The Mission of NIST Charleston
Through the National Marine Analytical Quality Assurance Program (NMAQAP),
NIST is working to improve the quality of analytical measurements for contaminants
in the marine environment. The NMAQAP was established in 1995 through an agreement
between the National Institute of Standards and Technology (Technology Administration,
U.S. Department of Commerce) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce). As part
of this agreement, the Analytical Chemistry Division within the Chemical Science
and Technology Laboratory of NIST established a satellite laboratory in Charleston,
South Carolina, tasked with several key responsibilities:
- Marine Environmental Specimen Banking - NIST has established
a satellite facility of the National
Biomonitoring Specimen Bank (NBSB) in Charleston, SC, dedicated
to banking marine environmental specimens. A primary focus of the NBSB
is the assessment of long-term trends in environmental quality. The
NBSB serves as a long-term storage repository of specimens that are
collected and stored under well-established and well-documented protocols.
Utilizing the NBSB as a long-term storage repository allows temporal
changes in the health of the environment to be gleaned from retrospective
chemical analyses of banked samples. A major focus of the NBSB is providing
specimen banking support to the Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response
Program administered by the National Marine Fisheries Service's Office
of Protected Resources and the Alaska Marine Mammal Tissue Archival
Project conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The NBSB has
about 1,000 specimens of fat, liver, and kidney tissues collected from
30 species of cetaceans (whales and dolphins), pinnipeds (seals, sea
lions, and walrus), polar bears, and sea otters. NIST is also working
with the USGS and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to incorporate
seabird specimens in the NBSB as part of a USGS effort to develop a
research and monitoring program on anthropogenic contaminants in colonial
seabirds. Read further to see how NIST's tissue banking activities helped
to save two Polar
Bear Cubs in 1999.
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- Development of Quality Assurance Exercises for Chemical Analysis
of Marine Environmental Samples - Since 1987, NIST has coordinated
interlaboratory comparison exercises for various Environmental
Monitoring and Quality Assurance Programs. Under the vehicle of
the NMAQAP and through the support of NMFS' Marine
Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program, NIST has a lead role
in the quality assurance (QA) of measurements of organic and inorganic
contaminants in marine mammals. NIST fulfills this role by providing
control materials and reference materials, coordinating interlaboratory
comparison exercises, and performing chemical analysis of strategic
samples. The Organic and Trace Element Marine Mammal QA exercises provide
the participating laboratories with an assessment of the accuracy and
comparability of their measurements. Assuring the reliability and accuracy
of analytical data for contaminants in the marine environment helps
to insure that coastal management decisions affecting changes in legislation,
health, trade, and economics are based on valid measurements. The NIST
Charleston activities are an extension of the NIST Standard Reference
Materials (SRMs) development and QA-related activities. For example,
QA interlaboratory comparison exercise materials typically use candidate
SRMs as the unknown samples analyzed, thereby providing additional information
from other laboratories, which may be used in the SRM value assignment
process.
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- Building Strategic Collaborations - NIST has entered a partnership
with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the
South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, the Medical University
of South Carolina, and the University of Charleston to build a new 78,000
square foot state-of-the-art research facility in Charleston, SC, known
as the Marine Environmental Health Research Laboratory (MEHRL). Using
a multidisciplinary research strategy, teams of scientists from the
chemical, biological, environmental, and biomedical fields will perform
cutting-edge research that focuses on solving the Nation's coastal environmental-
and health-related problems. When the MEHRL is completed in late 2000,
NIST will occupy approximately 18% of the laboratory space. Currently
NIST occupies 2000 square feet of laboratory space in the NOAA National
Ocean Service's Center for Coastal Environmental Health and Biomolecular
Research (CCEHBR), which is located adjacent to the MEHRL. Links to
the NIST Charleston Staff and MEHRL Construction Updates can be found
on the CCEHBR website.
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