| Abstract: | The need for a national consensus standard for quality assurance (QA) for environmental programs emerged from efforts to clean up sites contaminated by hazardous chemical and/or radioactive wastes. The waste management community has been using several different standards or sets of requirements for establishing the QA and quality control (QC) procedures for use during the cleanup of contaminated sites. Some of these requirements have been imposed by federal agencies, including the Department of Energy (DOE), the Department of Defense (DOD), the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Often, requirements have been chosen to fit a particular mission or regulatory requirements. The remediation and restoration of federally owned or operated hazardous waste sites has created a situation in which multiple organizations (including federal and state regulators, site operators, and remedial contractors) are overseeing or addressing the same technical problem, often at the same site, and using different QA requirements. The occurrence of multiple QA/QC requirements has resulted in costly and time-consuming duplication of effort. In addition, the perception of inconsistent and often conflicting requirements has created confusion and frustration. The need for a single set of QA/QC criteria to bring order and consistency to the application of QA in the environmental waste management area became increasingly clear, and led to the development of ANSI/ASQC E4, which may be approved and issued by this year. |
