Elements and Performance Criteria
- Confirm scope of water quality management
- Review legislative, regulatory and licensing requirements and approvals that apply to site/project/program.
- Review current water quality management plan, including objectives, known issues, specified management activities and any required changes.
- Review previous water quality records and reports, if available.
- Confirm that water quality monitoring sites, sampling and measurement methods, instrumentation and workplace procedures are in accordance with relevant standards and guidelines.
- Clarify own scope of responsibility/authority for achieving specific outcomes and the roles of other key personnel.
- Identify resources available to conduct water quality management activities.
- Organise water quality management activities
- Develop a consolidated schedule to ensure all activities can be conducted efficiently with the available resources.
- Develop checklists/clear work instructions to enable personnel to perform assigned tasks efficiently and with minimal errors.
- Ensure that personnel who conduct monitoring and/or collect water samples are competent to undertake their assigned tasks.
- Ensure water quality monitoring equipment is regularly calibrated and maintained and that adequate stocks of consumables are available.
- Ensure water samples are handled in accordance with the sampling method and chain of custody requirements and dispatched promptly for analysis.
- Conduct, or arrange for, regular site inspections to monitor the effectiveness of water quality management actions (if relevant to site/project/program).
- Advise relevant personnel when specified water quality management actions are not being implemented effectively (if relevant to site/project/program).
- Conduct, or arrange for, additional monitoring/inspections after atypical events, legitimate complaints or government requests.
- Verify water quality data
- Identify relevant job instructions, data and technical records in workplace information management system.
- Confirm that technical records provide sufficient information to ensure traceability/chain of custody for the monitoring activities involved.
- Compare monitoring data with expected values and identify any outliers.
- Inspect data records to identify any gaps and to check the integrity of data entry, transfers, alterations and calculations.
- Notify manager when data is incomplete or contains significant errors, and clarify what action to take.
- Determine if results are acceptable and within expectation
- Compare results with expected and/or relevant guideline values and identify any significant differences or trends.
- Check the reliability of results by examining data or results from repeat measurements and/or tests of duplicate samples or other monitoring stations.
- Assess the significance of any recorded observations of atypical environmental or meteorological conditions.
- Check that all calculations are free from error.
- Check that estimations of uncertainty are reasonable and consistent with the sampling method and relevant guidelines, if relevant.
- Report results that meet workplace data quality standards and are consistent with expectations.
- Investigate/rectify unexpected or unacceptable results
- Examine records of pre-use checks and calibration performance to ensure that the sampling equipment and/or monitoring/test instruments used meet specifications and workplace requirements.
- Establish whether human, environmental and/or meteorological factors could have affected the reliability of results.
- Check for obvious sources of interference that may have occurred during measurements or analysis of samples.
- Retrieve stored samples (if available) and assess whether they are atypical or contaminated.
- Arrange for control tests using the same or new samples to check unexpected results, if relevant.
- Report unexpected results that meet workplace data quality standards.
- Identify possible root causes of unacceptable results and appropriate preventative/corrective actions.
- Report investigation outcomes and recommendations for improvements in accordance with workplace procedures.
- Seek manager’s advice when challenges are beyond own technical competence or when input from environmental specialists may be required.
- Keep management informed about water quality performance
- Maintain water quality records
- Ensure all water quality records are legible, accurate and satisfy workplace/legislative requirements.
- Store water quality records to enable easy access and review by authorised personnel in accordance with workplace procedures.
- Regularly review water quality records to identify any significant trends and impacts.
- Identify any problems with the maintenance and security of water quality records and resolve them promptly.