Company History
The Aquatic Bioassay & Consulting Laboratories, Inc. (Aquatic Bioassay) team of scientists have been conducting the toxicity testing and receiving water quality monitoring since 1979 for some of the largest (and smallest) NPDES receiving water monitoring programs on the west coast. With our main office located in Ventura, California, we are the only Southern California firm that provides the full range of services, responsiveness and experience necessary to successfully complete your testing and monitoring requirements.
Our field and laboratory capabilities include sampling and analysis for aquatic and sediment toxicity tests, sediment chemistry, benthic infauna, tissue bioaccumulation, trawled organisms, current meter studies, ichthyoplankton, water quality profiling using electronic sensor packages, particle size, nutrient analysis, bacteria and video dive surveys.
Experience & Team
Our team is led by biologists, toxicologists, chemists and oceanographers with decades of experience helping clients to meet their regulatory requirements.
Although we are a small firm, our scientific background and client project work are unrivaled in the southern California monitoring community. Some of our clients include:
- Sanitation districts throughout California, the western US and Pacific Rim
- the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, and Marina del Rey Harbor
- the USEPA, USFWS, US Army Corps of Engineers
- the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project (SCCWRP)
- Fortune 500 companies including Hewlett Packard, Chevron and Exxon
The combination of experience and academic background of the Aquatic Bioassay Team is unsurpassed with scores of scientific publications and presentations to our credit and over a century of direct experience conducting toxicity tests and monitoring programs.
Our team members have been active participants in each of the Southern California Bight Regional Monitoring programs since 1994 and are responsible for two of the largest ongoing NPDES municipal monitoring programs in southern California.
Our field and laboratory capabilities include sampling and analysis for sediment chemistry, benthic infauna, tissue bioaccumulation, trawled organisms, current meter studies, ichthyoplankton, water quality profiling using electronic sensor packages, particle size and bacteria.
We routinely conduct video dive surveys of effluent discharge pipes.
Each of our monitoring capabilities are in compliance with the field and laboratory protocols developed by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), the State of California’s Surface Water Ambient Monitoring Program (SWAMP), the State of California Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Program and the Southern California Bight Regional Monitoring Program (SCBRMP).
Aquatic Bioassay’s laboratory is fully equipped and accredited to perform all marine and freshwater acute or chronic toxicity tests on hazardous wastes, wastewater, drilling fluids, or benthic sediments in compliance with NPDES, ASTM, USEPA/COE, or DOHS regulations. With over 160 bioassay clients in California and other states, we are one of the most successful bioassay laboratories on the West Coast.
We provide all the services pertaining to monitoring design, sample collection, data management and analysis, and reports ready for submittal to local, state and federal agencies.
The Aquatic Bioassay Team has a reputation for being able to complete projects after others have failed. In short, we will provide monitoring or toxicity testing services that are cost effective, meet or surpass all quality control guidelines, and provide a level of responsiveness that is totally unique to our industry.
Quality Control
The Aquatic Bioassay Team is dedicated to producing the highest quality, most scientifically defensible data in the industry. We are ELAP certified for all phases of our laboratory operations pertaining to toxicity testing and microbiology and participate in all State and EPA intercalibration studies. Our team members are active participants in all relevant professional organizations and have successfully participated in all intercalibration studies pertaining to the Southern California Bight Regional Monitoring Program (SCBRMP) including: field operations audit; benthic infauna, fish and macroinvertebrate identification audits; toxicology; and, water quality. All phases of our data management and reporting are tightly controlled through automated and manual data checking prior to the generation of monitoring reports.