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Event Details

General Information
Event Name: Uniform Federal Policy for Quality Assurance Project Plans (UFP-QAPP)
Hosted By: Environmental Response Training Program (ERTP)
ERT-OSRTI
Event Description:

Current description – Focus on Project Planning

Overview:                        

This 1-day course is designed to gain buy-in regarding the need for QAPPs, provide technical guidance for reviewing the UFP-QAPP format, and instruct participants in using UFP-QAPPs as an effective tool to plan projects involving U.S. EPA environmental information (not just lab data) gathering activities.  The course targets project decision makers, remedial project managers (RPM), on-scene coordinators (OSC), information end users, and quality assurance (QA) personnel, as well as technical staff who support planning and environmental information collection, processing, validation, and use.  This course emphasizes aspects of the UFP-QAPP that project managers/decision makers need to focus on, but also provides an overview of those parts of a UFP-QAPP that are largely chemistry-related and for which chemists and other technical specialists would be responsible.  The course teaches decision makers and technical support personnel what should go into UFP-QAPPs; i.e., how to manage, review, and use them for project planning, NOT how to write them.  The course will involve three primary modes of teaching: lectures with audio-visual aides, exercises for course participants using example UFP-QAPP worksheets, and plenty of time for answering participant questions and open discussion.

Target Audience:            

EPA Project Managers, project planners, decision makers, information end users, chemists, subject matter experts, lab procurement specialists, technical auditors, information validators, information assessors, and QA Managers; basically, anyone involved in any phase of environmental information (not just lab data) planning, gathering, analysis, validation, interpretation, use, and decision making.

After completing the course, participants will be able to:

  • Understand that you must have QAPPs for your environmental investigations and learn why you will want them.
  • Know that the heart of your project and of the QAPP is planning and developing the problem statement, objectives, the decisions that you need to make, and the information you need to gather to make those decisions.
  • Know that chemistry is in service of project planning and decision making – chemistry gets you the information you need to make your decisions.
  • Gain understanding of elements of a UFP-QAPP that focus on:
    • Project planning
    • Defining the problem in the form of well thought out questions that support the decisions that need to be made
    • Setting objectives, including determining the information you need to make the decisions
    • Establishing decision-making criteria
    • Defining project action limits and analytical sensitivity needs
    • Defining field sampling activities and requirements
    • Defining the information usability assessment process for assessing whether the information gathered is of sufficient type, quantity, and quality to enable decision-making
  • Learn:
    • To carefully consider who the information end users are and get their help in planning
    • What to look for in your UFP-QAPP to make sure that it will achieve the objectives of the investigation
    • About the chemistry-related elements of a UFP-QAPP and what needs to be in them
    • That project managers do not need to know the chemistry content in detail, but that they should pass on those parts of the QAPP to their technical experts to review

Continuing Education Units: 0.8

Unless otherwise specified, THIS COURSE, AND OTHER ERTP COURSES, IS NOT OPEN TO CONSULTANTS, CONTRACTORS, OR ANY PRIVATE ENTITIES.
*This course is offered free of charge to all registrants who are confirmed to attend.*

IMPORTANT NOTICES – Applicable to all ERTP courses :

  1. ERTP’s receipt of a Trainex course registration is a Registration Request, it is not a Guaranteed Enrollment in the Course. All ERTP training courses require applicant registration thru the Trainex system. Last minute course arrivals without prior ERTP Trainex course registration approval is not permitted. Before ERTP issues final approval to deliver any course and/or any EPA offices incurring expenses for the training event (including but not limited to EPA staff travel TA’s and/or ERTP training contractor expenses incurred), all EPA mandatory pre-approvals must all be met. The pre-approvals include (but are not limited to) the following:

    • Training location’s availability;
    • COVID status and/or other COVID Guidelines in effect for the location, as well as staff;
    • Agency limitations, scrutiny, and approvals of ‘Conference Spending Requirements (known as the “5170”)’ for the specific training course(s) scheduled delivery timeframe;
    • Weather (blizzard, hurricane, etc);
    • Contractual number of available course training slots;
    • EPA training location staff having priority registration over all other registrations; and/or
    • Hosting site Training Coordinator approval.

    In the event a course is subsequently postponed or canceled, or notification of registration cancellation is received, all EPA travel arrangements (airline/car rental/hotel) should be canceled in a timely manner. Registered students will receive a notification via email if/when a course is postponed and/or cancelled.
     
  2. For in-person course deliveries, confirmed course registered participants must abide by all facility physical access requirements for the location (examples: check-in at the security gate, Federal ID, Government PIV/CAC cards, photo id’s, etc.). If applicable for the course or location, restrictions may apply to non-citizens and acceptable identification may be required for facility entry.
Event Host:Environmental Response Training Program (ERTP)
Additional Information:

Course Dates are 5/11/2023 - 8:00 am to 5:00 pm  (Thursday)

Intended for U.S. EPA Region 3 personnel only or by invitation.  

Class hours each day are 8:00 to 5:00, unless otherwise indicated.

Entry Requirements to Federal Facilities - Training Exchange (trainex.org)

Region 3: EPA Region 3 courseEPA REGION 3 STAFF HAVE PRIORITY REGISTRATION FOR THIS COURSE.

Once a registration is approved, the applicant will receive a confirmed enrollment email notification (usually in the form of a confirmed Outlook email calendar event (that is not identified as “Hold the Date”).

IMPORTANT NOTICE – Actions required by EPA staff for the items that are specific to this training event/course:

3. Conference Spending Requirements (known as the “5170”) -Applicable to all ERTP in-person courses & training dates– All EPA staff travel spending will be closely monitored/scrutinized for 5170 cost-monitoring requirements. All EPA staff registering for the above course registration links are requested to notify the EPA/Region staff identified at the bottom of this webpage in advance and provide the preliminary cost estimate details in writing via email. The Region POC and/or other EPA staff are responsible for tracking EPA 5170 spending for this training event. Travel spending includes all funds to be paid for by EPA. The 5170 conference spending requirement is not applicable to participants external to EPA, where EPA is not funding travel.

EPA travel spending “Project Code for this training event: The unique project code for this training event is ME0303UF.****

 

****Participants are responsible for ensuring this code, once it is assigned, is used in the Site Project field under the Accounting tab in Concur. This code must be used for all travel authorizations, travel vouchers, and local travel vouchers related to this specific training course event. For the code shown as “TBD”, upon receipt of OCFO’s approval this webpage will be updated to add the approved code. For TA’s approved in advance, it is the traveler’s responsibility to ensure the TA is amended to add the correct project code(s) and/or MUST be added to the final Travel Voucher. For some back-to-back delivered courses, two different unique travel codes may be required. If needed, your FCO/Funds Certifying Official can provide assistance to ensure the code is entered correctly in Concur.

****Note: ERTP’s training contractors are NOT involved in EPA’s internal 5170 conference spending processes or approvals. All 5170 related questions are to be forwarded to the Region course POC, or Region Training Coordinator, and/or the EPA ERTP Contracting Officer Representatives (COR’s).

Registration Status: Completed
Event Begins: May 11, 2023 at 8:00 AM
Event Ends: May 11, 2023 at 5:00 PM
For questions about this event, please contact: Registrar
Phone: 513-251-7669
E-mail: ertp-registrar2@tetratech.com
Location
This event will be held at: U.S. EPA - Region 3
4 Penn Center
1600 JFK Blvd.
Chestnut Room
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Location Map:
These maps are for getting a general idea of the location - they may not be 100% accurate.
Click here to view
Location Contact Information: Verena Joerger
Phone: 215-814-2218
E-mail: joerger.verena@epa.gov
 
   
   

 

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