Central California Ozone Study (CCOS) - Desert Research Institute

CCOS Field Operations Plan Version 2: 5/31/00
4.1 Quality Assurance Organization, Responsibilities, and Tasks
Quality assurance will be under the overall direction of the CCOS QA manager, Mr.
David Bush of Parsons Engineering Science. He is also the QA manager for CRPAQS, and is
consequently already managing the external quality assurance efforts for many existing
measurement efforts that will ultimately be part of the CCOS database. Due to the scope of the
CCOS supplemental monitoring effort, Parsons has assembled a QA management team to
specifically address the many aspects of the monitoring program. Mr. Robert Baxter (Parsons)
will be responsible for overseeing the audits of the surface and upper air meteorological
measurements. He will be responsible for coordinating the meteorological audits, interfacing
with supporting subcontractors (Northwest Research Associates, Inc. and T&B Systems), and
reviewing all data and reports associated with the meteorological audits. Much of the information
in this section is a summary of the December 1999 proposal written by Parsons Engineering
Science. The QA manager will also coordinate with QA staffs from the California Air Resources
Board (Mr. Michael Miguel) and the Bay Area AQMD (Mr. Avi Okin). ARB and BAAQMD
will conduct performance audits of the ozone, NO/NOx, NO/NOy analyzers at exiting
monitoring stations and at CCOS supplemental monitoring sites within their area of
responsibility.
The principle objective of the CCOS QA program is to ensure that the established data
quality objectives (DQOs) are achieved. The overall responsibility of QA manager will be to
inform the CCOS Program Manager and the CCOS Technical Committee of the steps being
taken to control and quantify data quality, provide guidance to the study participants in carrying
out their quality assurance responsibilities, and to provide a framework for using quality control
test data to create data qualification statements for the data archive. The responsibilities of the
CCOS QA manager include the following tasks.
Task 1: Evaluate sampling and analysis methods, and review system and performance
audit procedures. The QA team will request from each CCOS measurement contractor a quality
integrated work plan (QIWP), which covers all aspects of their work, as well as standard
operating procedures (SOPs) for each specific operation. The QIWP and SOPs describe the
approach for maintaining and quantifying data quality for each measurement, and will include
descriptions of and specifications for calibration, standards, control limits, data processing, and
other data quality related topics. As part of this effort, the QA team will provide guidance to
measurement contractors in preparing the QIWP, using the QIWP guidance document previously
prepared for CRPAQS. The QA team will review the data quality objectives in the QIWPs and
verify the assumptions on which the measurements are based, and determine whether the
methods are likely to meet the specifications for accuracy (or bias) and precision.
Recommendations for revisions to the QIWPs and SOPs will be submitted to the measurement
contractors. Once QIWPs and SOPs have been finalized, they will be submited to the CCOS
data manager for the data archive.
Task 2: Prepare a quality assurance plan for CCOS. The QA manager will develop a
quality assurance plan in conjunction with the CCOS field manager, field contractors, and QA
personnel from the Districts and ARB. The plan will use the NARSTO-formatted Program
Quality Management Plan (PQMP) developed for CRPAQS as a basis. The plan will include
data quality objectives, descriptions of quality control procedures for each measurement group,
Chapter 4: QUALITY ASSURANCE 4-2