Development of SRM 2706 (New Jersey Soil, Organics and Trace Elements), a New Reference Material for the Monitoring and Assessment of Soils.

Collaborative Efforts to Improve Environmental Monitoring
Oral Presentation

Prepared by S. Long1, S. Nagourney2, S. Wilson3, L. Phelps4
1 - NIST, 331 Fort Johnson Road, Charleston, SC, 29412, United States
2 - New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (Ret), 401 East State Street, Trenton, NJ, 08608, United States
3 - U.S. Geological Survey, PO Box 25046, Denver, CO, 80225, United States
4 - U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 109 T.W. Alexander Drive, Research Triangle Park, NC, 27711, United States


Contact Information: [email protected]; 843-460-9887


ABSTRACT

Soil reference materials are used worldwide for environmental and agricultural assessments, geological profiling, and contaminated waste site remediation activities. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) currently has three multi-element Standard Reference Materials (SRM) to support this market, namely SRM 2709a (San Joaquin Soil), 2710a (Montana I Soil) and 2711a (Montana II Soil). All of these comprise soils or contaminated waste from the western United States, and are certified for inorganic contaminants only. There is currently no soil material with certified values for established or emerging organic contaminants. This project is a successful collaboration between NIST, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP), and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) to create a new soil reference material (SRM 2706, New Jersey Soil, Organics and Trace Elements) containing trace elements, PAHs, PCBs and dioxin/furan congeners. The material is a composite of background agricultural soil and waste material collected in the New York/New Jersey area, intended to approximate the levels found in many contaminated soils and having a geochemistry different from the current NIST soil SRM portfolio. The development, preparation and characterization of the SRM will be presented.