DEP Reaches Penalty Agreement With Research Laboratory REI Consultants

The Department of Environmental Protection Wednesday announced it has fined research laboratory REI Consultants, Inc. $75,000 for violations at their Beaver, WV, lab.

REI Consultants will also need to fund a third party assessor to review the lab’s abilities to meet accreditation standards as part of the consent order and agreement with DEP.

“We believe, with this agreement, REIC will become a lab that consistently generates valid and accurate data,” said Dr. Martina McGarvey, director of the DEP Bureau of Laboratories.

In March 2015, DEP’s Laboratory Accreditation Program conducted a regularly scheduled on-site assessment of REIC and found that the laboratory’s management was not providing adequate oversight and training of the laboratory personnel.

In addition, there were numerous violations during the data review and on-site assessment of REIC. Based upon the DEP’s assessment, REIC agreed to voluntarily relinquish certain accreditations and the DEP then suspended other areas of accreditation for the fields impacted by the violations.

Pennsylvania DEP is REIC’s primary accreditation authority, but the lab does not perform compliance testing for DEP. REIC uses its primary National Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Program accreditation from DEP to obtain secondary NELAP accreditation from Virginia.

REIC is an environmental laboratory performing primarily commercial environmental and industrial laboratory services to outside customers in microbiology, wet chemistry, trace metals, and organics primarily in non-potable water, and Solid & Chemical Materials.

In addition to the $75,000 fine the lab has agreed to hire an independent third-party auditor to review the lab’s operations abilities to meet the conditions of its accreditation. Any issues the independent auditor’s report uncovers must be corrected within 30 days.

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