MN health officials: Lab tech's 'misconduct' triggers water quality probe

Updated: 5:48 p.m. | Posted: 3:23 p.m.

A state lab worker's alleged "scientific misconduct" is forcing a review of two years of Minnesota water quality testing, including data connected to public water systems in Edina, St. Louis Park and Brooklyn Center.

While there is no "significant and immediate public health risk," state health officials said Tuesday they've put the technician on "investigative leave" and ordered an external investigation into what happened. That includes a review of some 2,200 water samples connected to the technician through May 2015, Minnesota Health Commissioner Dr. Ed Ehlinger told reporters.

The unnamed analyst works in the Health Department's public health laboratory, which conducts research for the department's environmental health unit as well as the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. The technician researched untreated groundwater, looking for contaminants, including gasoline and diesel fuel, Ehlinger said.

A review of the technician's data led to findings that the worker skipped routine steps to verify that his testing instruments were properly calibrated and "avoided quality control steps that may have generated weaker, less defensible results," the Health Department said.

No motive has been identified. But given the breakdown in procedures, the Health Department said the data could not be completely defended.

Ehlinger said the review will focus first on reanalyzing the "most sensitive" results from areas where the potential impact of the flawed data is greatest. Those include five public water supply systems — Edina, St. Louis Park, Spring Park, Kasota, and Brooklyn Center — as well as several private drinking wells in Baytown Township and adjacent areas of Washington County, and private wells near the Lindala Sanitary Landfill site in Wright County.

"If there was any risk, these are the communities most likely to have that risk," Ehlinger said, adding that it would likely take one or two months to reanalyze the data and that the probe will re-examine samples from 276 communities.

The health department chief emphasized that the total number of samples in question amount to less than 1 percent of all the samples the lab has handled the past two years but "we cannot excuse scientific misconduct."

Kirk Koudelka, assistant commissioner of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, said his agency supported the Health Department and remains confident in the agency's lab work.

Ehlinger said the department would spend $50,000 to $75,000 on outside help during the review process and that the public health lab would bear the costs.