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Development of LC/MS/MS Methods for Implementation in US EPA’s Drinking Water Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Regulations
Citation:
Shoemaker, J. Development of LC/MS/MS Methods for Implementation in US EPA’s Drinking Water Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Regulations. 13th Annual LC-MS/MS Workshop on Environmental and Food Safety, Buffalo, New York, June 11 - 12, 2017.
Impact/Purpose:
The purpose of this presentation is to educate the LC/MS community about drinking water method development utilizing LC/MS techniques and their usage in UCMRs. This will help familiarize the community with EPA methods and allow for feedback on improvements.
Description:
Well-characterized and standardized methods are the foundation upon which monitoring of regulated and unregulated contaminants in drinking water are based. To obtain reliable, high quality data for trace analysis of contaminants, these methods must be rugged, selective and sensitive as well as accurate and precise. The EPA’s Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water collects nationwide occurrence data on contaminants in drinking water using the Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Regulations (UCMRs) promulgated under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The unregulated contaminants, which are potential candidates for future regulation, may be selected from the Drinking Water Contaminant Candidate List (CCL), or may be contaminants of emerging concern. Standardized methods are needed that will produce data of sufficient quality for accurate monitoring of chemicals on the CCL, or chemicals of emerging concern in drinking water, under the UCMR program. Better monitoring data will assist EPA in making regulatory decisions and help safeguard the nation’s drinking water supply from harmful drinking water contaminants. Over the past decade, 12 drinking water methods have been developed using LC/MS or LC/MS/MS and 5 of these methods have been or will be used in UCMRs 1-4 to gather nationwide occurrence data on drinking water contaminants. The primary focus of this presentation will be on the application of LC/MS/MS techniques to the analysis of CCL or emerging contaminants, the steps involved in the method development process, and current method verification practices.
