Wrapping up Samplegeddon for 2019
Over the last year the department provided various updates through Aqua Talk articles regarding Samplegeddon – the year all nine-year, six-year, three-year, annual, six-month, quarterly, and monthly monitoring compliance schedules converged. While this convergence potentially created an increased sampling burden on many of our public water systems, it is necessary to ensure that safe drinking water is being provided to the citizens and visitors of Colorado.Because this occurrence happens just once every nine years, the department worked diligently throughout 2019 to remind water systems of their monitoring requirements. Now that Samplegeddon is over, here are some updates on the final compliance numbers and lessons learned.
Final Samplegeddon numbers
Based on the figure below, as of March 29, 2020:
- Overall, approximately 98% of all routine sampling requirements ending on December 31, 2019 were completed.
- Out of the 15,088 sampling requirements, only 349 were not satisfied
- In total, 1,795 monitoring and reporting violations were issued for sampling requirements in the monitoring period that ended on December 31, 2019. For certain sampling requirements such as total coliform, multiple violations may have been issued. Additionally, due to late reporting, violations may have been issued for sampling requirements that are now marked as complete.
Figure 1: Sampling Requirements for All Schedules Ending December 31,
2019
Lessons learned and recommendations
To avoid potential violations and reduce processing times, the department
recommends the following:
- Collect and deliver samples to a certified laboratory early in your compliance period.
- Many samples were collected at the end of the 2019 monitoring period. This caused an increase in demand for laboratory services and made it difficult for laboratories to process sample results prior to the January 10th submission deadline. Several samples, which were collected at the end of the monitoring period, were analyzed and reported over two months after the submission deadline. Submitting results late is not an acceptable practice for future monitoring periods and may result in violations.
- Collect gross alpha including uranium and combined uranium on the same day.
- Collecting samples on the same day can prevent errors in sample collection and cuts back on our data processing time.
- In order to be eligible to be subtracted in the gross alpha excluding uranium calculation, systems on a three-year, six-year, or nine-year monitoring schedule for gross alpha excluding uranium must collect the combined uranium sample within the gross alpha excluding uranium monitoring period and within 365 days of the gross alpha including uranium sample. In order to be eligible to be subtracted in the gross alpha excluding uranium calculation, systems on a quarterly monitoring schedule for gross alpha excluding uranium must collect the combined uranium sample within the same quarter as gross alpha including uranium.
- Check the monitoring schedules of seasonal systems and collect required samples prior to depressurization.
- Fill out the chain of custody form for each sample bottle with the appropriate information (PWS ID, Facility ID, Sample PT ID, Collection Date, etc.) This will ensure that sample results are recorded correctly and automatically applied to the corresponding sampling requirement.
- Ensure sample results are submitted in a timely manner – even if they are not due yet!
- In some cases, reporting sample results long after they’ve been analyzed can result in violations. For example if a sample result is high enough to trigger increased monitoring, the supplier will be accountable for all monitoring periods in which they should have been on increased monitoring. Monitoring violations could be issued for all missed monitoring periods and compliance with the maximum contaminant level will be evaluated with the data received over the applicable monitoring periods – even if those quarters did not have data!
Closing Thoughts
Collecting water samples is critical to ensuring safe drinking water
and protecting public health. It is impossible to know and, when
necessary, improve the quality of our water supplies without sample
collection. The department would like to thank water suppliers,
operators, samplers, and laboratory analysts for contributing to an
outstanding 98% compliance rate. This is something the department is
very proud to be a part of. It could not have been achieved without the
help of our tremendous partners. Bravo!
➽ Jamie Duvall, drinking water compliance assurance
