develop consensus standards for use by TNI's programs. This group has a support role in assisting other programs with activities such as guidance and standards interpretation.
fosters the generation of data of known and documented quality is through the National Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Program, or NELAP. The purpose of this program is to establish and implement a program for the accreditation of environmental laboratories.
is to establish and maintain a national PT program to support TNI’s National Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Program, and other activities.
Field Activities Program (NEFAP) Executive Committee is to establish and implement an accreditation program for field sampling and measurement organizations (FSMOs).
Audit Sample Program is to develop consensus standards for the manufacture and analysis of audit samples for source emission testing.
on a variety of topics of interest to the environmental measurement community. TNI also hosts two regularly scheduled meetings per year, typically in January and August. Both are a week long and involve open meetings of TNI committees as well as training courses and other special sessions.Standard Interpretation
Standard: 2009 TNI
Section: V1M4, Section 1.5.4
REQUEST:
Since PTs are supposed to be treated like "real environmental samples",1 must laboratories perform second column confirmation for "hits" in PT samples analyzed by GC methods? Or, would a PT sample be considered "a positive result detected on a sample from a location that has been 3 and therefore 2nd column confirmation is not required?
TNI FINAL RESPONSE:
(Quality Systems Expert Committee and NELAP AC, 2-24-14)
The 2003 NELAC Standard (Chapter 5, Appendix D.1.5) and the 2009 TNI Standard (V1M4 1.5.4) require the laboratory to perform confirmations according to the method. The approved methods in Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Wastewater and the applicable U.S. EPA methods require confirmation on "unfamiliar samples." A PT sample (by design, a sample with unknown composition) is a sample that is "unfamiliar" to the laboratory and therefore requires confirmation per method requirements.