Extract

To the Editor:

Baldwin et al. (2020) fail to adequately cite the relevant literature and do not inform readers of known weaknesses in the methods. The stated purpose of the study was to evaluate sources of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in stream sediments, but the apparent goal was to point to refined tar pavement sealant as a significant source. Most of the approaches used in the study are consistent with those described in Baldwin et al. (2017a). In summary, statistical and multivariate techniques are used to compare PAH profiles of sediments with generic source profiles taken from the literature. Although technical issues concerning the validity of the generic profiles were raised in O'Reilly and Ahn (2017), neither it nor the authors' response (Baldwin et al. 2017b) were cited, nor were other papers or comments discussing these issues (O'Reilly et al. 2012, 2014a, 2014b, 2015; Crane 2014; Van Metre and Mahler 2014; O'Reilly and Edwards 2020).

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