UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
                     GUIDANCE FROM HOTLINE COMPENDIUM
                                                                              WSGH31
                                                              Date Issued: December 1990
SUBJECT:    State Programs for Laboratory Certification

SOURCE:     BaldevBathija
              Carl Reeverts
Title 40 CFR, Section 142.10 set forth the requirements for a determination of primary
enforcement responsibility.  Specifically, Section 142.10(b)(3)(i) requires the establishment and
maintenance of a State program for the certification of laboratories conducting analytical
measurements of drinking water contaminants.  Furthermore, Section 142.10(b)(3)(i) states that
the requirements of this section conducted at laboratories operated by the State and certified by
the Agency.  As such the question is asked:   can State primacy be maintained when the only
certified laboratories are privately owned and no State run laboratory is certified?

       Response:

       No, the State must maintain a principal State lab that is certified in order to retain
       primacy.  The principal State laboratory system must have the capability to analyze every
       contaminant included in the drinking water regulation (40 CFR 142.10(b)(4)); however,
       an individual laboratory that is part of a principal State laboratory system may be certified
       for only one, several, or all the cited analyses. If a principal State laboratory contracts
       with another laboratory, including a laboratory outside the State, to assume the lead role
       in analyzing a regulated parameter (e.g., radiochemical contaminants) that contract
       laboratory will, for the purposes of this manual, be considered part of the principal State
       laboratory system.

       In this case, the contract laboratory must be certified by EPA, unless the contract
       laboratory is in another State, and that State has certified the laboratory for the
       contaminants of interest, with the concurrences of the two affected EPA Regions.

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