USEPA Water Supply Laboratory Certification Program
The US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), maintains a program designed to ensure that
state public laboratories monitoring public drinking water supplies for regulated chemical and microbiological contaminants
meet strict quality requirements.
This program also gives each state's Water Supply regulatory body the authority to inspect and certify private and non-regulatory
government laboratories within the state for the analysis of regulated chemical and microbiological contaminants.
This certification allows these laboratories to generate data that can be submitted to relevant local, state, and
federal authorities on behalf of public water suppliers to document regulatory compliance. The state Water Supply
regulatory body is also authorized to approve laboratories for the analysis of analytes not regulated by USEPA that
the state has an interest in monitoring.
In Mississippi, the Department of Health is the enforcement authority for the SDWA. Within the agency, the
Public Health Laboratory's Environmental Chemistry Division operates and maintains the Water Supply Laboratory
Chemistry Certification Program, while the Environmental Microbiology Division is responsible for the Water Supply
Laboratory Microbiology Certification Program.
The MSDH Water Supply Laboratory Certification Program inspects and certifies laboratories located within the state
of Mississippi, while it also maintains a reciprocity program in which recognized certified laboratories located outside
the state may conduct Water Supply analysis for Mississippi public water systems.
