Education & Events
With new advancements in technology, testing methods, and industry compliance standards, we’re at the forefront of environmental laboratory testing. We believe it’s our duty to help you stay up to date and understand what we’re doing to contribute to our industry.
Learn more about ways SVL is staying abreast of the science involved in environmental testing. Plus, stay tuned for exciting events and SVL news.
Understanding Control Charts
What are control charts? Control charts are a visual depiction of ongoing data points that various statistics are applied to. The EPA used to require a laboratory to adjust its spike acceptance recovery percentage based upon how spikes were recovered over time...
How Low Can You Go – Well No Lower Than The MDL
There is always confusion on how low a lab can go when it comes to what their instruments can detect. The EPA and TNI came together and changed how Method Detection Limits (MDL) are established for an instrument or group of instruments. They wanted to account for the...
Significant Figures Use by Laboratories
What determines the amount of numbers you see on your report? Each test that we do has a level of sensitivity associated with it. Tests that you can do by visual inspection have the lowest sensitivity and are usually reported in whole numbers in a range of say 1 to...
New Drinking Water COC for Coliform Bacteria Available
We’ve updated our Drinking Water COC/Submittal Form for Coliform Bacteria. You can download it off of our Resources page.
The Argument on “Total” Metals
Why is there still an argument about which digestion method should be reported as “total” metals? When you’re looking at an old QAPP, permit or analytical report, you might have noticed that there were different listings for how the metals were to be identified and...
Exciting changes: a new location
After 16 years in our current location, we a relocating our Coeur d'Alene laboratory service to our Kellogg location and establishing a new sample drop-off location in Hayden. Here are some important dates to keep in mind: March 18, 2021: The last day to drop samples...