Activities of the National Water Quality Monitoring Council

1. Activities of the National Water Quality Monitoring Council Gail Mallard, USGS NWQMC Meeting Phoenix, AZ, December 10, 2002

2. The U.S. National Water Quality Monitoring Council (NWQMC) was established in 1998 “ to provide a national forum to coordinate consistent and scientifically defensible methods and strategies for improving water quality monitoring, assessment, and reporting ”

3. Why do we monitor? • Describe status and trends • Describe and rank existing and emerging problems • Design management and regulatory programs • Respond to emergencies From the Final Report of the Intergovernmental Task Force on Monitoring (1995)

4. A framework for water-quality monitoring is needed • To provide a systematic approach to the monitoring process • To promote comparability and collaboration between and within programs and organizations • To guide National and regional Council efforts

5. Proposed National Monitoring Framework

6. Applying the framework • Identify and understand the monitoring considerations associated with each of the framework elements • Develop tools and provide information to facilitate use of the framework elements • Demonstrate effectiveness of the tools • resources (time and money) saved • Better management decisions

7. National Monitoring Council framework products • National Monitoring Inventories • Technical Reports on Monitoring Issues • National Monitoring Conferences • Comparability Assessments • Water Quality Data Elements (WQDEs) • National Environmental Methods Index (NEMI) • Environmental Monitoring and Measurement Advisor (EMMA) • Regional Monitoring Councils

8. State and Federal monitoring inventories • Document the status of monitoring programs • Identify key enhancements needed • Quantify the costs of enhanced (sufficient) monitoring programs • Identify useful procedures, formats, or approaches that can contribute to greater program efficiencies or collaboration • Use the results to support stronger State and Federal monitoring programs and partnerships

9. National Monitoring Conferences • July 1998, Reno, NV – “Monitoring: Critical Foundations to protect our Future” • April 2000, Austin, TX – “Monitoring for the Millenium” • May, 2000, Madison, WI – “Building a Framework for the Future” • May 12 – 16, 2002, Chatanooga, TN – something like – “Applying the Framework” • Promote regional monitoring conferences in the off years

10. About the conferences • Include workshops, presentations, posters, field trips, and vendor displays focused on elements of the monitoring framework • Include focused thematic discussion sessions • Hope to make all proceedings papers and presentations available on-line as supporting information for the various framework elements • Conferences result in recommendations to the Council

11. Core Water Quality Data Elements (WQDEs) • Most important information about data (meta data) needed to answer the basic questions to facilitate data exchange: • Who? (Who conducted the sampling?) • What? (What was monitored and found?) • Why? (Why was the monitoring done?) • When? (When was the monitoring done?) • Where? (Where was the monitoring done?) • How? (How was the sampling done?)

12. Benefits of using a common set of WQDEs • Provide the basis for common data management documentation • Allows data sharing with confidence • Results are more readily comparable • Facilitates more effective and economical use of monitoring resources at all levels

13. National Environmental Methods Index (NEMI) chemical physical biological • NEMI is a web-based, searchable compendium containing method summaries of field and lab protocols radiochemical microbiological

14. NEMI’s relationship to the framework • The NEMI database ensures that the consideration of field and measurement methods plays an active role in the planning and implementation phases of a program • NEMI data fields include detection levels, bias, precision, and other QA/QC requirements necessary for documenting and reporting on data quality

15. NEMI Information Sources Over 600 Method summaries from various sources: • Environmental Protection Agency - 235 • U.S. Geological Survey - 149 • Department of Energy - 32 • American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) - 75 • AOAC (formerly the Association of Official Analytical Chemists) - 8 • Standard Methods - 59 • Private Companies - 43

16. Where to Find NEMI • www.nemi.gov

17. What is the Environmental Monitoring and Measurement Advisor (EMMA) ? • EMMA is a prototype expert system • Designed to ensure that all critical questions are asked during the planning of an environmental monitoring program. • When specific answers are available they are given. • When specific answers are not available then advice on how to get them is given.

18. EMMA’s Information Planes

19. You may use EMMA now! • A trial version of EMMA is available by clicking on the methods selection advisor on the NEMI website at: www.nemi.gov

20. Fostering Regional Monitoring Councils • Lake Michigan Monitoring Coordination Council (1999) • Maryland Water Monitoring Council (1995) • Virginia Water Monitoring Council (1999) • Texas Water Monitoring Council (1996) • Kentucky Watershed Management (1998) • New England Regional Monitoring Collaborative (2000) • Chesapeake Bay Program (1983) • Colorado Water Quality Monitoring Council (1999) • Montana Watershed Coordination Council (2000) • Oklahoma Water Quality Monitoring Council (1999) • Wisconsin Ground Water Coordinating Council (1998) • Access the individual websites from: water.usgs.gov/wicp/acwi/monitoring/regional_councils.html

21. Why form a monitoring Council? • Promote better use of available monitoring resources through coordination of programs • To provide better information to respond to legislation • Improve reporting to citizens • Promote awareness of need for monitoring

22. National and Regional Council connections • Working together as a virtual Council toward common goals – Networks, Methods, Data, Interpretation, Reporting and Outreach • Everyone is welcome at Council meetings and as members of Council Goal Groups and Board Work Groups • Important not to duplicate efforts with and to share results between Councils