EPA published a national criterion for selenium (Se) in 2016 that prioritizes assessment of fish tissue concentrations in 2016. Guidance was included in this document for two methods of developing alternate Se criteria in streams for which use of the national criterion might not be appropriate based on site-specific conditions. One of these approaches, termed the mechanistic modeling approach, incorporates data from multiple trophic levels, including Se concentrations in water column, particulate matter, macroinvertebrates, and fish. Se accumulation in aquatic environments occurs at the base of the food web from water into particulate matter such as algae, detritus, or sediment, followed by accumulation from particulate matter into macroinvertebrates and macroinvertebrates into fish tissues. EPA noted in the national criterion document that the transfer from Se in the water column into the particulate matter can be highly variable dependent in part on what type of particulate matter is collected. EPA recommends only using sediment measurements if there is also at least one measurement from either algae or detritus based on observations of a lower correlation between Se water concentration and sediments compared to the same analysis between water and algae and detritus. Utilizing an extensive long-term data set of over 20 years that includes Se concentrations in fine sediment, detritus, and macroinvertebrates from a stream sampled in the Pacific Northwest, we investigated the impact of utilizing Se concentrations in fine sediment compared to detritus on the next step in the trophic transfer of Se by determining if the correlation between Se concentrations in particulates and macroinvertebrates followed the same pattern observed between Se concentrations in the water column and particulates, i.e., is the correlation between sediment and macroinvertebrate tissues also weaker compared to the correlation between Se concentrations in detritus and macroinvertebrate tissues? We have encountered sand-bottomed stream systems in which algae and detritus are not readily available in the amounts necessary for Se analysis; this information could be helpful in determining the effect of having only fine sediment samples available for analysis in such streams.