by Herb, and then John and Elizabeth. The final letters should go out to prospective state organizations by the end of September.

Larry Fradkin gave a summary of the FTTA and an overview of the CRADA process. He noted that there have been many successful CRADAs with EPA and that EPA is actually a relatively small user of CRADAs as compared to DOD or DOE. CRADAs can be very flexible depending on the needs of a specific project. The advantages to the Board of setting up a CRADA are: (a) funds are non-appropriated and so are not necessarily dependent on fiscal year budgets; (b) expertise is shared among organizations; (c) the process is relatively quick (CRADAs have been formed on average within 3 months) and solution-oriented; and (d) patents, royalties, etc. are available to federal employees and private sector employees involved in the CRADA Larry indicated that public noticing of CRADAs is not required by the FTTA. The fact that USGS is doing so for the Dupont CRADA is a USGS decision and not a requirement.

Larry noted that the Board could develop a blanket CRADA that covers general financial/ administrative issues involved in all projects. Specific details for a given project would then be added to the blanket CRADA as needed. He thought that this would be a fairly easy thing to do.

The issue was raised that a federal agency entering into a CRADA with a private company (such as the USGS-Dupont CRADA) could be perceived by the public as suspicious or given the image of "being in bed with industry". Larry responded that this is small risk but that, in fact, many government officials (at least within EPA when they do a CRADA) are contacted or otherwise made aware of a CRADA under consideration. USGS’s use of federal noticing is another way to help circumvent inappropriate public perceptions.

Bill Battaglin and Ed Furlong informed the Task Group that the CRADA is nearly finalized and the latest draft was made available at the meeting for review. Several points were raised during this discussion.

It was resolved that the CRADA is still a good idea and one that the Board should probably support but that some of the issues above need to be resolved, or determined to be of no consequence to the CRADA. A letter will be drafted by Jerry and Giles that states the Task Group’s position on the CRADA as it currently stands. This letter will then be reviewed by Ann and Herb, and then sent out to the entire Task Group for review prior to sending to USGS.

Jerry distributed two revised versions of the Fact Sheet for comment. All agreed that the format should be eye-catching. Need to determine what logo to use if any. Merle will get to Jerry a short paragraph on the Drinking Water Initiative by September 12. Nutrient preservation was another issue raised for potential inclusion in the Fact Sheet. Jerry will try to finalize Fact Sheet by the end of September.

Several people noted that the Work Plan needs to sell the Board and its mission to our own managers and prospective Board delegates. The Plan should include present activities such as formation of the Board. The nutrient preservation issue and proposed method development discussed by Charlie Patton should be included in the Plan activities. Jerry will get a draft plan to Herb by September 15.

Barry Price gave a demonstration of different techniques that could be effective for a Board Home Page. It was agreed that the Home Page would be accessed out of the USGS server, not EPA’s, due to ACWI and OMB directives already in place. John thought that the layout of the Home Page could be flexible and not subject to a lot of USGS restrictions. Due to recent changes in personnel in his staff, Barry was not sure how much time he could commit to setting up a Home Page. All agreed that the site should be interactive (user group), have several categories of accessible information (Board activities, products, meeting dates and locations), and have links with broader audience web pages such as EPA and USGS home pages.

Merle distributed Charlie Patton’s handout summarizing his recent method development plans. Charlie reported he is interested in examining nutrients in filtered (0.2 µ), cold (even frozen) samples and the digested filtrate (particulate) to obtain total nutrient concentrations. He also intends to examine different filter pore sizes (0.45, 0.3, and 0.2 µ) and their effect on soluble, filtrate, and total nutrient concentrations. He will use samples having high TOC and/or high biological activity as opposed to the type of low biological activity samples used previously. Giles expressed interest in running filtered versus acidified samples for wastewater. It was resolved that the Task Group should keep discussing this issue but that this should be formally dealt with when the Board is formed.

Bill Potter summarized an IAG underway with George Aiken of USGS to develop a surrogate for TOC that would accurately predict treatment needs to reduce disinfection byproducts in drinking water. Bill noted that there is a need to determine an accurate estimate of disinfectant byproduct potential that could be used in models by treatment facilities so that more efficient treatment controls are employed. The proposed IAG has been submitted to the Grants Administration Department and Bill is awaiting a response.

Table 1. List of potential delegates for the Methods Board by sector (category).

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