This e-mail (attached PDF) will be the only announcement regarding the upcoming course. Please forward this message to targeted personnel within your agency, partner agency or tribe.

You are invited! 2015 Pesticide Regulatory Education Program Laboratory Issues Course

Dates: Monday-Thursday, April 13-16, 2015 with travel Sunday and Friday
Location: Holiday Inn Savannah Historic District, Savannah, Georgia

This four-day course is offered by Washington State University with funding provided by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The goal of this course is for participants to share knowledge, expertise and processes in order to build, maintain and manage a modern pesticide laboratory. The target audience is laboratory directors or senior analysts who work under FIFRA cooperative agreements, with a secondary priority going to a select number of compliance managers or field staff supervisors.

The planning faculty has selected the following areas as the focus of the Laboratory Issues PREP:

• Detection Limits: balance your regulatory needs against analytical limits
  • Engage enforcement programs to communicate data analysis goals
  • Avoid problematically low detection limits
  • Interpret and communicate data results in relation to levels of detection
• Modern technology   
  • Share experiences about funding for, acquiring, and using modern technology
  • Discuss the quandary of newer technology for data generation and reporting
• Measurement Issues and environmental fate for particular metabolites and pesticides
• Accreditation processes, lessons learned, and benefits of collaboration

Selected participants will be tasked with doing some homework prior to coming to Savannah related to detection limits and modern technology. The agenda will include presentations and small/large group discussions. Participants may be required to deliver a brief (5 or 10-minute) overview of an aspect of their organization’s laboratory issues. WSU will provide participants ample time to address their homework assignments in order to prepare for the PREP Course.

Nomination Process

• Nominate one person
  • States, territories, tribes
    • All travel expenses will be covered by WSU; airfare will be managed through WSU’s travel agency
  • EPA regions, headquarters, or federal partner
    • WSU will invoice each federal agency participant for all course expenses
• Electronic Nomination Deadline: Monday, January 26, 2015 
• Nomination website: http://events.SignUp4.net/PREP_2015_Lab_Nominee
  • This link is not posted to the PREP web site and can only be found in this email (or PDF).
• Electronic submission: prepare your text for #3 and #4 below prior to registering your “Nomination” so that you can simply copy and paste the text into the electronic nomination from a word document. Information to be collected with the electronic nomination

1. Name agency or tribe, city, state, email, phone, years of service
2. Airline tickets: Full name, birth date, gender, possible departure airports
3. Scope of nominee’s job responsibilities – limit 100 words
4. Why this training is essential to job responsibilities – limit 100 words

• Only complete nominations will be considered; incomplete submissions may be rejected
• Upon submission, nominee will receive an emailed receipt for the submission
• Posting of submitted nominees: http://PREP.wsu.edu — click 2015 Courses -> Laboratory Issues
  • Does not indicate acceptance into the course

Selection of Participants

• Accepting 24 state, territory, and tribe laboratory/compliance participants who work under FIFRA cooperative agreements
• Accepting as many EPA staff as space permits
• PREP Planning Faculty will make the selections based on how well the nominee meets the target participant criteria and why the training is essential to their job responsibilities
• All nominees will receive notification of selection or non-selection
• Selection notification will be completed by Monday, February 2
  • Posting of SELECTED participants: http://PREP.wsu.edu — click 2015 Courses -> Laboratory Issues

If at any time you or other personnel require more information or assistance, please contact one of the WSU PREP Campus staff members at 509-335-2952 or PREP.SLA@wsu.edu.  Information, such as the travel policy, is available at the PREP Campus web site: http://prep.wsu.edu.

On behalf of WSU and US EPA, we thank the Planning Faculty for all of their hard work in developing an agenda that promises to be engaging.  Thank you Georgia Department of Agriculture for offering to assist with the course and its field trip.  We look forward to offering the Laboratory Issues PREP Course and appreciate your assistance in nominating appropriate individuals.

Sincerely,

Carol Black
PREP Program Manager
Washington State University
PO Box 646382
Pullman, WA 99164
509-335-2830 (o) Pacific Time
208-301-3654 (c)
ramsay@wsu.edu

Dea Zimmerman
PREP Coordinator
U.S. EPA
Office of Pesticide Programs
77 West Jackson Blvd., Mail Code: LC-8J
Chicago, IL 60604-3507
312-353-6344 Central Time
zimmerman.dea@epa.gov