Analytes We Sample For

PFAS is one of CMA's core specialties. Using the patented Trident Probe, we've sampled for ambient PFAS levels as well as at sites with known contamination, and our field capabilities are well-suited to PFAS remedial investigations at DoD facilities and industrial sites where groundwater discharges to surface water. PFAS most commonly turns up at military bases and airports (AFFF firefighting foam training areas), chemical manufacturing plants, chrome-plating shops, landfills, wastewater treatment plants, and textile or paper mills.

Read our full PFAS sampling capabilities →

PAHs are petroleum and combustion byproducts — creosote, coal tar, asphalt, and stormwater runoff all carry them. They're a defining contaminant at former manufactured gas plants (MGPs), oil and gas refining and storage terminals, rail yards, marinas and boatyards, coal-fired power plants, and wood treatment facilities. The Trident Probe was purpose-built for exactly this kind of small-volume porewater sampling, and alkylated PAH homolog groups — which most labs don't spell out — matter for source differentiation at these sites as much as the 16 parent compounds do.

PCBs come from transformer and capacitor dielectric fluid, hydraulic fluids, and older paints — legacy contamination that persists in sediment for decades. They're the dominant driver of sediment and porewater investigations at former electrical-equipment manufacturing sites, shipyards, industrial harbors and rivers, and power substations. The Trident Probe has been used to sample directly for PCBs alongside VOCs, metals, and PAHs in a single deployment.

Metals sampling is core to CMA's Trident Probe capabilities. It's the standard panel at former steel mills and foundries, electroplating and metal-finishing shops, mining and smelting operations, and battery or electronics manufacturing sites. In sediment and porewater specifically, the AVS/SEM suite matters more than total metals alone — it's what actually predicts whether the metal is bioavailable and toxic, rather than bound up and inert.

Chlorinated solvents and fuel-related VOCs are exactly the kind of dissolved-phase plume that shows up where groundwater discharges to surface water — CMA's specialty. The 60-compound standard target list covers releases from dry cleaners, machine shops and degreasing operations, chemical plants, gas stations and fuel distribution terminals, and former industrial buildings. The Trident Probe's VOC sampling capability lets us characterize a chlorinated-solvent discharge zone at the same time we're mapping it.

The full base/neutral/acid-extractable panel beyond PAHs — phenols, phthalates, chlorinated aromatics, and nitrogen compounds. It's most often requested alongside PAH and dioxin/furan sampling at former wood-treatment facilities, chemical manufacturing plants, coking operations at steel mills, and landfills.

Legacy organochlorines like DDT and chlordane dominate sediment investigations; herbicide, organophosphate, and carbamate panels come up more often at agricultural-runoff and marina sites. Common triggers include former agricultural chemical mixing or storage sites, golf courses and turf operations, marinas with antifouling runoff, and stormwater discharge to estuaries and agricultural drainage.

The 17 toxicologically significant 2,3,7,8-substituted congeners, reported individually and as a Total TEQ (toxic equivalency). These show up at former pulp and paper mills, chlorophenol and pesticide manufacturing sites, incinerators, and wood-treatment facilities — usually alongside PCB and PAH sampling on the same sample set.

Range-based screening for fuel and oil releases — usually the first thing requested at a refinery, bulk fuel storage terminal, or UST/AST spill site, whatever the water matrix. It's a standard companion panel at marinas and fueling docks and along pipeline rights-of-way.

The defining panel at decommissioned military bases, former ordnance manufacturing plants, firing and training ranges, and demilitarization facilities. It's usually run alongside PFAS (from AFFF firefighting foam) and TPH (from fuel farms) at the same installations — CMA's field technologies adapt to whatever analytical panel a munitions-response or BRAC site requires, in porewater, groundwater, or surface water.

A radiological panel that comes up at former DOE and DoD nuclear-materials sites, decommissioned power plants, and legacy processing or waste-disposal facilities where site history includes radioactive material handling. This is distinct from the radon and radium isotopes listed under Conventional & Geochemical (below), which can be sampled as natural groundwater discharge tracers — this panel targets radiological contamination rather than using isotopes to trace flow. CMA's field sampling methods extend to this analyte class in porewater, groundwater, and surface water; a project's specific isotope list is typically dictated by the site's known operational or waste history.

A fast-growing category — 1,4-dioxane and 6PPD-quinone in particular are now named directly in RFPs rather than folded into "PFAS." These come up most at wastewater treatment plant outfalls, urban stormwater and road-runoff discharge points, landfills, and sites near consumer-product or flame-retardant manufacturing.

The field and general-chemistry backbone of every porewater, groundwater, and surface-water event we run, regardless of site type. In-situ measurement is built into every Trident Probe and UltraSeep deployment. The isotope and tracer parameters below — including radon, radium, and stable isotopes — can also be sampled on request for projects using them as natural groundwater discharge tracers.

The eutrophication and nutrient-loading panel that's central to CMA's submarine groundwater discharge and seepage work — our UltraSeep systems quantify freshwater, seawater, nutrient, and contaminant flux rates over full tidal cycles. Common contexts include estuaries and bays receiving groundwater or stormwater nutrient loading, agricultural drainage areas, and septic-impacted shoreline communities.