You are invited to join a Primary Quality Assurance Organization Subcommittee (PQAO) that has been created by TAMS. At the last TAMS Steering Committee meeting in September, PQAO’s were brought up as an item that needs to be looked at closer as more and more Tribes are monitoring to compare to the NAAQS. The PQAO Subcommittee is currently discussing the feasibility of the TAMS Center becoming a primary PQAO for a network of Tribes who wish to join. There are benefits to this approach and there may be disadvantages as well but if you are collecting data in order to compare to the NAAQS you may benefit by ensuring Quality Assurance procedures.
The PQAO Subcommittee is currently discussing program feasibility as well as whether it is feasible or if Tribes would be generally interested. Even if the TAMS Center does not become a PQAO for Tribes, the materials that will be developed throughout the process could serve to assist Tribes that may want to set up a PQAO in their own areas through either collaborating with other Tribes or collaborating with their respective State or County.
If you have any questions regarding what has been discussed so far or the overall goals of the PQAO Subcommittee, please feel free to email TAMS Steering Committee member Syndi Smallwood at ssmallwood@pechanga-nsn.gov or Southern California Tribal Air Monitoring Collaborative Facilitator Helen Waquiu at hwaquiu@pechanga-nsn.gov. Questions regarding Quality Assurance requirements for comparison to NAAQS and questions about PQAO’s in general can be directed to Melinda Ronca-Battista, TAMS at Melinda.Ronca-Battista@nau.edu or Mike Papp, EPA OAQPS at Papp.Michael@epamail.epa.gov.
The next meeting for the PQAO Subcommittee is scheduled for December 7, 2010 at 11AM Pacific. For call-in information and upcoming meeting discussion items, please sign up on the list serv at https://docs.google.com/document/edit?i ... 1uwP&hl=en#
Thank you and have a great day,
Helen Waquiu Salazar
Environmental Specialist
Pechanga Environmental Department
Office: 951.770.6152
Fax: 951.695.5335
Cell: 951.216.0879
hwaquiu@pechanga-nsn.gov
Syndi Smallwood
Director, Environmental Department
Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians
(951) 770-6150 Direct
(951) 695-5568 FAX
(909) 732-8483 Cell