Dictionary domainTrack F
Earth, environmental, and marine sciences
Vocabulary anchored in earth, environmental, and marine-science research disciplines.
Terms in this domain
3 terms
ELAP Certification (Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Program)
A laboratory holds ELAP certification when California's State Water Resources Control Board (Division of Drinking Water) has accredited it for specific matrix/analyte/method combinations, called "fields of accreditation," allowing it to perform environmental testing whose results can be used to satisfy California regulatory compliance reporting. Certification is field-specific rather than a single blanket credential, and it requires ongoing proficiency testing participation plus a documented quality management system consistent with the TNI Standard.
Colilert
Colilert is a defined-substrate technology (DST) reagent, manufactured by IDEXX Laboratories, used to simultaneously detect and enumerate total coliform bacteria and Escherichia coli (E. coli) in a single water sample. A test is correctly described as 'Colilert' only when it uses IDEXX's proprietary ONPG/MUG nutrient-indicator reagent, incubated per the manufacturer's protocol (24 hours for Colilert, 18 hours for the Colilert-18 variant) and read for color change (yellow indicates total coliform presence) and fluorescence under 365 nm UV light (indicates E. coli presence). Quantification requires pairing the reagent with IDEXX's Quanti-Tray or Quanti-Tray/2000 sealing system to produce a Most Probable Number (MPN) result per 100 mL. The method is standardized as Standard Methods 9223B (Enzyme Substrate Coliform Test) and is included on the U.S. EPA's list of approved analytical methods for Safe Drinking Water Act compliance monitoring under 40 CFR Part 141.
NELAC (National Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Conference)
NELAC (National Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Conference) was the multi-state, EPA-supported effort that created the original national standard for accrediting environmental testing laboratories, replacing separate state-by-state certification schemes. The standard is now governed by The NELAC Institute (TNI) and implemented through the National Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Program (NELAP), under which recognized state and other Accreditation Bodies grant scoped accreditation -- specific to matrix, analyte, and test method -- to individual labs. In field usage, 'NELAC accreditation' commonly means current NELAP accreditation to the TNI Standard.
