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U.S. Department of Energy
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Metals in ground water: sampling artifacts and reproducibility

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:7200228
Field studies evaluated sampling procedures for determination of aqueous inorganic geochemistry and assessment of contaminant transport by colloidal mobility. Research at three different metal-contaminated sites has shown that 0.45 um filtration has not removed potentially mobile colloids, when samples have been collected using low pumping flow rates (approx. 0.2-0.3 L/min). However, when pumping velocities greatly exceed formation groundwater flow velocities, large differences between filtered and unfiltered samples are observed, and neither are representative of values obtained with the low flow-rate pumped samples. There was a strong inverse correlation between turbidity and representativeness of samples.
Research Organization:
Environmental Protection Agency, Ada, OK (United States). Robert S. Kerr Environmental Research Lab.
OSTI ID:
7200228
Report Number(s):
PB-92-227479/XAB; EPA--600/J-92/307
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English