ABSTRACT
CONTENTS Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222 Selection of Analytical Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222 Ground-Water Investigations Governed by a Regulatory Agency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Analytical Requirements Under RCRA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 Analytical Requirements Under a Site-Specific Administrative Consent Order (ACO) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
Analytes That Are Site-Related . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224 Selection of an Analytical Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
Specific Requirements for an Analytical Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 Description of Analytical Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
Screening or Diagnostic Tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 Specific Organic Compound Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
Volatile Organic Compounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226 Semivolatile Organic Compounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230 Pesticides, Herbicides, and PCBs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
Specific Constituent Inorganic Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232 Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232 Atomic Emission Spectroscopy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234 Other Analyses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
Quality AssuranceuQuality Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 Selection of an Analytical Laboratory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 Preparation of a Quality Assurance Project Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236 Laboratory QAuQC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Chain-of-Custody . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Sample Storage and Holding Time Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Sample Preparation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Laboratory QC Samples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
Method Blanks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239 Duplicates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239 Spiked Samples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239 Matrix Spikes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239 Surrogate Spikes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Instrument Calibration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240 Sample Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240 Laboratory Validation and Reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240 Documentation and Recordkeeping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
Independent Laboratory QA Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
With each passing year, advancements in technologies and the resultant analytical capabilities of laboratories have been realized for the handling, preparation, and analysis of water samples. During the early 1970s, while techniques and instrumentation were available for the analysis of common ions and trace metals, analytical techniques and instrumentation for determining specific organic species were extremely limited, both in sensitivity and scope. At that time, general methods (e.g., total organic carbon [TOC], chemical oxygen demand [COD], biochemical oxygen demand [BOD], etc.) were extensively used to approximate the gross amount of carbon in a water sample. By today’s standards, these methods, although still used for certain legitimate general waterquality purposes, only provide a general noncompound-specific indication of the presence of organic materials in water samples.
