A recent U.S. Environmental Protection Agency audit of two commercial-testing laboratories in Hawai'i revealed a need for improvement at Aecos Laboratory of Hawaii and the Food Quality Laboratories for some water-quality testing.

The EPA graded Aecos unacceptable and Food Quality conditionally acceptable for water-quality testing on a species of indigenous Hawaiian sea urchin. The labs perform toxicity tests for companies that have permits for wastewater discharge.

"These tests are important to determine the toxicity of wastewater discharges to marine life," said Alexis Strauss, water division director for the EPA Pacific Southwest region. "Permittees with toxic discharges need to identify the chemicals causing toxicity and reduce them to nontoxic levels."

The audit reports provide recommendations to each lab on how to correct and improve its water-quality testing and the EPA has requested corrective action plans from both labs.