This manual is intended to serve as a field and laboratory guide for use by mussel growers in collecting and processing water quality samples at their growing sites. The manual should be carried in the field whenever data and samples are being collected, and it should be referred to when processing samples in the laboratory.

The manual is intentionally brief, presenting the techniques in a cook-book fashion, but with enough detail to allow persons having little or no experience to perform the required tasks as easily and consistently as possible. Another manual, giving details of the rationale behind the different methodologies, as well as information on how data should be interpreted, is scheduled for preparation and distribution in the near future.