Field Blanks

Supplied by the laboratory and prepared in the field by filling container with analyte free water.

Frequency and Purpose

1 per set of environmental or monitoring program.  Typically used to assess Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs).

Determines if the field or transporting environments have contaminated the samples.

Application and Regulatory Criteria

Applicable for most parameters and evaluates the impact on reported data sets of field or transportation.

Recommended Actions

Evaluate any hits found in the sample that were also found in the Trip Blank.  It should be noted that Field Blanks are optional for effluent monitoring programs known to have high concentrations of target analytes but should be used for environmental and monitoring programs with parameters known to have low regulatory or permit limits.