Environmental Technology Verification Report

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has established the Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) Program to facilitate the deployment of innovative or improved environmental technologies through performance verification and dissemination of information. The goal of the ETV Program is to further environmental protection by accelerating the acceptance and use of improved and cost-effective technologies. ETV seeks to achieve this goal by providing high-quality, peer-reviewed data on technology performance to those involved in the design, distribution, financing, permitting, purchase, and use of environmental technologies. Information and ETV documents are available at www.epa.gov/etv. ETV works in partnership with recognized standards and testing organizations, with stakeholder groups (consisting of buyers, vendor organizations, and permitters), and with individual technology developers. The program evaluates the performance of innovative technologies by developing test plans that are responsive to the needs of stakeholders, conducting field or laboratory tests (as appropriate), collecting and analyzing data, and preparing peer-reviewed reports. All evaluations are conducted in accordance with rigorous quality assurance (QA) protocols to ensure that data of known and adequate quality are generated and that the results are defensible. The Advanced Monitoring Systems (AMS) Center, one of six technology areas under ETV, is operated by Battelle in cooperation with EPA's National Exposure Research Laboratory. The AMS Center evaluated the performance of the CheckLight Ltd. ToxScreen-II Test Kit. This verification statement provides a summary of the test results. Rapid toxicity technologies use various biological organisms and chemical reactions to indicate the presence of toxic contaminants. The toxic contaminants are indicated by a change or appearance of color or a change in intensity. As part of this verification test, ToxScreen-II was subjected to various concentrations of contaminants such as industrial chemicals, pesticides, rodenticides, pharmaceuticals, nerve agents, and biological toxins. Each contaminant was added to separate drinking water samples and analyzed. In addition to determining whether ToxScreen-II could detect the toxicity caused by each contaminant, its response to interfering compounds, such as water treatment chemicals and by-products in clean drinking water, was evaluated. ƒ Endpoints and precision—percent inhibition for all concentration levels of contaminants and potential interfering compounds and precision of replicate analyses ƒ Toxicity threshold for each contaminant—contaminant level at which higher concentrations generate inhibition significantly greater than the negative control and lower concentrations do not. Note that CheckLight Ltd. recommends that a 50% inhibition is required for a conclusive indication of toxicity. During this test, a thorough evaluation of the toxicity …