BATTELLE WINS $2.6 MILLION GRANT FROM EPA TO VERIFY MONITORING TECHNOLOGIES
BATTELLE WINS $2.6 MILLION GRANT FROM EPA TO VERIFY MONITORING TECHNOLOGIES

October 24, 1997

Battelle recently was awarded a $2.6 million cooperative agreement from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to verify the effectiveness of environmental monitoring technologies.

The grant will enable prospective manufacturers, users, and regulators of such technologies to obtain objective and credible data from Battelle about how the technologies will perform and meet regulatory requirements.

"We hope to be to environmental monitoring technologies what the Underwriters Laboratories is for products,@ said Karen Riggs, Deputy Manager of Battelle's Atmospheric Science and Applied Technology Department and manager of the project. AWe will become the verification center for these technologies."

The project will evaluate commercially-available monitoring technologies for air, water, and soil. Air monitoring will be the first phase of the project. Although the EPA will supply the seed money, Riggs said the goal is for the project to become privatized after three years. Subsequent funds to operate the project would come from companies seeking to have their technologies verified.

The stakeholders will be involved in identifying technology needs, developing verification protocols, and reviewing verification results. Regulators, industrial representatives, environmental interest groups, technology developers, and professional and trade associations will be recruited to participate as stakeholders.

Key Battelle staff involved in the project are:

  • Karen Riggs - Project Manager
  • Gretchen Hund - Stakeholder Involvement
  • Tom Kelly - Technology Verification
  • Helen Latham B Project Promotion
  • Mary Duchi - Privatization
  • Sandy Anderson - Quality Assurance.
"Our completed reports will give the results of the verification testing," Riggs said. "We will not offer recommendations or endorsements. Interested parties can take the results and make their own decisions."

The EPA instituted the Environmental Technology Verification Program (ETV) to verify the performance of innovative technical solutions to problems that threaten human health or the environment. Managed by EPA's Office of Research and Development, ETV was established to substantially accelerate the entrance of new environmental technologies into the domestic and international marketplace.

ETV verifies commercial-ready, private sector technologies through 12 pilot projects, including the one managed by Battelle. Those projects and additional information on each can be found at http://www.epa.gov/etv on the World Wide Web.

Battelle serves industry and government by developing, commercializing, and managing technology. With a wide range of scientific and technical capabilities, Battelle puts technology to work for clients in 30 countries.