Colorado’s state lab director, Emily Travanty, has been placed on paid administrative leave, the latest development in what is now an almost two-year investigation into lab procedures that has already led to the loss of federal certifications, according to records obtained by CPR News.
The executive director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, Jill Hunsaker Ryan, wrote to Travanty on Sept. 12: “I am initiating administrative leave based on an investigation into the loss of certification of the chemistry lab by the Environmental Protection Agency.”
The leave follows a series of failures in the lab, including in food testing and programs that monitor lead in water at elementary schools and childcare centers. The lab has suffered significant turnover of supervisors, some identified as being involved in data irregularities that led to the federal revocation.
CDPHE did not respond to a request for an interview sent on Monday afternoon. CPR News then sent specific questions on Tuesday morning, asking how long the investigation has been going on, how much taxpayers are paying for third-party lab costs, and how many chemists have been implicated in manipulating results. But Gabi Johnston, CDPHE’s media relations manager, responded that the “quick deadline may not be doable.”
Travanty is the second high-ranking CDPHE leader to leave the department in recent weeks. Last month, The Denver Post reported that Scott Bookman, who led Colorado’s COVID-19 response, resigned following sexual harassment allegations.
In April 2024, the EPA revoked Colorado’s certification to conduct a test that confirms whether drinking water meets federal standards, and the agency placed the Colorado state lab on a provisional certification for other tests. At the time, CDPHE informed the EPA that there was an “active internal investigation into a chemist’s data manipulation,” which had been occurring since at least 2020.
Five months later, in September, the EPA said it was made aware of more quality control deficiencies at the lab and revoked more certifications.
Then, in December, EPA wrote a letter to Travanty that provisional testing certifications had lapsed and others remained revoked until corrective action was completed. The letter took CDPHE to task for, among other things, putting a chemist in charge of reviewing past test results who had irregularities in their own work, calling it a “conflict of interest.”
EPA was also concerned with turnover at the lab, noting in December that in just two months, four managers and supervisors had resigned or been put on administrative leave. CDPHE had not properly notified federal authorities of the turnover, according to EPA.
A request for comment from the EPA was not returned — an email indicated that media staff were not working during the government shutdown.
Earlier this year, it was revealed at a state legislative hearing that two chemists in the lab manipulated water quality control data. But the December letter from EPA implicates five chemists “as having data irregularities.”
A subsequent review by CDPHE found no imminent health threat, but noted errors in a “small subset of tests” that could have been related to data manipulation. Retests, according to CDPHE, found that levels of harmful chemicals did not exceed health standards.
