 Central Environmental Laboratory
Under the M&A Program
it was clear that there was a need to establish a dedicated laboratory facility
with a primary focus on the analysis of environmental contaminants, including
oil pollution, and possessing international ISO accreditation, a sample custody
policy and quality control/quality assurance programme.
The Public Authority
of Compensation established an environmental laboratory called the Central
Environmental Laboratory ("CEL"), which was established within the scope of the
State of Kuwait's environmental claims and more particularly the Monitoring and
Assessment (M&A) Programme funded by the United Nations Compensation Commission
(UNCC).
By virtue of an
Environmental Services Agreement (ESA) signed between PAAC and Consortium of
International Consultants (CIC) on 14 January 2002, CEL was located within the
office complex of the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR). Under
the ESA, CIC would operate and manage CEL for the duration of five (5)
thereafter to be transferred back to PAAC.
From 14 January 2002
until August 2006, CEL supported the M&A projects housed within the various M&A
Clusters (Groundwater, Marine and Coastal, and Terrestrial) by performing all of
the analysis, maintaining and providing clear evidence of an appropriate quality
system, providing periodic reports on the analytical performance and reporting
the analytical data results to the requesting authorities.
CEL received an
estimated 50,000 samples from the Clusters referred to above for analysis of oil
related pollutants and for other pollutants resulting from the impact of war.
As the M&A Program
nears completion, PAAC realizing that CEL can serve as a reference, ISO
certified, analytical laboratory during the environmental
remediation/rehabilitation phase, including various entities in Kuwait or
abroad, private or public, decided to transfer CEL to Kuwait University and
arrange for it to be kept operational to perform the
following:
-
continue to
serve the remaining tasks pertaining to the ongoing M&A projects;
-
support the
State of Kuwait's Environmental Remediation Projects, as defined in the
Guidelines annexed to UNCC Governing Council decision 258; and
-
develop a
training program in collaboration with Kuwait University to train Kuwaiti
nationals to take over the operations and management of CEL.
The main components of
the ISO 17025 Accredited Lab (CEL) include:
1.
Personnel
(Management & Analysts)
2.
Instrumentation (State of the Art)
3.
Methods/Procedures (International Standards)
-
Compliance with
International Standards Methods (ROPME-MOOPAM, USEPA, ASTM)
-
Compliance with
Client Requirements
-
Multimatrix
Methods
4.
Information
Management (LIMS)
LIMS Main Characteristics:
·
Computerized
System for Information Flow Control & Recording
·
Standardized
System
·
Compliance
with Certification Requirements
·
Expandable
5.
Quality
Assessment & Quality Control (QA/QC)
Internal:
·
QC samples
(Blanks, Duplicates, LCS, MS)
·
Calibration
·
Standard &
Reagent Traceability
·
Control
Charting
·
Corrective
Action
·
Internal
Audit & Periodic QA Reports
External:
-
External Audits
-
Proficiency
Testing
-
Inter Laboratory
Comparison Exercises
6.
Documentation System
Data Deliveries:
·
Electronic
Data Deliveries (EDD’s) and/or Hard Copies
Level of detail
determined by the Client’s needs (All the information of the Data Production
Process are recorded and available upon request). |
