A Newsletter of the QUASIMEME Laboratory Performance Studies

No. 1 March 2010

QUASIMEME QUEST FOR QUALITY A Newsletter of the QUASIMEME Laboratory Performance Studies Wageningen UR, The Netherlands.

Quasimeme Project Office

It is our pleasure to introduce the launch of our new Reports Data Submission System together with the new SharepointSite. The report for Round 59 is now available on the sharepoint site. Please log on to www.quasimeme.org as before and you will notice when you log on to the sharepoint site the layout is different. An instruction is attached Round 61 in the link for ease of reference add link Test Material Distribution The new data submission replaces the old Quest Template System that was previously used. The Round 61 test materials AQ3, AQ4, AQ5, AQ6, new system is more user friendly and replaces the AQ7, AQ8, AQ11, AQ12, AQ13, BT7, DE10, DE14 need to download and upload templates before will be dispatched from Wageningen, the submitting. There is no need to e-mail QPO to Netherlands in the week beginning 12 April 2010. confirm receipt of results. All results entered are Please notify QPO if there are any changes to your visible and once saved can be viewed at any time. order or change of contact name on dispatch label An announcement e-mail will be sent shortly due to holidays etc. confirming the new login details for the sharepoint site. All participants will receive an individual login If you have subscribed to any of the above studies name and password replacing the old procedure; and have not received your test materials within one one laboratory, one login. week of the dispatch date, or if your test materials arrive damaged, please contact QUASIMEME. We All feedback on the new Data Submission System is will then arrange to send replacements. greatly received by the QPO. All test materials are in good condition and securely packed when they leave Wageningen. Please report any missing or damaged packages promptly, Data Submission but at least within two weeks and retain any damaged package as the couriers may require proof of damage. Responses after this two week period Participants in Round 60 please note that the will not automatically result in a free dispatch of new deadline is 30th April 2010. samples. Please upload your data using the new Data The templates and protocols for these studies can Submission System. Any data received after the be found on the sharepoint site. deadline may not be included in the Assessment.

BE1 will not be dispatched until May 2010. Participants will be contacted as soon as the dispatch date is known.

QUASIMEME – Quality Assurance of Information for Marine Environmental Monitoring No. 1 March 2010

Workshops It was brought to the attention of the QPO that some participants thought we had doubled our prices for Analysis Chlorinated Paraffins, Ostend, Belgium 18- 2010. This is incorrect. Last year we notified 19 March 2010 participants that we would be running 2010 with a http://www.quasimeme.org/gfx_content/documents/ yearly brochure replacing the old split year brochure Chloroparaffines%20announcement.doc previously used. Since our split year brochure for 2009 ended half way through 2009 we made a short PCB Workshop , Sweden 3-4 June 2010. brochure from July to December to end that year. This reflected in the low prices as it was only one Training in analysis of Imposex/intersex. Date to be round per exercise. We normally run with two found. We are in communication with involved rounds per exercise. We are now running each year laboratories to find a suitable date. with a yearly brochure and the only price increase you will see from now on will be from inflation and if our suppliers raise their costs.

TEST MATERIALS

Please circulate this newsletter, and display it on Quasimeme may split the 2011 BS-1 exercise in two your notice board. Multiple copies have been rounds. One round for Biota and one for Sediment. provided to facilitate distribution to other Participants who have already subscribed to BS-1 in colleagues. 2010 will be notified separately. All other interested participants are asked to contact the QPO. Requests for further information, comments or contributions to: QPO is looking for laboratories to work with us in our search for mussels contaminated with QUASIMEME Project office Organotins, PCBs, OCBs and PAHs. E-mail:[email protected] www.quasimeme.org We urgently need new mussel samples with measurable concentrations of the given determinands. If you are interested in providing Quasimeme with these mussels please contact us regarding details. If you have already done so there is no need to e-mail us again. We have your details on record.

It has been brought to Quasimeme’s attention that some laboratories would prefer to use different filters for the AQ-11 (chlorophyll) test. We would be willing to change these filters but in turn it would be more costly to the participant. Quasimeme therefore decided to use the more commonly used GF/f filters as recommended by Grasshoff. If you have any information you would like to add to this or other questions you may have please feel free to contact the QPO at any time.

The DOC sample provided in AQ-1 and AQ-2 test materials is available separately to order. Please contact the QPO for further information.

Quasimeme is considering introducing a freshwater fish sample with higher concentration levels (for example PCDF’s, PCDD’s) in biota (BT-3) contamination into its programme. Please can you offer us feedback if you would be interested in this sample.

QUASIMEME – Quality Assurance of Information for Marine Environmental Monitoring