Water Laboratory Alliance

Supporting a nationwide network of laboratories with responding to contamination incidents using lab resources.

On this page:

• About the Program
• Types of Assistance
• How This Program Helps Build Resilience
• Connections to Other EPA, Federal, or Non-Governmental Efforts

About the Program

Homeland Security Presidential Directive 9 (HSPD-9) directs the EPA to “develop nationwide laboratory networks for …water quality that integrate existing Federal and State laboratory resources, are interconnected, and utilize standardized diagnostic protocols and procedures.” The EPA’s response to HSPD-9 is the Water Laboratory Alliance (WLA).

Types of Assistance

The EPA’s WLA program offers drinking water and wastewater utilities, state and local drinking water laboratories, state and local governments, and emergency managers the technical and outreach and education assistance that can help build climate resilience.

Technical Assistance

The EPA provides the following tools and resources to help build resilience through emergency response preparedness measures and response to water contamination incidents requiring analytical support. For more information, please contact [email protected].

• Accessing Laboratory Support Guide is an interactive guide on how to find laboratory support at the local, state, regional, and federal levels.
• Analytical Preparedness Self-Assessment aims to increase stakeholder resilience and preparedness to respond to analytical needs arising from water contamination events by enhancing awareness of EPA water security tools and resources. The APS will generate a series of customized recommendations to enhance an organization's preparedness.
• Analytical Preparedness Full Scale Exercise (AP-FSE) Toolkit (pdf) provides states, water utilities, and laboratories the tools and training needed to conduct an exercise that involves coordinating laboratory support during a contamination incident. This toolkit helps states, utilities, and laboratories practice their own emergency response plans and standard operating procedures, as well as the WLA Response Plan (WLA-RP). The tool also helps participants build relationships with other response partners prior to a water contamination incident.
• Compendium of Environmental Testing Laboratories (Laboratory Compendium) is a secure, web-based tool that provides users with real-time data related to laboratory contact, capability, and capacity information.
• Continuity of Operations Plan Template for Drinking Water and Wastewater Laboratories (pdf) is a customizable template designed to provide broad recommendations to prepare for incidents that may disrupt normal operations of drinking water and wastewater laboratories to ensure continuation of their essential core functions.
• Reimbursement Tips for Emergency Laboratory Support provides information for laboratories that incur emergency response and recovery costs while supporting the water sector to obtain reimbursement for eligible services provided.
• Reimbursement Tips for Water Sector Emergency Response and Recovery (pdf) provides information that drinking water and wastewater utilities can use to maximize their ability to receive reimbursement for eligible emergency response and recovery costs incurred following an incident.
• Sampling Guidance for Unknown Contaminants in Drinking Water provides comprehensive guidance that integrates recommendations for biological, chemical, and radiochemical sample collection, preservation, and transport procedures to support multiple analytical approaches for the detection and identification of potential contaminants in drinking water.
• Selected Analytical Methods (SAM) for Environmental Remediation and Recovery identifies analytical methods for use by laboratories tasked with performing analyses of environmental samples, including those relevant to water security, following a homeland security event.
• Water Contaminant Information Tool is a secure online database with methods for more than 800 analytes, including detailed profiles for over 100 chemical, biological, and radiological contaminants of concern for the water sector. The tool compiles drinking water- and wastewater-specific data in a single location to help plan for and respond to drinking water contamination incidents.
• Water Laboratory Alliance Response Plan (WLA-RP) provides a comprehensive, national approach to coordinating emergency response to water contamination incidents that require analytical support. This plan includes water sector best practices that help sustain preparedness of laboratories, utilities, emergency managers, and other water sector stakeholders involved in water contamination incidents.

Outreach and Education Assistance

The EPA provides workshops, exercises, WLA Security Summits, live training webinars, and online training videos to prepare stakeholders of drinking water and wastewater utilities, state and local drinking water laboratories, state and local governments, and emergency managers for response to water contamination incidents requiring analytical support.

The WLA Learning Center provides several free live webinar training sessions throughout the year. Training resources and opportunities include the following:

• Virtual WLA Workshop Series: Water Sector Emergency Response Planning helps participating organizations develop a roadmap that will guide the revision (or creation) of ERPs that include analytical support considerations. For more information about hosting or participating in a workshop, please contact [email protected].
• Chain of Custody Training is a two-part video training series on chain of custody.
• WLA Security Summits provide stakeholders, emergency managers, and WLA members with the opportunity to network and practice elements of the WLA-RP using a tabletop exercise format. In addition, the Summits provide an opportunity to exchange ideas and information on resources developed by the WLA Team to support analytical resilience in response to water contamination incidents.
• EPA’s quarterly WLA newsletters reach more than 1,000 stakeholders. For the latest newsletter, please contact [email protected].

How This Program Helps Build Resilience

The WLA program can help water and wastewater entities, state and local drinking water laboratories, state and local governments, and emergency managers prepare for and respond to water contamination incidents by providing tools and resources. These are incidents that could occur due to climate impacts.

WLA membership includes over 140 laboratories nationwide and 130 liaisons that actively assist in connecting water sector stakeholders. The WLA program has trained thousands of water and wastewater stakeholders to include utilities, state and local drinking water laboratories, state and local governments, and emergency managers nationwide on water contamination incident response. It supported the analysis of over 10,000 laboratory samples across 17 full-scale exercises.

Connections to Other EPA, Federal, or Non-Governmental Efforts

The EPA is a member of the Integrated Consortium of Laboratory Networks, which coordinates federally sponsored analytical laboratory services for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear incidents. Other members include the U.S. Department of Homeland Security; U.S. Department of Health and Human Safety; U.S. Department of Agriculture; U.S. Department of Defense; U.S. Department of Energy; U.S. Department of State; U.S. Department of Interior; and U.S. Department of Justice. The consortium works on providing laboratory surge capacity support, defining key process steps for information exchange, and sharing data during an incident.

The EPA’s WLA Team also routinely collaborates with EPA Center for Environmental Solutions and Emergency Response (CESER) and the EPA Office of Emergency Management (OEM) on validation of newly developed methods for contaminants of concern, and to ensure WLA stakeholders are aware of CESER and OEM tools and resources.

The EPA’s WLA Team works in partnership with the Association of Public Health Laboratories to engage state and local public health and environmental laboratories to respond to water security threats or natural disasters.