MEMBERSHIP
Testing
NPHEL performs about 65,000-70,000 tests
per year. About 60% of test samples comes
from public water systems from the 1,600
municipalities across the state. Another
28% or so comes from the Nebraska
Department of Environment and Energy,
which monitors the state’s environmental
and waste waters. Private customers
account for just over 8% of samples.
In addition to water testing, the laboratory
performs blood alcohol testing for motor
vehicle cases on behalf of nearly 300 local
and state law enforcement agencies and
analyzes air samples for a PM 2.5 project
overseen by the Nebraska Department of
Environment and Energy.
Successes
The laboratory’s biggest success
comes from one of the state’s largest
environmental catastrophes, a bomb
cyclone in eastern Nebraska that
coincided with a large scale blizzard in
western Nebraska in March 2019. Extreme
storm-related flooding led all but two of
Nebraska’s 93 counties to declare a state
of emergency, and Lincoln came perilously
close to losing its public water supply
after floodwaters threatened the city’s
water pumping station. As of December
2019, Boden said, “There are still quite
a few cities, villages and individual
residents getting back their drinking
water and wastewater treatment facilities
now. The flooding has not yet completely
subsided.”
Chemist III Jim Balk, PhD, reviews results in the HPLC room.
Photo: NE Environmental Lab
PublicHealthLabs
@APHL
Nebraska Environmental Lab
During the worst of the crisis, NPHEL
coordinated with the US Environment
Protection Agency’s Region 7 office to
secure the services of its certified mobile
laboratory for on-site bacteriological water
testing. Still, said Boden, “All the overflow
samples came to us.” During several
weeks in March and April, laboratory
analysts worked overtime to “get those
samples into the incubators, get them
read out and the information back to the
public as quickly as possible.” She said,
“The flooding is still an ongoing issue for a
lot of people.”
Challenges
• Probably the biggest challenge facing
NPHEL is maintaining the laboratory
without direct control over staffing and
salary levels.
• A second problem is specimen
transport: “Since we’re a rural state,
people have to drive a bit to get to us
or their local post office,” said Boden.
“It’s a problem to get bacterial samples
to any certified lab within the 30-hour
testing window.” Because of US Postal
Service budget cuts, some Nebraska
mail now gets sent to sorting facilities
as far away as Denver, necessitating the
use of costly priority express services
to expedite sample delivery.
Lab Scientist II Tara Wolfekoetter analyzes water for coliform
and E. coli. Photo: NPHEL
Goals
• Completing the LIMS upgrade.
• Tackling two big upcoming projects:
(1) lead testing water in elementary
schools and childcare facilities and (2)
characterizing manganese levels in
drinking water sources for community
water systems serving fewer than
10,000 people. Although manganese
is necessary for human health, excess
exposure can cause memory deficits
and problems with attention and motor
skills. “It’s a big project on top of our
already heavy load.”
• Maintaining laboratory fees at a
sustainable level. “We want to do
the best we can for the public and
also have enough income to be self-
sustaining.” The fee structure is set by
statute. n
• This year NPHEL upgraded its
laboratory information management
system (LIMS) from Horizon Version
11 to Version 12. “IT people always
want you to move forward for security
purposes, so we’re moving to Version
12 and it looks dramatically different
because it’s web-based,” said Boden.
“We are also having to update
equipment and/or install new software
due to the move to Windows 10 at the
same time as we change our LIMS. It’s
kinda like starting over. …We’re still
working through the bugs.”
APHL.org
Winter 2020 LAB MATTERS
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