Developing Quality Assurance Project Plans

Carriel Cataldi and Katie O’Brien-Clayton, both environmental analysts at CT DEEP, prepare water samples for testing aboard the Research Vessel John Dempsey.

Quality Assurance is vital to reaching the goals of the Long Island Sound Study’s Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan. Applying EPA’s Environmental Information Quality Policy helps LISS generate data that are “of known and documented quality, scientifically valid, legally defensible, and appropriate for the intended use.” Essentially, quality assurance helps LISS make sure the data used for environmental decision-making are:

  • Accurate,
  • Clear,
  • Consistent,
  • Repeatable,
  • Accessible, and
  • Available.

All LISS-funded projects that include collecting new environmental data and/or using existing data in ways other than in the original intended purpose (except data collection/use solely for education and outreach purposes) are required to have an EPA-approved Quality Assurance Project Plan (QA Project Plan or QAPP) before data collection/usage begins.

QA Project Plan Resource List

The following links are to web resources that can be used to help an organization develop an EPA-approved QA plan for a LISS-funded project.

“Meet the QA Team” Training Resources

Links to PPT downloads from the 2023 training session:

Discrete Water Quality Monitoring Projects and the Water Quality Exchange (WQX)

If your project includes collecting discrete (not continuous) water quality data, then you will need to upload that data to WQX.

Set up an account for your organization

Resources

Still Have Questions?

Contact your EPA Project Officer. If you are a current or potential Futures Fund recipient, go to the Long Island Sound Futures Fund section of the NFWF website to learn more.

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