Assessment of the efficacy of six field cleaning protocols for hydrocarbon quantification.

The defensibility of field sampling data collected in support of natural resource damage assessments and other environmental investigations depends on rigorous quality assurance and control both in the field and laboratory. One important step in field procedures is the cleaning of sampling equipment between samples to minimize the carryover of contaminants. Large-scale sampling efforts during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill event have highlighted the importance of understanding how multiple equipment cleaning protocols affect interstation cross-contamination and the resulting chemical data quality.