The Florida Senate

403.863  State public water supply laboratory certification program.--

(1)  Within 120 days of the effective date of this act, the department and the ¹Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services shall jointly develop a state program, and the ¹Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services shall adopt rules for the evaluation and certification of all laboratories in the state, other than the principal state laboratory, which perform or make application to perform analyses pursuant to the Florida Safe Drinking Water Act. Such joint development shall be funded in part through the use of a portion of the State Public Water Systems Supervision Program grants received by the department from the Federal Government in order to implement the federal act.

(2)  The ¹Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services shall have the responsibility for the operation and implementation of the state laboratory certification program, except that, upon completion of the evaluation and review of the laboratory certification application, the evaluation shall be forwarded, along with recommendations, to the department for review and comment, prior to final approval or disapproval.

(3)  Any federal grant funds received by the department for the operation and implementation of the state laboratory certification program shall be transferred to the ¹Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services by interagency agreement between the two departments. Such agreement shall require the ¹Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services to provide the department with a quarterly accounting of the funds transferred.

(4)  Within 60 days of the effective date of the rules adopted pursuant to this section, no laboratory in the state, except the principal state laboratory, shall perform analyses pursuant to the Florida Safe Drinking Water Act without having applied for and received certification under the state certification program to perform such analyses.

(5)  For the purposes of this section, the term "principal state laboratory" means the central laboratory of the ¹Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services.

(6)  For the purposes of this section, the term "certification" means regulatory recognition given to a laboratory that performs analyses pursuant to the Florida Safe Drinking Water Act, that it meets minimum analytical performance standards.

History.--s. 14, ch. 77-337; s. 167, ch. 79-400.

¹Note.--The Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services was redesignated as the Department of Children and Family Services by s. 5, ch. 96-403, and the Department of Health was created by s. 8, ch. 96-403.