Do I need to have a contract with you to perform one-time services?
Absolutely not! We cater to any who walk in through our door. In some cases, clients will bring a blind sample to verify or cross check information that they may have received from some other laboratory. Depending on the situation, a one-time setup fee may be required to accommodate our state of the art Laboratory Information Management System.
If my current laboratory does not perform Good Laboratory Practices or is accredited, will my insurance company cover me in the event of filing false or inaccurate results?
Good question! Liability insurance is often convoluted and misleading. Our advise is to contact your insurance agent to find out if you are in fact covered in such cases. Ask your insurance agent to provide a rider to your policy indicating that you are insured against such vulnerabilities. Our experience is that the insurance agents will not return your call or “forget” that you asked. Remember if you are the one who is signing off that the results are accurate and backed up by a competent laboratory, ultimately you are the responsible party and are subject to compliance issues as the permit holder. The question you need to ask yourself is are you willing to take that risk?
Can you file electronically?
Sort of. If you are a permitted drinking water facility, laboratory results are sent electronically to the State of Missouri as required to maintain our certifications with the State of Missouri. At this time the State of Missouri does not accept electronic submission of wastewater results for permitted facilities. However, we are working with our Laboratory Information Management System designer to allow electronic signatures to be assigned to results so that the results can be sent from our offices directly to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources upon release of results without having to go to the owner/continuing authority for review and signature. The State of Missouri will soon be going all electronic submission and when that time comes, TWL will be prepared for that.
Can I bring a sample to the laboratory in my own container?
Depends. Depending on the type of test you desire, if you bring a sample in a container that is not approved, it may be rejected by the laboratory or may be flagged with some reason. The preferred method is to contact us before collecting the sample and either come by our offices for appropriate sample containers or have our laboratory assist you in collecting the samples. This will ensure that your time and money and our time and resources is best allocated.
There is a test on the list that I do not see; does that mean you can’t test for it?
Absolutely we can test the sample but maybe not in house. We have a mutual, NELAP accredited laboratory that can perform analysis on samples that TWL cannot perform in house or if one of our processes goes down. A backup NELAP laboratory is a requirement to maintain NELAP compliance. Our backup laboratory performs a host of samples and analysis that would not be cost effective for TWL to undertake at this time.
Do samples have to come in on ice?
Depends on the sample and the analysis you want performed. In most cases, samples must be on ice and/or a reasonable attempt needs to be made or the laboratory manager and/or director may reject or flag the data indicating that the sample was not brought on ice. The client will be contacted before the sample is analyzed should the sample that was brought in needed to be on ice or there was not a reasonable attempt cool the sample.
Do I receive quality assurance/quality control documents with laboratory results?
As a requirement of NELAP, all sample results must have quality assurance and quality control for every sample and to be with that sample at report writing. This can lead to large amounts of paper over time. TWL’s policy is that the information is available upon request, unless specified by contract, for the duration of required document control period. Additional fees may be assessed for the time and printing of these documents and are on a case-by-case situation.
Does Total Water Laboratories, LLC perform house calls or onsite collection of samples?
Total Water Laboratories, LLC will work with you to collect samples if you desire this service. There maybe a separate fee for collection, but you will know before the service is performed. In most cases this is preferred protocol to ensure that conflicts of interest or accusations of sample tampering is kept to a minimum. This protects you from liability and ensures that the sample was collected by a competent person.