NIST/NOAA NS&T Intercomparison Exercise Program for Organic Contaminants in the Marine Environment : description and results of 1998 Organic Intercomparison Exercises

In support ofmarine monitoring measurement programs, NIST, in cooperation with the NOAA National Status and Trends Program (NS&T), conducts yearly interlaboratory comparison exercises to provide one mechanism for participating laboratories/monitoring programs to evaluate the quality and comparability oftheir performance in measuring selected organic contaminates in environmental samples. In this report, results ofthe 1998 exercises ofthe NIST/NOAA NS&T Intercomparison Exercise Program for Organic Contaminants in the Marine Environment are described in which selected polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) congeners, chlorinated pesticides, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were determined in Mussel Tissue Homogenate IX and Marine Sediment VIII exercise materials. The analytical methods used by each participating laboratory in this performance-based program are summarized.