An environmental testing company headquartered in Dayton will pay $3 million to resolve allegations that it failed to follow proper Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) methodology during some of its tests.
Accutest Corp., also known as Accutest Laboratories, is an environmental testing laboratory founded in 1956. It provides environmental analytical services to industrial, engineering/consulting and government clients, according to its website.
The settlement resolves allegations that between Jan. 1, 2011, and Dec. 31, 2013, Accutest failed to properly follow EPA standards in analyzing certain soil and water samples in its semi-volatile and extraction laboratories, U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman announced Dec. 3. It was alleged that Accutest did not properly extract samples because it did not perform the required number of shakes for waste water samples, it did not wait the required amount of time in between shakes of the samples and it did not properly “spike” samples with a known compound as part of the quality control process, possibly affecting the quality control process in place to ensure that materials in the sample were fully extracted, Fishman said.
It was also alleged that Accutest altered the settings on its gas chroma-tography/mass spectrometry machines and disregarded calibration protocols.
In addition to the $3 million payment by Accutest, the company has agreed to fully comply with the requirements of its certifying bodies regarding notice of the allegations and has agreed to notify any of its clients that could have been impacted by the alleged conduct, Fishman said.