 An international workshop and symposium on passive sampling was held by the USGS in 2013 to connect developers, policy makers and end users in order to discuss ways of monitoring environmental pollution.The POCIS device was developed and patented by Jimmie D. Petty, James N. Huckins, and David A. Alvarez, of the Columbia Environmental Research Center.Integrative passive samplers are an effective way to monitor the concentration of organic contaminants in aquatic systems over time.