Metals Test (CAM17)

Overview

This panel quantifies the seventeen metals on the CAM 17 list, the standard priority-metals suite used in environmental assessment: antimony, arsenic, barium, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, copper, lead, mercury, molybdenum, nickel, selenium, silver, thallium, vanadium, and zinc. Sixteen are analyzed by EPA 6010D; mercury runs by EPA 7470A. Results are reported individually in parts per million with each metal's own detection and reporting limit.

Read the detection limits before you order. The reporting limits on this panel range from 0.0002 to 0.01 ppm depending on the metal. Those limits are appropriate for identifying contamination. Several chronic freshwater aquatic-life criteria — for lead, cadmium, and silver in particular — sit at or below them, so a non-detect on this panel means no significant contamination, not zero, and not compliance with a chronic criterion.

What problem does this solve for our lake?

Metals do not behave like nutrients. They do not break down, they are not consumed, and they accumulate — in sediment and in tissue. A lake with a metals problem usually has had it for decades and will have it for decades more. The seventeen fall into three groups, and the group tells you how to read a detection: • Acutely toxic and bioaccumulative — mercury, lead, arsenic, cadmium, thallium, selenium. These matter at low concentrations, they concentrate up the food chain, and they are the ones behind fish consumption advisories. Selenium in particular is famous for causing reproductive failure in fish and birds at concentrations that look unremarkable on a lab report. • Industrial and geological indicators — antimony, beryllium, chromium, cobalt, nickel, vanadium, molybdenum, barium. These are less about direct toxicity and more about provenance. Their pattern points toward mining, metal finishing, coal ash, or a specific industrial history in the watershed. • Essential but toxic in excess — copper, zinc, silver. Aquatic organisms need trace copper and zinc; both are toxic to fish and invertebrates above narrow thresholds. Copper deserves particular attention on a managed lake, because copper sulfate algaecide is the single most common reason a recreational lake shows elevated copper. It does not leave. Every treatment adds to a sediment inventory that stays. Two honest caveats about mercury. First, water-column mercury is nearly always low, including in lakes under active fish consumption advisories, because methylmercury is produced in anoxic sediment and concentrated through the food web rather than dissolved in open water. Second, and following from that: this test cannot tell you whether your fish are safe to eat. That question requires fish tissue analysis.

What's included?

• A complete CAM 17 metals test kit shipped directly to you
• All materials required for clean, contamination-free sample collection
• Step-by-step collection and preservation instructions
• Prepaid 2-day return shipping to our certified partner laboratory
• Analysis by EPA-approved methods at an accredited partner laboratory, with full chain of custody
• Results loaded automatically into your lake's account

What's not included

• Sample collection. You collect the sample; we supply everything you need to do it correctly.
• Boat, dock, or shoreline access to your sampling site
• Depth-profile sampling. This is a single grab sample unless you order multiple kits.
• Ice or a cooler for shipping, which you supply
• Treatment, remediation, or applicator services
• A written management plan. The Boathouse can help you interpret results and decide next steps.
• Sediment metals, which is where metals actually accumulate and where the historical record sits
• Fish tissue mercury, which is the matrix that determines whether fish are safe to eat
• Hexavalent chromium. This panel reports total chromium and does not speciate.
• Hardness, which is required to calculate the hardness-dependent aquatic-life criteria for copper, lead, cadmium, nickel, and zinc. Without it, those results cannot be compared against a criterion. Contact the Boathouse to add it.
• Toxicity assessment. This reports concentrations, not whether those concentrations are harming your lake.

Requirements

• IMPORTANT — read the detection limits before you order. Reporting limits run from 0.0002 to 0.01 ppm depending on the metal, and several chronic aquatic-life criteria fall at or below that range. A non-detect indicates no significant contamination; it is not a demonstration of compliance with a chronic criterion. If you need low-level metals data for a regulatory or legal matter, contact the Boathouse before ordering.
• A sample collected in the preserved container provided, which must not be rinsed
• No metal contact with the sample. Remove jewelry, avoid galvanized or brass fittings, and do not let the sample touch a boat rail, a bucket, or a landing net.
• A site chosen for the suspected source. Metals are not evenly distributed, and a mid-lake sample near a shoreline source will read clean.
• Same-day shipment after collection, kept cold
• A Plus, Lake Admin, or PRO subscription to have results loaded into your Lake Pulse account
• Questions about site selection, timing, or which test fits your lake? Contact the Lake Pulse Boathouse before you order.