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Chemical Fume Hood Testing Improvements Needed to Reduce Health and Safety Risk to EPA Employess

Description

We found that the EPA complied with applicable regulations and guidance in procuring both the chemical fume hood retrofit kits and fume hood testing contracts. The EPA awarded both contracts using competition as opposed to using sole source procurement contracting methods. However, the same subcontractor, operating under the same prime contractor, is performing both the retrofitting of the chemical fume hoods and the annual testing of the hoods, which presents a potential conflict of interest. The agency already completed corrective action in response to our preliminary recommendation for this finding. In addition, our technical experts review of a sample of testing results for the chemical fume hoods raises numerous concerns with the way the testing was performed at the EPAs Research Triangle Park laboratories. The subcontractor rated the hoods as pass: When not all of the EPA requirements were met. When controllers or monitors were not functional. When the testing results did not include all required documentation. The agencys 2009 testing protocol spells out the criteria for testing and evaluating the performance of fume hoods at the EPAs laboratories, and would also be applicable to fume hood retrofitting. The EPA relied on the prime contractor to ensure the subcontractors fume hood testing met all requirements, and did not retest any of the hoods, without a users specific report of a problem. As a result, the EPA has limited assurance as to the safety of the chemical fume hoods, and there is a risk to the health and safety of the laboratory workers.