Watershed Management
Better Coordination of Data Collection Efforts Needed to Support Key Decisions Gao ID: GAO-04-382 June 7, 2004Reliable and complete data are needed to assess watersheds--areas that drain into a common body of water--and allocate limited cleanup resources. Historically, water officials have expressed concern about a lack of water data. At the same time, numerous organizations collect a variety of water data. To address a number of issues concerning the water data that various organization collect, the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment, House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, asked GAO to determine (1) the key entities that collect water data, the types of data they collect, how they store the data, and how entities can access the data; and (2) the extent that water quality and water quantity data collection efforts are coordinated.
At least 15 federal agencies collect a wide variety of water quality data. Most notably, the U.S. Geological Survey operates several large water quality monitoring programs across the nation. States also play a key role in water quality data collection to fulfill their responsibilities under the Clean Water Act. In addition, numerous local watershed groups, volunteer monitoring groups, industries, and academic groups collect water quality data. In contrast, collection of water quantity data is more centralized, with three federal agencies collecting the majority of data available nationwide. While GAO found notable exceptions, officials in almost all of the federal and state agencies contacted said that coordination of water quality data was falling short of its potential. Key barriers frequently identified as impeding better coordination of water quality data collection include (1) the significantly different purposes for which groups collect data, (2) inconsistencies in groups' data collection protocols, (3) an unawareness by data collectors as to which entities collect what types of data, and (4) low priority for data coordination, as shown in a lack of support for councils that promote improved coordination. GAO concluded that designating a lead organization with sufficient authority and resources to coordinate data collection could help alleviate these problems and ensure that watershed managers have better information upon which to base critical decisions. Data collectors strongly agree that coordinating water quantity data collection is considerably less problematic. Reasons include the fact that controversial water allocation decisions require accurate and complete water quantity data; that some of the technologies for measuring water quantity allow for immediate distribution of data; that water quantity data parameters are generally more consistent; and that coordination is simplified in that relatively fewer entities collect these data. Collectors of water quantity data generally agreed that an overall shortage of data was a more serious problem than a lack of coordination of the data that are collected.
RecommendationsOur recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.
Director: Team: Phone:GAO-04-382, Watershed Management: Better Coordination of Data Collection Efforts Needed to Support Key Decisions
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Report to the Chairman, Subcommittee on Water Resources and
Environment, Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, House of
Representatives:
June 2004:
WATERSHED MANAGEMENT:
Better Coordination of Data Collection Efforts Needed to Support Key
Decisions:
GAO-04-382:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-04-382, a report to the Chairman, Subcommittee on
Water Resources and Environment, Committee on Transportation and
Infrastructure, House of Representatives
Why GAO Did This Study:
Reliable and complete data are needed to assess watersheds”areas that
drain into a common body of water”and allocate limited cleanup
resources. Historically, water officials have expressed concern about
a lack of water data. At the same time, numerous organizations collect
a variety of water data. To address a number of issues concerning the
water data that various organization collect, the Chairman of the
Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment asked GAO to determine
(1) the key entities that collect water data, the types of data they
collect, how they store the data, and how entities can access the data;
and (2) the extent that water quality and water quantity data
collection efforts are coordinated.
What GAO Found:
At least 15 federal agencies collect a wide variety of water quality
data. Most notably, the U.S. Geological Survey operates several large
water quality monitoring programs across the nation. States also play
a key role in water quality data collection to fulfill their
responsibilities under the Clean Water Act. In addition, numerous local
watershed groups, volunteer monitoring groups, industries, and academic
groups collect water quality data. In contrast, collection of water
quantity data is more centralized, with three federal agencies
collecting the majority of data available nationwide.
While GAO found notable exceptions, officials in almost all of the
federal and state agencies contacted said that coordination of water
quality data was falling short of its potential. As illustrated below,
key barriers frequently identified as impeding better coordination of
water quality data collection include (1) the significantly different
purposes for which groups collect data, (2) inconsistencies in groups‘
data collection protocols, (3) an unawareness by data collectors as to
which entities collect what types of data, and (4) low priority for
data coordination, as shown in a lack of support for councils that
promote improved coordination. GAO concluded that designating a lead
organization with sufficient authority and resources to coordinate data
collection could help alleviate these problems and ensure that
watershed managers have better information upon which to base critical
decisions.
Data collectors strongly agree that coordinating water quantity data
collection is considerably less problematic. Reasons include the fact
that controversial water allocation decisions require accurate and
complete water quantity data; that some of the technologies for
measuring water quantity allow for immediate distribution of data; that
water quantity data parameters are generally more consistent; and that
coordination is simplified in that relatively fewer entities collect
these data. Collectors of water quantity data generally agreed that an
overall shortage of data was a more serious problem than a lack of
coordination of the data that are collected.
Most Frequently Cited Barriers to Coordinating Water Quality Data
Collection Efforts by 15 Federal Agencies:
[See PDF for image]
Source: GAO.
[End of figure]
What GAO Recommends:
To enhance and clearly define authority for coordinating the collection
of water data nationwide, the Congress should consider formally
designating a lead organization for this purpose. Among its
responsibilities, the organization would (1) support the development
and continued operation of regional and state monitoring councils, (2)
coordinate the development of an Internet-based clearinghouse to convey
what entities are collecting what types of data, and (3) coordinate
development of clear guidance on metadata standards so that data users
can integrate data from various sources.
www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-382.
To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on
the link above. For more information, contact John B. Stephenson at
(202) 512-3841 or stephensonj@gao.gov.
[End of section]
Contents:
Letter:
Executive Summary:
Purpose:
Background:
Results in Brief:
Principal Findings:
Matter for Congressional Consideration:
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
Chapter 1: Introduction:
Decision Makers Need Complete and Reliable Water Quality Data:
Data Also Needed to Support Key Water Quantity Decisions:
Data Needed to Support the Watershed Approach:
Can Critical Data Shortages Be Addressed through Enhanced Coordination?
Objectives, Scope, and Methodology:
Chapter 2: Many Organizations Collect Water Quality and Water Quantity
Data:
Water Quality Data Collection:
Water Quantity Data Collection:
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
Chapter 3: Improved Coordination of Water Quality Data Collection Can
Help Watershed Managers Make More Informed Decisions:
Coordination Needed to Enable Monitoring Programs to Make Better Use of
Available Resources:
Efforts to Coordinate Data Collection Have Thus Far Had Limited
Success:
Several Key Barriers Limit Effective Coordination of Water Quality Data
Collection:
Coordinating Entity with Sufficient Resources and Authority Suggested
as Potential Solution:
Data Management Challenges Also Limit Data Availability:
Conclusions:
Matter for Congressional Consideration:
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
Chapter 4: Water Quantity Data Are Limited, but Efforts to Collect
Them Are Generally Well-Coordinated:
Water Quantity Data Are Needed for Decisions with Important Economic,
Environmental, and Social Implications:
Overall Lack of Water Quantity Data Is a Key Concern:
Efforts to Coordinate Water Quantity Data Collection Have Been
Comparatively Successful:
Conclusions:
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
Appendixes:
Appendix I: Water Data Collection Activities by Federal Agency:
Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service:
Department of Agriculture's Cooperative State Research, Education, and
Extension Service:
Department of Agriculture's Forest Service:
Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service:
Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, National Marine Fisheries Service:
Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, National Ocean Service:
Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, National Weather Service:
Department of Defense's Army Corps of Engineers:
Department of Energy's Bonneville Power Administration:
Environmental Protection Agency:
Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management:
Department of the Interior's Bureau of Reclamation:
Department of the Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service:
Department of the Interior's U.S. Geological Survey:
Department of the Interior's National Park Service:
Tennessee Valley Authority:
Appendix II: Comments from the Army Corps of Engineers:
Appendix III: Comments from the Department of the Interior:
Appendix IV: Comments from the Environmental Protection Agency:
Appendix V: Comments from the Department of Commerce's National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration:
Appendix VI: GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments:
GAO Contacts:
Staff Acknowledgments:
Tables:
Table 1: Water Quality Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the
Agricultural Research Service:
Table 2: Water Quantity Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the
Agricultural Research Service:
Table 3: Water Quality Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by CSREES:
Table 4: Water Quantity Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by CSREES:
Table 5: Water Quality Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the Forest
Service:
Table 6: Water Quantity Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the Forest
Service:
Table 7: Water Quality Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the
Natural Resources Conservation Service:
Table 8: Water Quantity Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the
Natural Resources Conservation Service:
Table 9: Water Quality Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by NOAA's
National Marine Fisheries Service:
Table 10: Water Quantity Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and
the Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by NOAA's
National Marine Fisheries Service:
Table 11: Water Quality Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by NOAA's
National Ocean Service:
Table 12: Water Quantity Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and
the Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by NOAA's
National Ocean Service:
Table 13: Water Quantity Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and
the Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by NOAA's
National Weather Service:
Table 14: Water Quality Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the Army
Corps of Engineers:
Table 15: Water Quantity Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and
the Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the
Army Corps of Engineers:
Table 16: Water Quality Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by BPA:
Table 17: Water Quantity Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and
the Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by BPA:
Table 18: Water Quality Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by EPA:
Table 19: Water Quality Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the Bureau
of Land Management:
Table 20: Water Quantity Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and
the Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the
Bureau of Land Management:
Table 21: Water Quality Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the Bureau
of Reclamation:
Table 22: Water Quantity Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and
the Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the
Bureau of Reclamation:
Table 23: Water Quality Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the Fish
and Wildlife Service:
Table 24: Water Quantity Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and
the Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the
Fish and Wildlife Service:
Table 25: Water Quality Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the U.S.
Geological Survey:
Table 26: Water Quantity Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and
the Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the
U.S. Geological Survey:
Table 27: Water Quality Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the
National Park Service:
Table 28: Water Quantity Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and
the Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the
National Park Service:
Table 29: Water Quality Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by TVA:
Table 30: Water Quantity Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and
the Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by TVA:
Figures:
Figure 1: Process of Water Quality Management:
Figure 2: Representation of a Typical Watershed:
Figure 3: Monitoring Types and the Parameters They Measure:
Figure 4: STORET's Monitoring Coverage:
Figure 5: The U.S. Geological Survey's Nationwide Streamgage Network:
Figure 6: SNOTEL's Site Locations:
Figure 7: Automated Surface Observer System Sites as of February 2004:
Figure 8: Most Frequently Cited Barriers to Coordinating Water Quality
Data Collection Efforts by 15 Federal Agencies:
Figure 9: Federal Agencies Reporting on the Amount of Data That They
Have to Make Well-Supported Watershed Management Decisions:
Figure 10: Cumulative Number of U.S. Geological Survey Gages with 30 or
More Years of Record Discontinued, 1933-2003:
Figure 11: Satellite Used to Relay Collected Water Quantity Data to
Data Users (Lawson, Colorado):
Figure 12: Increase in the Use of Telemetry Systems at U.S. Geological
Survey Streamgage Stations:
Figure 13: Meteor Burst Communication Technology Used to Relay Radio
Signals from Remote Collection Locations to a Master Station:
Abbreviations:
ASIWPCA: Association of State and Interstate Water Pollution Control
Administrators:
BPA: Bonneville Power Administration:
CSREES: Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service:
EPA: Environmental Protection Agency:
NOAA: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:
NWIS: National Water Information System:
SNOTEL: Snowpack Telemetry:
STORET: Storage and Retrieval System:
TMDL: total maximum daily load:
TVA: Tennessee Valley Authority:
Letter June 7, 2004:
The Honorable John J. Duncan, Jr.:
Chairman, Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment:
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure:
House of Representatives:
Dear Mr. Chairman:
In response to your request, this report discusses (1) the key entities
that collect water quality and water quantity data, including the types
of data they collect, how they store their data, and how entities can
access the data; and (2) the extent to which these entities coordinate
their water quality and water quantity data collection efforts. We
include a matter for congressional consideration that the Congress
considers formally designating a lead organization (either an existing
water data coordinating entity or one of the federal agencies with
broad water data collection responsibilities) to enhance and clearly
define authority for coordinating the collection of water data
nationwide. Among its responsibilities, the organization would (1)
support the development and continued operation of regional and state
monitoring councils, (2) coordinate the development of an Internet-
based clearinghouse to convey what entities are collecting what types
of data, and (3) coordinate development of clear guidance on metadata
standards so that data users can integrate data from various sources.
As agreed with your office, unless you publicly announce the contents
of this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30 days
from the report date. We will then send copies to others who are
interested and make copies available to others who request them. In
addition, the report will be available at no charge on the GAO Web site
at [Hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov].
Please call me or Steve Elstein on (202) 512-3841 if you or your staff
have any questions. Key contributors to this report are listed in
appendix VI.
Sincerely yours,
Signed by:
John B. Stephenson:
Director, Natural Resources and Environment:
[End of section]
Executive Summary:
Purpose:
The availability of timely, reliable, and complete data about the
nation's waters has significant environmental and financial
implications. Water quality data, for example, are critical for
determining which waters do not meet states' standards and must,
therefore, be targeted for potentially expensive cleanup. Similarly,
reliable and comprehensive data on the quantity of the nation's water
resources are needed to support important--and increasingly
contentious--decisions about how to allocate limited water resources
among states and among a variety of competing uses. GAO and other
organizations, however, have documented shortages in the data available
to decision makers. Paradoxically, a large number of public and private
organizations collect this kind of information--raising questions as to
whether more efficient coordination of these data collection efforts
can result in more data being made available for informed decision
making.
The Chairman, the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment,
House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, asked GAO to
address a number of issues concerning the water data that various
organizations collect and the degree to which their data collection
efforts are coordinated with each other. Specifically, GAO was asked to
determine (1) the key entities that collect water quality and water
quantity data, including the types of data they collect, how they store
their data, and how entities can access the data; and (2) the extent to
which these entities coordinate their water quality and water quantity
data collection efforts.
To respond to the Chairman's request, GAO surveyed key federal agencies
that collect water quality and water quantity data. GAO also met with
and obtained information from federal and state agencies, monitoring
councils, localities, and other interested groups in Colorado,
Mississippi, and Virginia. These states were chosen on the basis of the
diversity of entities involved in the collection of data in these
states, geographic diversity, and their experiences in coordinating
water data. GAO also met with and obtained information from key
national organizations interested in water monitoring and coordination
of monitoring efforts. (See ch. 1 for a detailed description of GAO's
scope and methodology.)
Background:
Under the Clean Water Act, states have primary responsibility for
implementing programs to manage water quality. This responsibility
includes establishing water quality standards, monitoring and assessing
the quality of their waters, and developing and implementing cleanup
plans for waters that do not meet standards (impaired waters). Given
the environmental consequences and financial expense at stake in
determining which waters are targeted for cleanup, it is particularly
important that such water quality determinations and cleanup strategies
be supported by complete and accurate data. In arriving at these
determinations, state agencies responsible for water quality programs
can use data collected by other state agencies, federal agencies,
volunteer groups, and others. While states' collection of water quality
data is critical to meeting the objectives of the Clean Water Act,
other organizations also rely heavily on water quality data for a
variety of purposes. The Army Corps of Engineers, for example, uses
water quality data to, among other purposes, regulate water projects
for flood control, navigation, and hydropower and process permits under
Section 404 of the Act for the discharge of dredge and fill materials
into navigable waters.
A number of entities also regulate the quantity of available water
supplies to meet a variety of needs. Among other things, water quantity
data are needed to help make water quality determinations. The quantity
of water flowing through a river, for example, affects the
concentrations of regulated pollutants in that river. The importance of
water quantity data, however, extends beyond their impacts on pollutant
concentrations. Federal, state, local, tribal, and private
organizations also rely heavily on water quantity data to fulfill
critical responsibilities in ensuring an adequate water supply to meet
a variety of competing needs. States govern the allocation and use of
water in accordance with their own laws, and enter into interstate
compacts with neighboring states regarding water supplies that cross
their common borders. To fulfill these responsibilities, states need
data on how much water is available for allocation (e.g., streamflow
and snowpack data) and data on how much water is being consumed. For
their part, federal agencies support states in their efforts to govern
the allocation and use of water and also use these data themselves in
managing resources on federal lands.
In making decisions regarding the nation's waters, many advocate the
use of the watershed approach, which seeks to manage watersheds--areas
that drain to a common waterway--rather than individual bodies of water
that may be affected by similar pollutants or natural conditions. The
key data available to support critical watershed management decisions,
however, are often incomplete and unreliable. According to the best
available data from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), for
example, only about one-fifth of the nation's total rivers and stream
miles have been assessed to:
determine their compliance with states' water quality
standards.[Footnote 1] Of the river and stream miles that were
assessed, 39 percent were found to be out of compliance with states'
standards. More generally, GAO reported in March 2000[Footnote 2] that
few of the 50 states had a majority of the data they needed to make key
water quality determinations, such as which of their waters do not meet
state standards and what are their most significant sources of
pollution.
Results in Brief:
GAO identified 16 key federal agencies that collect water
data.[Footnote 3] Fifteen of those agencies are collectors of a wide
variety of water quality data. Among the most notable is the U.S.
Geological Survey, which operates several large water quality
monitoring programs across the nation. States also play a key role in
water quality data collection to fulfill their responsibilities under
the Clean Water Act. In addition, hundreds of other organizations,
including local watershed groups, volunteer monitoring groups,
industries, and members of academia collect water quality data. In
contrast to the large number of entities collecting water quality data,
collection of water quantity data is considerably more centralized.
Several key federal agencies--most notably Interior's U.S. Geological
Survey, Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National
Weather Service--collect a majority of the water quantity data
available nationwide. The Army Corps of Engineers also collects water
quantity data and funds the collection of considerable amounts of
additional data.
While GAO found instances where good coordination has decreased water
quality information gaps and duplication of effort, for the most part,
entities collecting water quality data are either not coordinating
their efforts or have experienced difficulty in doing so. These
entities have faced several key barriers: (1) data collected for
different organizations are geared toward serving different purposes,
(2) inconsistent methods ("protocols") are used to obtain samples and
interpret their results, (3) data collectors are unaware as to which
entities collect what types of data, and (4) low priority for data
coordination, as shown in a lack of support for national and state
councils that have been established to improve coordination. These
difficulties have not only perpetuated gaps and duplication of effort
but have also complicated efforts to synthesize data from different
collection efforts in a way that would provide decision makers with a
more comprehensive picture of an area's water quality. GAO is
recommending that the Congress consider formally designating a lead
organization, such as a council or an agency, with sufficient authority
and resources to effectively coordinate data collection.
The federal and state officials GAO interviewed generally agreed that
efforts to coordinate the collection of water quantity data have been
comparatively successful, often reporting that their biggest concern is
that the overall amount of water quantity data is in short supply.
These officials cited several reasons for the relative success of water
quantity coordination efforts: (1) data collection is more centralized
among the smaller number of entities collecting data, (2) water
managers have a more critical need for accurate and complete data to
support critical and time-sensitive decisions, (3) some of the
technologies for measuring water quantity allow for immediate
distribution of data, and (4) the measures of water quantity are fewer
in number and are taken by data collectors in a more consistent manner.
Principal Findings:
Many Organizations Collect Water Quality and Water Quantity Data:
Fifteen of the sixteen federal agencies GAO examined said that they
collect at least some water quality data on a wide variety of data
parameters. A few agencies, such as the U.S. Geological Survey and the
Army Corps of Engineers, collect water quality data across the nation.
Most others, however, collect or fund the collection of project-
specific data that are limited in geographic scope and frequency. For
example, the Agricultural Research Service and the Cooperative State
Research, Education, and Extension Service collect or fund the
collection of data on a project-specific level primarily for research.
State water quality agencies play a key role in collecting data needed
to meet their responsibilities under the Clean Water Act. However, they
vary considerably in the comprehensiveness of their monitoring
programs; the types of data they collect to ascertain the health of
their waters (i.e., whether their monitoring programs emphasize the
gathering of physical, chemical, or biological data); and the extent to
which their monitoring strategies target specific waters of interest or
employ statistical sampling methods that allow inferences to be drawn
about a larger number of waters. In addition, local groups, volunteer
monitors, academic institutions, and private companies collect water
quality data for a variety of projects.
Water quality data are stored in a variety of ways, and their
accessibility to potential users depends largely on how they are
stored. Specifically, extensive water quality data are stored in either
of two large, Internet-accessible federal databases: EPA's Storage and
Retrieval System (STORET) and the U.S. Geological Survey's National
Water Information System (NWIS). Thirty-one states, for example, store
at least some of their water quality data in the STORET database. A
considerable amount of data, however, is not maintained in these
centralized databases. According to the Association of State and
Interstate Water Pollution Control Administrators (ASIWPCA),[Footnote
4] some states store their data in state databases, and a small number
of agencies still use paper files as their predominant means for
storing data. In addition, considerable water quality data have been
generated by federal agencies and other organizations on specific
projects, though these data are usually stored in internal databases
that are only accessible by request. Officials associated with some of
these projects told GAO that, unless potential users of the data were
aware of these projects, they are not likely to request the data.
Fifteen of the sixteen federal agencies GAO examined reported that they
collect at least some water quantity data. Most water quantity data
available nationwide, however, are collected by a few primary agencies.
The U.S. Geological Survey is the primary collector of
streamgage[Footnote 5] and water use data, which are stored and
accessed through NWIS. The Department of Agriculture's Natural
Resources Conservation Service collects snowpack data through its Snow
Survey and Water Supply Forecasting Program in 12 western states and
Alaska. It stores these data in an extensive, automated system, and
makes them available to the public through the Internet. In addition,
the National Weather Service collects precipitation data at most major
airports and from volunteers across the nation. It stores these data in
the National Climatic Data Center of NOAA's National Environmental
Satellite, Data, and Information Service and makes them available to
the public via the Internet. In addition, the Army Corps of Engineers
funds the collection of considerable water quantity data. Other federal
agencies reported that they generally collect project-specific water
quantity data that they store in internal databases, which they make
available in a variety of ways depending on the agency. Additionally,
some states collect water quantity data, such as streamgage data and
precipitation data, often to fill in gaps in the data collected by
federal agencies.
Improved Coordination of Water Quality Data Collection Can Help
Watershed Managers Make More Informed Decisions:
Officials in almost all of the 15 federal agencies GAO contacted that
collect water quality data indicated that coordination was either not
taking place or falling short of its potential, and that enhanced
coordination could provide data users with better data about water
quality conditions and a more complete picture of the health of
watersheds. For example, Forest Service officials explained that
enhanced coordination between the Forest Service and the states would
help states obtain the data needed to identify and address waters that
do not meet water quality standards. State environmental agencies we
contacted generally agreed, acknowledging in particular that improved
coordination among state monitoring efforts, and between states and
other data-gathering entities, could be significantly improved.
Given the strong consensus on the need for better coordination, GAO
asked federal and state officials, representatives of local governments
and watershed groups, and others to explain the barriers that have
impeded their efforts to coordinate water quality data collection.
Among the most frequently cited problems were the following:
* Organizations often collect data to achieve very specific missions,
which sometimes makes officials unwilling or unable to modify their
data collection approaches to make the results more widely usable, and
which may even make officials reluctant to share data they have on
hand.
* Data collectors often use different data collection procedures,
resulting in incomparable definitions to measure the same or similar
pollutants, different detection limits, inconsistent levels of quality
assurance, and inconsistent collection of metadata.[Footnote 6]
* Many collectors do not know who is collecting which types of data
because they do not have a centralized clearinghouse on water quality
data.
In addition, water quality officials also cited complications in the
way data are managed as a factor that makes it difficult to use data
from various sources. Federal and state agency officials explained that
data are often stored using different formats in different databases,
making integrating data extremely difficult.
As some of the officials noted, there are coordinating bodies at the
national and state levels that address coordination issues. Among the
most notable of these is the National Water Quality Monitoring Council.
The council is co-chaired by EPA and the U.S. Geological Survey and
includes representatives from federal, interstate, state, tribal,
local, and municipal governments, watershed groups, volunteer
monitoring groups, and the private sector. The officials noted,
however, that the effectiveness of the council, and of many similar
organizations at the state level, has been inhibited by a lack of
authority to make key decisions, a shortage of funding to undertake key
coordinating activities, and low priority attention from data
collecting organizations.
Some have cited these difficulties in calling for a clearly designated
water data coordinating body with both sufficient resources and
authority. They differ, however, on the precise form this body would
take. When asked what type of entity might best fulfill this role, an
official with the U.S. Geological Survey said that, with clearly
defined authority, the National Water Quality Monitoring Council could
make greater progress in improving both data coordination and the
availability of water information for decision making. On the other
hand, officials from the Army Corps of Engineers suggested that it may
be preferable to designate a lead federal agency to assume this role.
The officials suggested that an appropriate lead agency would be one
that already carries out or supports broad water data responsibilities.
GAO concluded that it may be appropriate for the Congress to make the
judgment call as to whether such a body should be designated and which
body should fulfill this role.
Water Quantity Data Are Limited, but Efforts to Collect Them Are
Generally Well-Coordinated:
Numerous federal and state officials cited an overall lack of water
quantity data as a major concern. Nonetheless, broad consensus emerged
among the federal and state officials GAO interviewed that where water
quantity data are being collected, coordination has been comparatively
successful. The officials cited the following key factors that account
for this greater success:
* Water quantity data collection is centralized among a smaller number
of entities, which allows users and collectors to more easily identify
data sources. Additionally, the entities have clearly defined roles in
data collection that collectively serve a common purpose of predicting
and measuring the nation's water availability and use. Together, these
attributes help prevent overlap and facilitate coordination.
* The need for accurate and complete real-time data to support urgent
and controversial water quantity management decisions, such as flood
control and water allocation decisions, provides an impetus for groups
to collaborate in generating adequate data. In some cases, agencies may
face costly consequences if they make poor decisions, adding yet
another incentive to obtain sufficient data through coordination.
* Advanced technologies, such as satellite and radio technology, allow
data gathered in stream or in remote locations to be quickly
disseminated to data users via the Internet. By making it easier to
share and access data, the availability of these technologies
encourages coordination.
* The general consistency in the way water quantity data are measured
and analyzed makes it easier for data users to integrate data gathered
from separate collection efforts. Because water quantity has been
measured for so many years, the parameters that agencies measure and
the methods they use to measure them are well-developed and more
uniformly used.
Matter for Congressional Consideration:
To enhance and clearly define authority for coordinating the collection
of water data nationwide, GAO recommends that the Congress consider
formally designating a lead organization (either an existing water data
coordinating entity or one of the federal agencies with broad water
data collection responsibilities) for this purpose. Among its
responsibilities, the organization would:
* Support the development and continued operation of regional and state
monitoring councils.
* Coordinate the development of an Internet-based clearinghouse to
convey what entities are collecting what types of data. As part of this
effort, the organization could advance the development of a geospatial
Internet-based query tool (portal) that would allow users access to
information about water data available within a given watershed.
* Coordinate the development of clear guidance on metadata standards so
that data users can integrate data from various sources.
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
GAO provided a draft of this report to the Departments of Agriculture,
Commerce, and the Interior; the Army Corps of Engineers; and EPA. The
Departments of Commerce and the Interior, the Army Corps of Engineers,
and EPA provided written comments, which are reprinted in appendixes II
through V. The Department of Agriculture did not submit a formal
letter, although an official with the Department's Natural Resources
Conservation Service expressed general agreement with the report. All
of the agencies provided technical comments and clarifications, which
were incorporated as appropriate. GAO also provided the draft report to
two nonfederal members of the National Water Quality Monitoring Council
for their review.
The Army Corps of Engineers stated that it "agrees with the majority of
the [draft report's] findings," noting in particular its agreement that
better coordination of data collection is needed to improve decision
making. The Corps commented, however, that the draft report should have
more fully discussed the full range of water quality and water quantity
data that is collected and maintained by the Corps. The draft report
had discussed a wide range of Corps data collection activities (both
water quality and water quantity), but GAO supplemented those
discussions with additional detail in response to the Corps' comment.
The Corps also offered additional information about planned activities
to use a comprehensive integrated watershed management approach. GAO
also added information about these planned activities. The Corps'
comments, and GAO's response, are discussed at the end of chapters 2,
3, and 4.
The Department of the Interior generally agreed with the report,
stating that "GAO is commended on their comprehensive job in assembling
information on a large complex subject—" Interior's letter also noted
that "GAO has brought many of the most important perspectives of
successes and challenges to light." Interior cautioned, however, that
the designation of a lead water data organization would not necessarily
remove all of the barriers that are currently limiting the coordination
of data collection activities. GAO agrees, but still believes that the
establishment of such a lead organization would be an important first
step to enhance and clearly define authority needed to address many of
these barriers. These and other issues, and GAO's responses, are
discussed at the end of chapters 3 and 4.
EPA agreed on the need for reliable, comprehensive, and accessible data
on water quality to effectively implement the watershed approach. EPA
noted, however, that the report should further emphasize (1) the high
cost of monitoring, (2) recent significant improvements to the STORET
system, and (3) the emphasis placed on coordination and data sharing in
EPA's "Elements of a State Monitoring and Assessment Program" guidance.
We provided additional information on these issues in response to the
EPA comment. These issues, and GAO's responses, are discussed at the
end of chapters 2 and 3.
The Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration suggested that GAO clarify that the report addresses
freshwater rather than saltwater and that it eliminate references to
watersheds since the report does not deal with the subject at great
length. GAO added language clarifying that our study focused on
freshwater but retained references to watersheds. As the letter
requesting our study noted, the watershed approach has become
increasingly important in efforts to manage the nation's waters and
that approach depends heavily on the availability of complete and
reliable data.
The two National Water Quality Monitoring Council members offered
several clarifications and suggestions, which were incorporated as
appropriate. National Water Quality Monitoring Council officials noted
that, since the reviewers' comments were not considered for endorsement
by the council's membership, they should be viewed as informal
suggestions to enhance the accuracy and completeness of the report.
GAO also verified specific information in the draft report with
officials from BPA, TVA, states, industry, watershed groups, and
volunteer monitoring groups and made modifications as necessary.
[End of section]
Chapter 1: Introduction:
The availability to decision makers of timely, reliable, and complete
data about the nation's waters has significant environmental and
financial implications. Water quality data, for example, are critical
for determining which waters do not meet states' standards and must,
therefore, be targeted for potentially expensive cleanup. Similarly,
decision makers need reliable and comprehensive data on the quantity of
the nation's water resources to support increasingly important--and
contentious--decisions about how to allocate limited water resources
among states and among a variety of competing uses.
GAO and others, however, have documented shortages in the data
available to make such decisions. At the same time, a large number of
public and private organizations collect this kind of information--
raising questions as to whether more efficient coordination of these
data collection efforts can result in more data available for informed
decision making.
Decision Makers Need Complete and Reliable Water Quality Data:
Under the Clean Water Act, states have primary responsibility for
implementing programs to manage water quality. Their key
responsibilities include establishing water quality standards to
achieve designated uses (the purposes for which a given body of water
is intended to serve), assessing whether the quality of their waters
meets states' water quality standards, and developing and implementing
cleanup plans for waters that do not meet standards.
Monitoring information on water quality is the linchpin that allows
states to perform these responsibilities. States generally monitor
water quality directly, but frequently supplement these data with data
collected by federal agencies, volunteer groups, and other entities.
Monitoring data can include information about the presence of chemicals
such as chlorine, physical characteristics such as temperature, and
biological characteristics such as the health and abundance of fish and
other aquatic species. Figure 1 shows how monitoring water quality is
essential to identifying water quality problems and determining whether
actions to restore water quality are successful.
Figure 1: Process of Water Quality Management:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
As shown in figure 1, states compare monitoring data with their water
quality standards. If a state's assessment of a body of water indicates
that it does not meet the standards--for example, if it has levels of
chlorine that are too high to support aquatic life--then the body of
water is considered as not supporting its intended use of aquatic life.
In such cases, states are required, under section 303(d) of the act, to
identify and list waters for which technology-based effluent
limitations are not sufficient to meet water quality standards and for
which pollutants need to be reduced. EPA must approve or disapprove the
states' lists.
In developing their lists of impaired waters, states must use all
existing and readily available water quality-related data to determine
if a water body is impaired and identify the specific pollutant(s)
causing impairment. Subsequently, states must develop a total maximum
daily load (TMDL), as necessary, for each of the pollutants affecting
each impaired body of water. TMDLs are used to restore water quality by
identifying how much pollution a body of water can receive and still
meet standards and then reducing the amount of pollution entering the
water to that level.
While states' use of water quality data is critical to meeting the
objectives of the Clean Water Act, other organizations also rely
heavily on water quality data for a variety of purposes. The Army Corps
of Engineers, for example, uses these data for a variety of reasons,
including regulating water projects and issuing permits under section
404 of the act for the discharge of dredge and fill materials into
navigable waters. Federal land management agencies such as the
Department of the Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park
Service, and Bureau of Land Management and the Department of
Agriculture's Forest Service rely upon these data to fulfill their
responsibilities to protect and restore aquatic resources on federal
lands. These agencies also use these data to fulfill their
responsibilities under various laws, such as the protection of critical
habitat for plants and animals under the Endangered Species Act. In
addition to these federal agencies, numerous public and private
organizations at the local level rely on water quality data to ensure
that public health and environmental goals are protected.
Data Also Needed to Support Key Water Quantity Decisions:
Federal, state, local, tribal, and private organizations also rely
heavily on water quantity data to fulfill critical responsibilities in
ensuring an adequate water supply to meet competing needs. States are
primarily responsible for governing the allocation and use of water in
accordance with the laws developed by their state and interstate
compacts--agreements that address water allocation, quality, and other
issues on bodies of water that cross state borders. Key state
responsibilities in complying with these compacts and laws include
administering water rights to various users, allocating water in
accordance with these water rights, maintaining instream flow
requirements for habitat purposes, and enforcing the decrees and water
laws of the state. To fulfill these responsibilities, states need water
availability data, such as streamflow and snowpack data, to quantify
how much water is and will be available for allocation, and water use
data, including withdrawal and return flow data, to determine how much
water is being consumed. They obtain these data mostly through the
efforts of others, such as federal agencies and municipalities,
although a few states also conduct their own monitoring.
Federal agencies support states in their efforts to govern the
allocation and use of water through many activities. Agencies, such as
the Department of the Interior, assist states in developing,
implementing, and enforcing interstate compacts; the U.S. Geological
Survey, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA)
National Weather Service, and Natural Resources Conservation Service,
among others, collect and share information such as surface water,
rainfall, and snowpack data, which help forecast water supply; and the
Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation construct, operate,
and maintain dams, reservoirs, and water distribution facilities to
help meet the needs of water users, among other activities.
Federal agencies also need data to support their own varying objectives
on federal lands. Agencies responsible for managing natural resources-
-such as the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and
Wildlife Service, and National Park Service--construct and/or maintain
water storage and distribution facilities on their lands to provide
water for uses such as visitor services, recreation, habitat, and flood
control. These agencies also often collect water data or conduct water
resources investigations in support of their own responsibilities, such
as collection of supplemental streamgage information to assess habitat
and recreational conditions. Additionally, numerous federal natural
resources management agencies may become involved (e.g., by geography
or other factors) in some aspect(s) of tribal water interests. Federal
natural resources management agency policies generally include
provisions to protect and support tribal water interests, in
cooperation with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the tribes.
Other agencies needing water quantity data include local, regional, and
interstate water authorities, as well as private firms that own and
operate water resources systems. Scientists and recreational water
users are also heavy users of water quantity data. These groups use
data to, among other things, evaluate current water supplies and plan
for future supplies; forecast floods and droughts; operate reservoirs
for hydropower, flood control, or water supplies; navigate rivers and
streams; and safely fish, canoe, kayak, or raft.
Data Needed to Support the Watershed Approach:
Concerns over both water quality and water quantity often come together
at the "watershed" level. As illustrated in figure 2, a watershed is an
area that drains to a common waterway, such as a stream, lake, estuary,
wetland, or ocean. Watersheds come in all shapes and sizes, and often
cross county, state, and national boundaries. Depending on its scale, a
watershed may refer to large or small river basins, sub-basins,
tributary basins, or smaller hydrological units or drainage areas.
Figure 2: Representation of a Typical Watershed:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Many federal agencies have long supported a watershed approach as the
best way to manage the nation's water resources. Army Corps of
Engineers officials, for example, noted that the agency has been
working in the watershed context and engaged in watershed-level
planning and management for many years. They noted further that
watershed analysis has been the "cornerstone" of planning and
environmental review efforts for major Corps projects. Also, in a
December 2002 memorandum, the EPA Assistant Administrator for Water
reaffirmed the agency's commitment to the watershed approach, noting
that by focusing multistakeholder efforts within hydrologically defined
boundaries to protect and restore our aquatic resources and ecosystems,
the watershed approach "offers the most cost-effective opportunity to
tackle today's challenges" in meeting the nation's water
needs.[Footnote 7] As the memorandum notes, the value in this approach
is in taking a holistic approach to the water resource in a way that
brings in the full range of federal, state, local, and private parties
with a stake in the resource.
Importantly, the watershed approach also allows for the identification
and prioritization of problems affecting the resource and steps to
address them. This is important because different watersheds may be
affected by significantly different natural conditions and pollution
problems. Moreover, even where watersheds are affected by similar
pollutants, the causes of their pollution problems--and the steps
needed to deal with them--can be quite different. For example, in the
case of two watersheds affected by excessive levels of nitrogen, one
may need to reduce discharges from wastewater treatment plants and
other "point" sources, while the other may need to address nitrogen
sources emanating from agricultural use. Moreover, water officials must
also consider water availability issues, since the amount of water
flowing through the watershed affects the ability of the watershed to
assimilate the pollutant. These critical determinations, however, can
only be made and defended if reliable and comprehensive data are
available on the quality and quantity of the water resource and on the
ecological and other factors that affect them.
Can Critical Data Shortages Be Addressed through Enhanced Coordination?
Unfortunately, the key data needed to support critical water management
decisions are often incomplete and unreliable. According to the best
available data from EPA, only about one-fifth of the nation's total
rivers and stream miles have been assessed to determine their
compliance with states' water quality standards.[Footnote 8] More
generally, we reported in March 2000 that few of the 50 states had a
majority of the data they need to make key water quality
determinations, such as which of their waters do not meet state
standards and what are their most significant sources of
pollution.[Footnote 9]
This apparent shortage of such data, however, belies the fact that
numerous organizations do in fact collect this kind of information.
Many federal agencies as well as a wide variety of other organizations
at the regional, state, and local levels collect water quality and/or
water quantity data. Consequently, questions have been raised as to
whether better coordination among these numerous organizations in their
data collection activities can provide decision makers with more of the
vital information they need to make informed and defensible decisions
on critical water-related issues.
Objectives, Scope, and Methodology:
The Chairman of the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment,
House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, asked GAO to
address a number of issues concerning the water data that various
organizations collect, and the degree to which their data collection
efforts are coordinated with each other. Specifically, we were asked to
determine (1) the key entities that collect water quality and water
quantity data, including the types of data they collect, how they store
their data, and how entities can access the data; and (2) the extent to
which these entities coordinate their water quality and water quantity
data collection efforts.
To address the first objective, we identified and surveyed key federal
agencies that collect water quality and/or water quantity data: the
Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service, Cooperative
State Research, Education and Extension Service, Natural Resources
Conservation Service, and Forest Service; the Department of Commerce's
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Marine
Fisheries Service, National Weather Service, and National Ocean
Service; the Department of Defense's Army Corps of Engineers; the
Environmental Protection Agency; the Department of Energy's Bonneville
Power Administration; the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land
Management, Bureau of Reclamation, Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S.
Geological Survey, and National Park Service; and the Tennessee Valley
Authority. Though not an exhaustive list of all federal agencies
collecting water data, these key agencies were identified through
discussions with federal water officials, identification of member
agencies on the National Water Quality Monitoring Council,[Footnote 10]
and EPA's Guide to Federal Water Quality Programs and Information. As
appropriate, we obtained separate information from different units
within an agency. In each case, we obtained information on the types of
data being collected, the methods in which the agencies store the data
they collect, and the manner in which the data could be accessed by
other parties.[Footnote 11]
To obtain insights on data collection by states, local governments, and
other organizations, we conducted site visits to three states--
Colorado, Mississippi, and Virginia. The states were chosen on the
basis of the diversity of entities involved in the collection of data
in these states, geographic diversity, and their experiences in
coordinating watershed data. During these site visits, we interviewed
representatives of federal, state, and local agencies; watershed
management groups; and members of academia, industry, environmental
organizations, and volunteer monitoring groups.
We also used the survey of federal agencies and the site visits to
address the second objective to determine the extent to which data
collectors coordinate their data collection efforts. Specifically, a
number of questions in our federal agency survey addressed the extent
to which data collection activities were coordinated with other federal
agencies, as well as other entities. We also sought opinions on the
most useful steps that could be taken to improve coordination. We
supplemented these contacts by interviewing members of federal and
state coordinating organizations, most notably the National Water
Quality Monitoring Council and its state counterparts in Colorado,
Maryland, and Virginia. In these instances, we sought information about
past and ongoing efforts to coordinate data collection, seeking in
particular to better understand the barriers these groups face in their
coordination efforts. We also sought information about data
coordination from other key organizations with particular knowledge
about this issue, such as the Association of State and Interstate Water
Pollution Control Administrators and the Advisory Committee on Water
Information.
As agreed with the Chairman's office, in addressing the second
objective, we also sought information on efforts to allow for the
integration of data from separate collection efforts, so that direct
comparisons can be made in a way that maximizes the usefulness of these
data. This inquiry addressed, for example, the steps that agencies have
taken or attempted to take to allow data users to integrate data from
their agency with data from other sources. We examined this issue in
our interviews with the full range of data users and data collectors
contacted during our study. We also interviewed database managers from
the key agencies that manage and store water data (most notably EPA and
the U.S. Geological Survey) to identify current barriers to data
integration and the steps needed to achieve better integration.
We conducted our work from March 2003 through May 2004 in accordance
with generally accepted government auditing standards. GAO contacts and
staff acknowledgments are listed in appendix VI.
[End of section]
Chapter 2: Many Organizations Collect Water Quality and Water Quantity
Data:
Hundreds of entities collect water quality data, while fewer entities
collect most of the available water quantity data. For water quality
data, at least 15 federal agencies collect a wide variety of these data
on a nationwide, regional, or project-specific basis. At the state
level, multiple state agencies collect water quality data, including
environmental, agricultural, conservation, health, and forestry
agencies, and use these data to comply with federal regulations and to
restore and protect water bodies. In addition, many local governments,
volunteer monitoring groups, industries, members of academia, and
others collect water quality data. Some water quality data are stored
in two large national databases operated by the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Geological Survey; these databases
are available through the Internet. However, many data collectors store
their water quality data on a project-specific basis, such as in a
database for a single research project, and these data generally are
available, by request, only to those who know about the agency's
projects.
While many entities collect water quality data, a small number of key
federal agencies are responsible for collecting the largest share of
the water quantity data collected nationwide. The U.S. Geological
Survey collects streamgage data nationwide, NOAA's National Weather
Service collects precipitation data at over 10,000 locations
nationwide, and the Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources
Conservation Service maintains an extensive automated system to collect
snowpack data. These three agencies store their water quantity data in
national databases that are accessible through the Internet. In
addition, the Army Corps of Engineers funds the collection of
considerable amounts of water quantity data. Other federal agencies,
such as the Fish and Wildlife Service, also collect water quantity
data, but generally on a project-specific basis with data available by
request only. Some state agencies also collect water quantity data to
better understand water availability and water use.
Water Quality Data Collection:
At least 15 federal agencies, as well as state agencies, local
governments, volunteer monitoring groups, industry groups, members of
academia and others, collect water quality data. These data generally
provide information on chemical, physical, or biological conditions of
waters. The scope of the data collected varies widely--from national
programs, such as the U.S. Geological Survey's National Water Quality
Assessment Program, to site-specific research projects, such as the
Department of Agriculture's testing of the effects of agricultural
practices on water quality. Different entities also vary in how they
store data and allow others to access them. In some cases, water
quality data are stored in databases that are accessible via the
Internet. In many cases, however, water quality data are stored on a
project-specific basis and can be accessed only by request.
Water Quality Monitoring Measures the Biological, Chemical, and
Physical Conditions of Water:
The Clean Water Act establishes goals for attaining water quality, as
measured by the biological, chemical, and physical conditions of
waters. EPA guidelines discuss the different types of monitoring tests
in each of these areas--each of which yields data about particular
aspects of bodies of water.
* Biological monitoring measures the health of aquatic communities and
includes a variety of techniques, such as assessing species' health and
abundance.
* Physical monitoring tests the physical characteristics of bodies of
water, such as temperature and the amount of suspended solids in the
water.
* Chemical monitoring tests for chemicals that may be present, such as
chlorine or ammonia, and metals, such as mercury.
These monitoring types and the parameters they measure are described in
figure 3.
Figure 3: Monitoring Types and the Parameters They Measure:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Federal Water Quality Data Collection:
A number of federal agencies and subagencies collect, or fund the
collection of, considerable amounts of water quality data. GAO surveyed
the following 15 key federal agencies that collect water quality data
on a wide variety of parameters:
* Department of Agriculture:
* Agricultural Research Service:
* Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service:
* Forest Service:
* Natural Resources Conservation Service:
* Department of Commerce:
* National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:
* National Marine Fisheries Service:
* National Ocean Service:
* Department of Defense:
* Army Corps of Engineers:
* Department of Energy:
* Bonneville Power Administration:
* Environmental Protection Agency:
* Department of the Interior:
* Bureau of Land Management:
* Bureau of Reclamation:
* Fish and Wildlife Service:
* U.S. Geological Survey:
* National Park Service:
* Tennessee Valley Authority:
We asked officials from these agencies to report on the specific
chemical, physical, and biological parameters--as listed in figure 3--
that their agencies collect. Each of the agencies reported that they
collect data on all, or almost all, of the listed parameters shown in
figure 3.[Footnote 12]
Although these parameters are collected widely across the agencies, we
found that the geographical scope of agency data collection for each of
these parameters varies considerably. The U.S. Geological Survey
operates several large national programs, including the National Stream
Quality Accounting Network and the National Water Quality Assessment
Programs. These programs describe and provide an understanding of water
quality in major river basins and aquifer systems, as well as in small
watersheds, and cover about two-thirds of the land area of the
conterminous United States. Many federal and state agencies and local
groups rely upon data collected by the U.S. Geological Survey for
watershed management activities.
The Army Corps of Engineers also collects water quality data on a broad
geographical scale at many of its approximately 700 water projects.
These projects primarily are operated to facilitate navigation, reduce
flood or storm damages, provide water supply storage, or generate
hydropower. In addition, the Corps also collects a considerable amount
of water quality data for planning and design purposes, generally to
understand impacts of projects in advance of their implementation. For
example, before entering into a dredging cycle, the Corps collects
short-term data to understand what pollutants will be released into a
water body. Similarly, the Corps collects specific water quality data
in response to Section 404 permit requests. In general, the Corps
collects water quality data to address environmental issues, such as
sediment and water quality for fish and wildlife.
Most of the agencies we surveyed collect project-specific data in
defined geographic regions. For example, the Tennessee Valley Authority
(TVA) collects water quality data to evaluate ecological health in
reservoirs throughout the Tennessee Valley, an area that includes
almost all of Tennessee and parts of Mississippi, Kentucky, Alabama,
Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia. In addition, the Department of
Energy's Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) collects water quality
data in conjunction with some of the hundreds of fish and wildlife
projects it funds each year throughout the Pacific Northwest, including
Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and western Montana, as well as small
portions of Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, California, and eastern Montana.
Agencies also collect data at varying frequencies. For example, a
Bureau of Land Management official surveyed the agency's field offices
and found that most collect chemical, physical, and biological data
annually. In contrast, other agencies, such as the U.S. Geological
Survey and National Park Service, reported that they collect water
quality data on a continuous or otherwise more frequent basis.
Federal Water Quality Data Storage:
There are two national databases for water quality data: EPA's Storage
and Retrieval System (STORET) and U.S. Geological Survey's National
Water Information System (NWIS). According to EPA officials, STORET
contains biological, physical, and chemical data collected by over 120
organizations, including federal, state, and local agencies, American
Indian tribes, volunteer groups, and academics. EPA officials reported
that, as of January 2004, STORET contains approximately 18 million
monitoring results collected from over 146,000 sites. Figure 4 depicts
STORET's monitoring coverage. Officials from five of the agencies we
surveyed said they store at least some data in STORET. For example, the
National Park Service uses STORET to store all of its data, while
several other agencies, such as the Bureau of Land Management and the
Bureau of Reclamation, store small amounts of data in STORET.
Figure 4: STORET's Monitoring Coverage:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
The U.S. Geological Survey collects and analyzes chemical, physical,
and biological properties of water and disseminates the data through
NWIS to the public, state and local governments, public and private
utilities, and other federal agencies involved with managing their
water resources. The U.S. Geological Survey established NWIS in 1975
and made it available to the public through the Internet in July 2001.
According to NWIS database managers, as of September 2003, NWIS was
accessed about 16 million times a month. Unlike STORET, which contains
data from multiple entities collected using a variety of data
collection methods, NWIS contains only data collected by U.S.
Geological Survey scientists or under U.S. Geological Survey approved
data collection methods that pass a quality control check. According to
officials from the Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Land
Management, some of their agencies' data are available through NWIS. In
addition, some water quality data collected by the Army Corps of
Engineers are stored in district offices in individual project files
for which the data were collected. Many of these data are accessible
upon request.
While several federal agencies store at least some of their data in
STORET and NWIS, officials in ten of the agencies we surveyed said that
all or most of their water quality data are stored in databases that
are specific to the project or program for which the data are
collected. For example, officials from the Agricultural Research
Service said that their data, collected through experiments conducted
on farms and ranches to determine how agricultural practices affect
water quality and verify the efficacy of best management practices, are
stored in numerous, internal project-specific databases. In addition,
according to an official from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration's (NOAA) National Ocean Service, the agency stores the
data used to assess the health of marine and coastal ecosystems in
internal program-specific databases.
Federal Water Quality Data Accessibility:
Data stored in STORET and NWIS are publicly available through the
Internet. Users can search STORET and NWIS by geographic area, such as
state or county, and by water quality parameters, such as chlorine or
dissolved oxygen. Data within STORET become available on the Internet
when users upload their data into the central version of the database.
The availability of NWIS data varies depending on the type of data that
users are trying to access. For example, some water quality data, such
as real-time data that are gathered from gages in streams, may become
available in NWIS every 4 hours. In other cases, it can take an average
of 4 months for data to be processed, checked for quality, and made
available through the NWIS Web site.
Many federal agency officials we interviewed said that their data are
available by request and/or through agency publications. However,
several officials said that, most of the time, it would be difficult
for the public to know that data are available because agencies do not
always publicize information about individual projects. For example,
the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service
(CSREES) provides funding to collect water quality data in support of
research and education objectives identified by individual
investigators, but CSREES has no centralized database to store the data
collected by researchers. Therefore, according to a CSREES official,
potential data users would have to know about CSREES-funded projects in
order to access the data. Similarly, officials from NOAA's National
Marine Fisheries Service said that the public would have difficulty
accessing the data that are stored in project-specific databases,
because there is no automated access through the NOAA's National Marine
Fisheries Service Web site.
State Water Quality Data Collection:
To address their considerable water quality management
responsibilities, various state agencies (such as departments of the
environment, health, fish and game, and conservation) collect and use
water quality data to comply with federal requirements and to restore
and protect water bodies. According to a study conducted by the
Association of State and Interstate Water Pollution Control
Administrators (ASIWPCA),[Footnote 13] 40 state and 2 interstate
agencies with specific responsibilities for monitoring and/or assessing
water quality spent a total of roughly $112 million on water quality
monitoring in 2002.[Footnote 14]
States vary in the types of data they collect, with some states
collecting primarily chemical and physical data, while others focus on
biological monitoring. For example, state agency officials we
interviewed in Virginia, Mississippi, and Colorado said that their
state focuses primarily on collecting chemical data parameters while,
as we reported in January 2002, Illinois, Maine, and Ohio rely
primarily on biological monitoring.[Footnote 15] States also vary in
the extent to which their monitoring strategies target specific waters
of interest or employ statistical sampling methods that allow
inferences to be drawn about a larger number of waters. According to
ASIWPCA, states tend to use traditional monitoring approaches, such as
fixed stations--long-term, sometimes permanent, sampling sites--and
special studies, which usually focus on a specific water quality
problem.
Recently, states have also adopted the following types of monitoring
strategies to supplement these approaches:
* The rotating basin strategy identifies basins, sub-basins or
watersheds within an area that are sampled sequentially. Usually, a
state monitors about one-fifth of its basins each year. After 4 or 5
years, the state has sampled all, and it repeats the sampling sequence.
* The targeted monitoring strategy targets certain sites for
concentrated monitoring based on a list of consideration and
information needs, such as determining the effects of runoff from
septic tanks or storm water or assessing current conditions in streams
flowing to sensitive areas. The results of targeted monitoring can
provide a good picture about water, identify sources of water
impairment, and determine if management actions are improving water
quality. However, the information gathered is location-specific and
cannot be extended to other areas except through mathematical modeling.
* Probabilistic monitoring uses a sampling approach to provide
comprehensive assessments of water quality conditions throughout an
area. Sites are randomly selected from all of the waters in a
watershed, and the results of monitoring are used to estimate water
quality conditions in the larger area with known confidence.
Probabilistic monitoring cannot provide information on specific sites
unless the sites were included in the random selection. In addition,
probabilistic sampling typically does not incorporate seasonal or other
variation.
* A tiered monitoring strategy structures states' monitoring programs
so that the less expensive and most expedient monitoring techniques can
be used first, followed by more expensive and time-consuming studies,
if the initial studies demonstrate that more monitoring is warranted.
The tiered approach may combine the techniques described above. For
example, one tier may be a rotating basin probabilistic approach for
gathering information on waters statewide, while a second tier may
focus on monitoring trends on large rivers and urban streams.
In March 2003, EPA issued guidance, "Elements of a State Water
Monitoring and Assessment Program,"[Footnote 16] that recommends 10
basic elements of a state water-monitoring program and serves as a tool
to help EPA and the states determine whether a monitoring program meets
the requirements of the Clean Water Act. The elements include (1)
developing a monitoring program strategy, (2) using an integrated
monitoring design, and (3) using accessible electronic data systems.
According to the guidance document, EPA believes that state monitoring
programs can be upgraded to include all ten elements within ten years.
According to EPA officials, states should develop a monitoring strategy
by the end of fiscal year 2004 and should begin implementing the
strategy in fiscal year 2005. EPA officials stated that they are
working with states to implement the guidance in order to reduce
inconsistencies and variations in state monitoring programs.
State Data Storage:
After collecting data using the various monitoring strategies, states
must store the data so that they can be readily retrieved for analysis
and evaluation. According to an EPA official, as of March 2004, 31
states use STORET to store at least some of their data, and EPA is
trying to have the remaining states and other federal agencies store
their water quality data in STORET as well. ASIWPCA reports that state
agencies are increasingly storing water quality data in national and
statewide electronic databases, but a small number of agencies still
use paper files as their predominant means for storing data.
Our site visits confirm that states differ in how their data are
stored. Of the states we visited, only Colorado uses STORET to store
water quality data. Officials in Virginia and Mississippi reported that
they used STORET through 1998, when EPA introduced a modernized version
of STORET. Officials in both states said that since they could not
easily put data in or retrieve data from the modernized STORET, both
states' Departments of Environmental Quality developed state databases
to better meet their needs. In addition, Virginia Department of
Environmental Quality officials said that some of their data exists
only in paper files.
Accessibility of State Water Quality Data:
As states' data storage practices vary, so does the accessibility of
their data. According to an ASIWPCA survey, water quality information
is primarily available to the public in published reports and other
printed materials as well as in electronic formats such as CD-ROMs. The
survey also showed that, as their resources permit, states are moving
toward making their data available via the Internet.
Our site visits similarly revealed that the accessibility of data
largely depends on the storage method the state uses. For example,
Colorado's water quality data are accessible through STORET. Since
Virginia's database is internal and is not Internet-accessible, data
users must request data or access the data through publications. In
Mississippi, the public can access water quality data through
publications or by request from the Mississippi Department of
Environmental Quality, though officials report that the state agency is
moving toward developing a system that will be publicly accessible via
the Internet.
Water Quality Data Collection by Local Governments, Volunteer
Monitoring Groups, and Others:
Local governments, volunteer monitoring groups, and others also collect
water quality data for a variety of purposes, including monitoring the
health of streams, lakes, and rivers, developing pollution reduction
strategies, and conducting research.
Local Governments:
Local government agencies, such as water management districts, also
participate in monitoring projects, often to understand and address
recognized water quality problems. Local agencies may limit their data
collection to particular geographic locations (e.g., a sewage treatment
district or particular town lake) or may collect data for specific
parameters, such as pH or dissolved oxygen. For example, according to a
Thornton, Colorado, city official we interviewed during one of our site
visits, the cities of Northglenn, Thornton, and Westminster, Colorado,
were prompted to start the Clear Creek Watershed Group in 1981 after
city officials found that excessive nutrients were causing odor and
taste problems in the cities' water supply. Similarly, a Fort Collins,
Colorado, official explained that he helped to initiate a coordinated,
regional watershed monitoring effort among some major municipal water
providers because the quality of water entering water treatment plants
was deteriorating.
Local governments may also work with federal agencies to collect water
quality data. For example, according to a National Park Service
official, the agency worked with the city of Las Vegas to collect data
on the treatment and disposal of wastewater at nearby Lake Mead. The
Army Corps of Engineers partnered with the District of Columbia to
conduct wetlands restoration of the Anacostia River, providing
monitoring data and technical and project management expertise. In
addition, U.S. Geological Survey officials noted that local governments
participate in its Cooperative Water Program.
Volunteer Groups:
According to the volunteer monitoring representative of the National
Water Quality Monitoring Council (the National Council),[Footnote 17]
an estimated 800 to 1,200 volunteer monitoring groups across the nation
collect monitoring data with varying levels of technical expertise and
financial resources. Volunteer monitoring groups collect data for a
variety of parameters. For example, volunteers for the Virginia Save
Our Streams organization primarily collect biological data through in-
stream monitoring. Volunteers for another group, the Alliance for the
Chesapeake Bay, collect streamside physical and chemical data, such as
temperature, pH, and dissolved oxygen.
States use volunteer monitoring groups' data in a variety of ways.
According to the volunteer monitoring representative of the National
Council, states' use of volunteer monitoring data varies along a
continuum; some states use volunteer monitoring data for educational
purposes, others use the data as a "red flag" to indicate areas where
additional state monitoring is needed, and still others use the data to
decide whether waters should be identified as impaired. For example,
according to the volunteer monitoring representative, Rhode Island uses
volunteer monitoring data to make decisions regarding which lakes are
impaired. In Virginia, officials from the Department of Environmental
Quality explained that the state uses volunteer monitoring data to
assess the general conditions of waters, but not to decide on
impairments. According to Mississippi Department of Environmental
Quality officials, volunteer-collected turbidity data led to a state
investigation that found that a farmer caused the pollution because he
was clearing land too close to the edge of the river.
Other Groups:
Finally, we identified the following entities that also collect water
quality data:
* Universities. Fifty-four Water Resources Research Institutes are
located at land grant universities throughout the United States.
According to an official from one of the institutes, the Virginia Water
Resources Research Center, the Center has collected water quality data
to develop several total maximum daily load (TMDL) reports.
* Industries. Industries collect water quality data to ensure that they
are in compliance with permitted discharge levels, water quality
standards, and TMDLs as well as research for improvements. For example,
according to Weyerhaeuser officials, the company collects sediment data
at some sites to determine their compliance with water quality
standards.
* Interstate commissions. Several interstate commissions, such as the
Susquehanna River Basin Commission and the Ohio River Valley Sanitation
Commission, conduct water quality monitoring programs for a number of
purposes, such as identifying problems that threaten the quality of
water resources of multiple states and monitoring trends in water
quality over time.
Water Quantity Data Collection:
As with water quality data, at least 15 federal agencies, as well as
some state agencies, collect water quantity data. However, a small
number of key federal agencies collect a large share of these data,
which are often stored in nationwide databases and accessed widely by a
variety of users. The other federal agencies generally collect project-
specific water quantity data that are available in a variety of ways,
depending on the agency.
Water Quantity Monitoring Measures Water Availability and Water Use:
Water quantity data are used to measure both the availability of water
in lakes, rivers, streams, and other water bodies, as well as the
amount of water that is removed from streams for a variety of purposes,
such as drinking water or agriculture.
Water availability is measured by a number of data parameters,
including streamflow, precipitation, and snowpack. In many cases,
entities combine their data with others' to measure or estimate the
amount of water available for use.
Water use refers to all in-stream and out-of-stream uses of water for
human purposes from any water source. Water use is measured by
parameters such as: (1) withdrawal, which is water removed from the
ground or diverted from a surface-water source; (2) consumptive use, or
the quantity of water that is not available for immediate reuse because
it has been evaporated, transpired, or incorporated into products,
plant tissue, or animal tissue; and (3) return flow, which is
irrigation water that is not consumed by evapotranspiration and that
returns to its source or another body of water.
Federal Water Quantity Data Collection:
Fifteen federal agencies collect, or fund the collection of, water
quantity data, including water availability data and water use data.
Most of the agencies reported that they collect at least some water
availability and water use data. However, we found that the frequency
and geographical scope of water quantity data collection varies widely.
Three entities, the U.S. Geological Survey, NOAA's National Weather
Service, and the Natural Resources Conservation Service, collect large
amounts of data and store the data in national databases that are
accessible through the Internet. In addition, the Army Corps of
Engineers collects water quantity data and funds the collection of
considerable amounts of additional data. Most of the other agencies
collect limited water quantity data on a project-specific basis and
store the data in internal, project-specific databases. These data are
available in a variety of ways, depending on the agency.
The U.S. Geological Survey's Water Availability and Water Use Data:
The U.S. Geological Survey is the federal agency primarily responsible
for collecting, analyzing, and sharing data on water availability and
use. In particular, the U.S. Geological Survey is the main collector of
streamflow data, which measures the volume of water flowing through a
stream using streamgages. Under the National Streamflow Information
Program, the U.S. Geological Survey collects data through its national
streamgage network, which continuously measures the level and flow of
rivers and streams at 7000 stations nationwide (see fig. 5). It makes
these data available to the public via the Internet. The U.S.
Geological Survey is also a major collector of water use data under its
National Water Use Information Program. Under this program, the U.S.
Geological Survey compiles extensive national water use data collected
from states every 5 years to establish long-term water use trends.
Figure 5: The U.S. Geological Survey's Nationwide Streamgage Network:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
The Natural Resources Conservation Service's Snowpack Data:
Snowpack data is another key element in determining water availability
because it helps western states forecast and manage future water
supply. The Natural Resources Conservation Service is the key collector
and provider of snowpack data through its Snow Survey and Water Supply
Forecasting Program. As figure 6 shows, the Natural Resources
Conservation Service collects snowpack data from over 700 automated
SNOTEL (SNOwpack TELemetry) stations in 12 western states and Alaska.
In addition, the Natural Resources Conservation Service collects
snowpack data at over 900 manually sampled sites in the western states.
Snowpack data is also collected in Vermont, New Hampshire,
Pennsylvania, and Minnesota through its Soil Climate and Analysis
Network. The snowpack water equivalent and depth are used to estimate
annual water availability, spring runoff, and summer streamflows.
Individuals, organizations, and state and federal agencies use these
forecasts for decisions relating to agricultural production, fish and
wildlife management, municipal and industrial water supply, urban
development, flood control, recreation, power generation, and water
quality management.
Figure 6: SNOTEL's Site Locations:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
NOAA's National Weather Service Precipitation Data:
Precipitation data are also important in determining how much water
will be available for use, as well as in predicting floods. The
National Weather Service collects most of this data through the
Automated Surface Observer System, a joint effort of the National
Weather Service, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the
Department of Defense. Data in the Automated Surface Observer System
are collected across the nation at major airports and other areas, as
shown in figure 7. The National Weather Service also collects
precipitation data through the Volunteer Cooperative Weather
Observation Network. Under this program, volunteers collect data at
11,400 weather stations in rural and urban areas to provide data for
weather forecasts and drought and flood warnings. According to an
official from the National Weather Service, precipitation data are used
by weather centers to make more accurate weather forecasts, which can
result in significant savings from flood damage. In addition, the
National Weather Service and the Natural Resources Conservation Service
combine their data, together with the U.S. Geological Survey's
streamgage data, to forecast water supplies and floods.
Figure 7: Automated Surface Observer System Sites as of February 2004:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Army Corps of Engineers:
In partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey, the Army Corps of
Engineers funds approximately 15 percent of the U.S. Geological Survey
National Streamflow Information Program. This provides funding, at
least in part, for about 2,160 of the approximate 7,200 stations. The
Army Corps of Engineers also collects some water quantity data for
various parameters in association with its water management projects.
For example, the Army Corps of Engineers keeps track of rainfall
amounts, reservoir storage, and inflow and outflow as part of operating
specific projects. In addition, the Army Corps of Engineers collects
stage[Footnote 18] data to monitor flood control efforts. Moreover,
according to officials from the Army Corps of Engineers, the agency
contributes to the analysis of water data by developing water resources
software models that are used worldwide.
Other Agencies:
Eleven other federal agencies we surveyed also collect water quantity
data, though mostly on a site-specific basis.[Footnote 19] For example,
the National Park Service collects site-specific data to, among other
things, characterize hydrologic conditions within park units. In
addition, TVA collects water quantity data, such as flow and storage
volumes, in order to help decide how much water should be released from
its dams.
Storage and Accessibility of Federal Water Quantity Data:
Streamflow, snowpack, and precipitation data are easily accessible
through three large federal databases operated by the U.S. Geological
Survey, Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the National
Weather Service. The U.S. Geological Survey updates streamflow data
continuously and makes these data available through NWIS. Through its
SNOTEL system, the Natural Resources Conservation Service operates and
maintains an extensive, automated system to collect snowpack data in
the western United States. The National Weather Service stores
precipitation data in the National Climatic Data Center and makes the
data available through NOAA's National Environmental Satellite, Data,
and Information Service.
According to the Army Corps of Engineers, its data are stored in a
number of databases, including internal databases as well as the U.S.
Geological Survey's NWIS. According to the Corps, most of these data
are available through their district or division Web pages, though some
data are not available for security reasons.
Most of the other 11 agencies we contacted that collect water quantity
data store their data in internal databases, and the data are made
available to the public in a variety of ways. For example, BPA stores
its water quantity data in internal, project-specific databases and
makes them available via the Internet and/or through publications. The
Agricultural Research Service stores its water data in numerous
databases, largely on a project-specific basis and makes them available
via the Internet, by specific request, and/or through publications. The
Fish and Wildlife Service stores its water quantity data in project-
specific databases at the agency's field offices and makes the data
available on request.
State Water Quantity Data Collection:
Many states also collect at least some water quantity data to manage
their water resources, although the extent of their data collection
varies. States need water availability data to forecast how much water
can be used for a variety of purposes, such as agricultural or
residential use, and often obtain these data from federal agencies.
According to a U.S. Geological Survey official, the agency operates the
core streamgaging network in most states through its Cooperative Water
Program. Under this program, the U.S. Geological Survey enters into
agreements with participating states to operate in-stream gages and to
share the data collected from them. Officials in Mississippi, for
example, said that the state contracts with the U.S. Geological Survey
to collect its streamgage data. However, there are a few states that
collect significant amounts of streamgage data. A U.S. Geological
Survey official in Virginia explained that the U.S. Geological Survey
and the Commonwealth of Virginia have historically worked together to
operate a unified network of streamgages with uniform quality assurance
protocols. In addition, Colorado officials said that the state operates
a satellite monitoring system for collecting streamgage data, which is
also coordinated with U.S. Geological Survey streamgage data collection
efforts in the state. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, only one
other state--Nebraska--collects a large share of its state's streamgage
data.
In addition to streamgage data, states also require some precipitation
data. An official from the National Weather Service said that while
some states rely exclusively on the National Weather Service's
precipitation data, other states collect some of their own
precipitation data to fill in data gaps. For example, New Jersey relies
on university researchers, funded by the state Department of
Transportation, to collect precipitation data that supplements National
Weather Service data.
States need water use data to support the operation of water supply
utilities and water districts. In 2002, the National Research Council
reported that more than 20 states maintain comprehensive site-specific
water use databases, which were most commonly developed to support
regulatory programs that register or permit water withdrawals.[Footnote
20] In many cases, these data are developed through cooperative
projects between state water agencies and the U.S. Geological Survey
while, in the remaining states, data are collected only for a subset of
water use categories or areas within the states. Furthermore, some
states have no state-level programs for water use data collection. As
we noted in July 2003,[Footnote 21] state water managers place a high
value on water quantity data collected under federal programs to
support the states' ability to complete specific water management
activities. For example, 37 states reported that federal agencies' data
are important to their ability to determine the amount of available
surface water. In addition, state water managers reported that data
collected under federal programs may be more credible and consistent
than the state data.
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
The Army Corps of Engineers and EPA offered comments on a draft of this
report that were germane to the material in this chapter. The Corps
commented that the draft report should more fully discuss the range of
water quality and water quantity data that the Corps collects and
maintains. While the draft report had discussed a wide range of Corps
data collection activities pertaining to both water quality and water
quantity, we supplemented those discussions with additional detail in
response to the Corps' comment. EPA commented that the report should
further emphasize the high cost of monitoring. To reflect this
perspective, we included information from ASIWPCA that 40 states and 2
interstate agencies spent a total of roughly $112 million on water
quality monitoring in 2002 and estimated their total resource need at
$211 million.
[End of section]
Chapter 3: Improved Coordination of Water Quality Data Collection Can
Help Watershed Managers Make More Informed Decisions:
Despite the vast array of organizations collecting water quality data,
we and others have documented a considerable shortage of these data.
This shortage has impaired our understanding of the state of the
nation's waters and complicated decision making on such critical issues
as which waters should be targeted for cleanup and how such cleanups
can best be achieved.
Better coordination among the numerous groups collecting data can help
to close the gap between the availability of data and the much larger
need for information. However, we found a number of barriers to
achieving this goal. Specifically, organizations (1) collect data for
disparate missions, (2) often use inconsistent data collection
protocols, (3) are often unaware of data collected by others, and (4)
often assign data coordination a low priority. These difficulties have
not only perpetuated gaps and duplication of effort among data
collectors but have also contributed to an "apples and oranges" problem
in which the data that are collected cannot be easily synthesized to
tell a more complete story. Taken together, the difficulties in
coordinating data collection and in synthesizing available data have
impeded our understanding of water quality issues and, in particular,
have impeded the ability of watershed managers to make well-informed
decisions.
Coordination Needed to Enable Monitoring Programs to Make Better Use of
Available Resources:
The shortage of reliable and complete water quality data, and its
consequences for informed decision making, has been consistently
documented by GAO and others. For example, our March 2000 report, Water
Quality: Key EPA and State Decisions Limited by Inconsistent and
Incomplete Data,[Footnote 22] concluded that data gaps limit states'
abilities to carry out key management and regulatory responsibilities
and activities on water quality. The data gaps were cited as
particularly serious for nonpoint sources,[Footnote 23] which are
widely accepted as contributing to the majority of the nation's water
quality problems. Only six states reported that they had a majority of
the data needed to assess whether their waters meet water quality
standards. A vast majority of the states reported that they had less
than half the data they needed to (1) identify nonpoint sources that
result in waters not meeting standards and (2) develop total maximum
daily loads (TMDLs) for those waters. Similar findings and conclusions
have been documented by the National Research Council of the National
Academies of Sciences,[Footnote 24] and the lack of data states have to
make assessments has been acknowledged by the Association of State and
Interstate Water Pollution Control Administrators (ASIWPCA) and other
organizations.
As we reported in March 2000, states overwhelmingly cited funding
shortages as a primary constraint on efforts to monitor their waters.
Forty-five states indicated that a lack of resources was a key
limitation to making more progress on water quality issues, with a
number of states noting specifically that state-imposed staffing
constraints and shortages in lab funding have exacerbated the problem
by limiting the number of samples that could be taken and analyzed. In
the 4 years since that report was issued, there has been widespread
acknowledgment of the need to (1) improve monitoring programs to allow
better informed decisions about which waters to target for cleanup, (2)
pursue watershed management strategies, and (3) make other key
decisions. Nonetheless, the funding constraints impeding monitoring
programs at that time are still present and, in many respects, have
deteriorated further.
In this context, both analysts and practitioners in the water quality
community strongly support the concept of coordinating efforts to
collect water quality data to make the most use of limited resources.
Among the benefits cited, effective coordination improves the coverage
of monitoring stations by more efficiently and strategically locating
the monitoring stations of different groups. Similarly, as we found
during our site visits, mutual understanding of different groups'
monitoring needs and resources has sometimes resulted in modifying
monitoring procedures so that individual monitoring stations could meet
the data needs of a greater number of users.
Efforts to Coordinate Data Collection Have Thus Far Had Limited
Success:
Nonetheless, while we found some notable exceptions, officials in 14 of
the 15 federal agencies we contacted told us that coordination was
either not taking place or falling short of its potential. In addition,
the officials noted that enhanced coordination could provide data users
with better data about water quality conditions and a more complete
picture of the health of watersheds. Among the array of examples cited
are the following:
* An official from the Army Corps of Engineers pointed out that without
mutual interest among agencies, water quality data collection efforts
are very poorly coordinated. The official also noted that some agencies
give a low priority to coordinating data collection within their own
agencies. The official explained that other potential users of the data
may have difficulty finding the correct points of contact to receive
data and believes that enhanced coordination would bring more data into
the hands of data users.
* Forest Service officials explained that enhanced coordination would
help to minimize information gaps. They noted that there are over 2,500
listed segments of impaired waters on national forest system lands.
According to the officials, the states are almost always deprived of
data needed to develop TMDLs, and coordination between the Forest
Service and the states could help minimize those data gaps and speed
recovery of impaired waters.
The officials we interviewed from the state environmental agencies
agreed, acknowledging in particular that coordination among state
monitoring efforts, and between states and other data-gathering
entities, could be significantly improved. For example:
* According to officials from the Mississippi Department of
Environmental Quality, if federal agencies notified states when they
begin monitoring projects and shared their results, the state could
assess more waters and possibly reduce duplication of effort. For
example, the officials noted an instance in which the Fish and Wildlife
Service paid the U.S. Geological Survey to operate streamgages in
Mississippi, but the Fish and Wildlife Service did not alert the state
that data were being collected.
* According to officials from the Virginia Department of Environmental
Quality, the state generally has to solicit data from federal agencies
because the agencies do not readily share data with the state.
Furthermore, better coordination with volunteer groups could
significantly increase the percent of assessed waters in the state.
* According to an official from the Illinois Environmental Protection
Agency, many groups in the state collect water quality data, but
coordination is needed to develop mutually agreed upon quality
assurance project plans and to modify data collection procedures to
allow data sharing.
ASIWPCA's Executive Director also cited the need for greater
coordination. She noted opportunities to enhance monitoring programs
through, among other things, (1) better coordinating monitoring efforts
among all levels of government; (2) integrating multiple objectives
with single monitoring efforts; (3) incorporating state-of-the-art
approaches to link data systems and improve reporting; (4) creating
statewide monitoring councils; (5) creating public/private monitoring
partnerships; (6) establishing volunteer monitoring corps to increase
the total number of waters monitored; and (7) eliminating duplicative
monitoring between and among the various state and federal
agencies.[Footnote 25]
Several Key Barriers Limit Effective Coordination of Water Quality Data
Collection:
Given the strong consensus on the need for coordination--but the
difficulty often encountered in achieving it--we asked federal and
state officials, representatives of local governments and watershed
groups, and others who have tried to coordinate data collection to
explain the barriers that have impeded their efforts. As figure 8
shows, the most frequently cited problems were the following:
* Organizations often collect data to achieve specific missions, which
sometimes affects their willingness and ability to modify their
approaches toward data collection to make the results more widely
usable, and which may even make organizations reluctant to share data
they have already collected.
* Groups' data collection protocols often vary, resulting in
incomparable definitions to measure the same or similar pollutants,
different detection limits, inconsistent levels of quality assurance,
and inconsistent collection of metadata.[Footnote 26]
* Without a centralized clearinghouse on water quality data, many
collectors are simply unaware of the data being collected by, or
available from, other organizations.
* Data coordination is often assigned a low priority, as shown in a
lack of support for national and state monitoring councils, which were
established specifically to improve data coordination.
Figure 8: Most Frequently Cited Barriers to Coordinating Water Quality
Data Collection Efforts by 15 Federal Agencies:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Organizations Collect Data for Disparate Missions:
The very nature of the organizations collecting water quality data
varies widely--some are public, others are private; some are national,
others are statewide or local; some are specifically charged with the
responsibility, others do so voluntarily. As we were frequently told,
these variations often lead to different data needs and priorities,
which may affect the organizations' ability--and willingness--to
coordinate data collection strategies and to share available data.
The disparate missions among the organizations that collect data were
cited by 13 of the 15 federal agencies as a significant barrier to
improved coordination. Even within the community of federal agencies,
significant diversity in agency missions can lead to vastly different
priorities regarding which data to collect and how to collect and
analyze them. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA)
primary interest in water quality data arises from its responsibility
to ensure that waters are in compliance with states' water quality
standards. Accordingly, its monitoring approach (and those of the
states that conduct monitoring programs to meet EPA requirements)
generally focuses on determining whether certain thresholds are
achieved or exceeded. The degree to which measurements are on one side
or the other of these thresholds is generally of less consequence. On
the other hand, the U.S. Geological Survey's monitoring program is
oriented toward obtaining precise measurements of water quality and
then tracking changes in these values over time. Accordingly, its
monitoring techniques allow for collecting specific measurements--and
those techniques tend to be more expensive. For example, the U.S.
Geological Survey may use relatively expensive meters to measure water
quality parameters such as temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, and
conductivity. These meters require more calibration and maintenance to
ensure accuracy than the test kits used by others seeking to determine
compliance with state water quality standards.
State officials have also emphasized how differing missions can affect
the ability to coordinate monitoring strategies and share data. An
ASIWPCA survey found that state officials identified conflicting state
and federal data needs as among the top barriers to the effectiveness
of their ambient monitoring program.
Finally, some organizations have little incentive to share data, while
others may have strong disincentives to do so. According to some
federal agency officials we interviewed, academicians who collect
research data and plan to publish their results may see little benefit
in disclosing their findings early. Similarly, industry officials told
us that they were often unwilling to share their water quality data
with states in situations in which they believed the data could be
unfairly used against them in a regulatory setting.
Organizations Often Use Inconsistent Data Collection Protocols:
When organizations differ in their overall approaches toward
monitoring, the varying procedures they use to monitor may result in
data that cannot be easily compared. A number of such varying
procedures were cited in our interviews with federal officials and
during our site visits.
Different Names or Definitions Are Used for Measuring the Same or
Similar Parameters:
According to several federal officials, different organizations
sometimes use different names or definitions to measure the same or
similar parameters. For example, turbidity, transparency, and total
suspended solids are used to determine the extent to which water bodies
are affected by sediment. However, they are each measured differently,
and, consequently, the data arising from measures of these parameters
cannot be synthesized.
Data collection methods for measuring even the same parameter can vary
widely. Turbidity, which is a measure of the cloudiness of water, for
example, can be measured using a meter, called a nephelometer, which
provides a turbidity reading in nephelometric turbidity units, or it
can be measured with a turbidity tube, which provides results in
Jackson turbidity units. These two measures, however, cannot be used
interchangeably. To address incomparable methods, the National Water
Quality Monitoring Council has produced a National Environmental
Methods Index Web site (www.nemi.gov). This index, which provides a
compendium of methods to support monitoring programs, allows for the
rapid comparison of methods and aims to ensure that data collectors
more actively consider analytical methods when planning and
implementing monitoring programs.
Different Detection Limits:
Detection limits are the smallest concentration of a given parameter
that can be measured. Data collectors may measure pollutants using
different detection limits, which can limit the usefulness of their
data to other groups. A Virginia monitoring manual noted, for example,
that a test kit may have a high detection limit for total phosphorus
and, therefore, might not be useful for the state if typical total
phosphorus concentrations are lower. Different entities also report
detection limits differently. For example, according to officials from
the Army Corps of Engineers, some entities report pollutant
concentrations that are below detection levels as zero; others report
them as less than a certain detection limit; and still others report
the measurements as the detection limit itself. These different methods
for reporting similar findings make it difficult for data users to
understand and use the data.
Different Quality Assurance Methods:
Data collectors vary widely in the Quality Assurance and Quality
Control methods they use to assure that their data meet minimal
standards, and this variation may preclude wider use of data, according
to federal and state officials we spoke with. For example, according to
officials from the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, they
could not use data on pH levels collected by the Forest Service because
the Service's methodology did not meet EPA requirements for quality
assurance. However, if the monitoring had originally been conducted
using EPA's approved method, the state could have used the data and
probably would have added more waters to Virginia's impaired waters
list. In another instance, an official from the Army Corps of Engineers
in Mississippi noted that the U.S. Geological Survey has rigorous
quality assurance and quality control procedures, which results in a
lag time between when the measurement was taken and when the data are
accessible to the Army Corps of Engineers and the public. The official
explained that, because of delays in receiving data, the Army Corps of
Engineers is not always able to make optimum use of the data.
Variations in quality assurance and quality control are of even greater
concern when it comes to volunteer monitoring data. For example,
according to officials from the Mississippi Department of Environmental
Quality, data collected by Adopt-A-Stream volunteers, one of the
volunteer organizations in Mississippi, are not used by the state
because they are not of sufficient quality to use in identifying waters
that do not meet standards, and because the state believes it has
little control over volunteers. However, the data could potentially be
used to target future monitoring. To address this concern, EPA's
Volunteer Monitor's Guide to Quality Assurance Project Plans outlines
steps that a volunteer program needs to take to document the field,
lab, analytical, and data management procedures of its monitoring
program.[Footnote 27] According to EPA officials, many volunteer
programs develop such documentation in the form of Quality Assurance
Project Plans, which are then submitted to the state water quality
agency or the EPA regional office for review and approval. The
officials noted that programs with approved plans are much more likely
to have their data used.
Different Metadata Standards:
Metadata allow data users to understand characteristics about data
collected by others, such as the methodology used to collect the data,
and thus, determine whether these data are useful for their purposes.
Officials from 9 of the 11 federal agencies we surveyed that use data
to make watershed management decisions noted that a lack of metadata
and/or inconsistency in metadata is a barrier to coordinating data
collection efforts and data sharing.[Footnote 28] For example,
according to an official from the Cooperative State Research,
Education, and Extension Service (CSREES), without metadata, the
reliability of data is suspect and, therefore, should not be used to
make watershed management decisions. Similarly, according to officials
from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA)
National Marine Fisheries Service, data users need to know as much
information as possible about the data that were collected so that data
are not misinterpreted.
To address this concern, the Methods and Data Comparability Board of
the National Water Quality Monitoring Council is developing water
quality data elements that specify the metadata needed so data users
can understand and use data from other sources. According to some
watershed officials, however, the list of metadata that was originally
suggested contained too many metadata fields and will need to be made
more manageable to be useful.
Determining appropriate metadata standards is not an easy task. First,
officials from several federal agencies explained that collecting and
recording metadata can be expensive. An official from NOAA's National
Marine Fisheries Service, for example, explained that the collection
and storage of metadata requires additional staff and resources that
may not be available. Second, as some federal agency officials noted,
data collectors that are monitoring water quality for a project-
specific need may not be aware that the data they are gathering may be
useful to others, so they may not be willing to collect metadata.
Organizations Are Often Unaware of Data Collected by Other Groups:
As representatives of many groups indicated, coordinating data
collection is difficult because they lack information about the data
that other groups may be collecting. Of the 15 federal agencies we
surveyed, 10 cited the lack of awareness of other groups' data
collection activities as a barrier to coordination. For example, an
official from the Agricultural Research Service in Mississippi noted
that even though he tries to identify other data collectors within the
state, he is consistently surprised to find out that there are
additional entities collecting water quality data. An official from the
Bureau of Land Management explained that, because watershed boundaries
do not coincide with political boundaries, it exacerbates the
difficulty of identifying what entities are collecting data within the
watershed.
In addition to a lack of knowledge among data collectors about other
entities that collect data, we also found a significant gap in
knowledge about what data are collected within agencies. Many
respondents to our survey could not provide completed information on
the type of data their agency collects, frequency of data collection,
and geographic areas of data collection. For example, over one-third of
the agencies we surveyed were not able to provide complete information
about their water quality data because there are no central water
quality databases within the agencies.
Most of the federal officials citing unawareness of others' data
collection efforts said that a clearinghouse to disseminate that
information would go a long way toward addressing the problem.
According to federal officials, clearinghouses can take various forms.
For example, a clearinghouse might be similar to a phone directory,
providing an index of data collectors and the type of data being
collected. Or, a clearinghouse might provide an Internet "portal"--an
access point from which data users can obtain information and access to
data from multiple sources.
Data Coordination Is Often Assigned a Low Priority:
Efforts to coordinate data collection activities are a low priority, as
demonstrated by a lack of support accorded to federal and state
monitoring councils that were formed to help coordinate the data
collection efforts of their members and enhance data sharing and use.
For example, the National Water Quality Monitoring Council (National
Council) was established to implement a nationwide strategy to improve
water quality monitoring, assessment, and reporting. This council is
co-chaired by EPA and the U.S. Geological Survey and includes
representatives from federal, interstate, state, tribal, local, and
municipal governments, volunteer monitoring groups, and the private
sector.[Footnote 29] According to its charter, the National Council
aims, among other things, to improve institutional coordination and
collaboration, comparability of collected data, quality assurance and
control, and storage systems that preserve data for future use. The
National Council reports to the Advisory Committee on Water
Information, which advises the federal government, through the U.S.
Geological Survey and the Water Information Coordination
Program.[Footnote 30]
Most of the respondents to our federal survey that were aware of the
National Council and its efforts often cited the National Council as a
positive influence in promoting better coordination among data
collectors. However, almost all of these officials also noted that both
a lack of funding and dedicated time among National Council
participants has limited the council's effectiveness. Several members
of the National Council noted that participation on the council is
voluntary and thus, as one member noted, "not part of a member's job
description."
Council members we interviewed also agree that the National Council
lacks authority. The Office of Management and Budget memorandum that
established the National Council does not stipulate that federal
agencies must cooperate. For example, even though the Army Corps of
Engineers participated in the National Council when it was first
established, the agency has opted out of participating in the National
Council for the past several years.
The lack of priority for coordination at the national level is also
prevalent at the state level. First, although the National Council and
EPA have encouraged states to form councils to coordinate monitoring
among the entities active in each state, as of September 2003, only
seven state monitoring councils and three regional councils were
active.[Footnote 31] Second, even where such councils have been active,
they have generally experienced difficulty in making progress. During
interviews with monitoring council members in Colorado and Virginia--
the two states we visited that have active coordinating councils--
officials reported that their councils were making less progress than
anticipated. According to members of the Colorado Water Quality
Monitoring Council, the council has struggled, in part because
participants must volunteer their own time and its efforts are limited
by time and resources. Similarly, a Virginia Water Monitoring Council
member told us that while Virginia's council has made some progress
(such as sponsoring workshops, conferences, and annual meetings), the
ability of the council to address water issues could be increased if
the energy expended for fundraising was significantly reduced.
An EPA study of eight of the state and regional monitoring councils
substantiated these comments.[Footnote 32] EPA found that, although the
councils have had some indirect effects, none has made a documented,
"on-the ground" impact to water quality monitoring. The EPA study also
identified many of the same problems we found during our site visits--
a lack of funding, members pressed to balance their council
participation with competing job demands, and the challenge of getting
agency members to take off their "agency hats."
At the same time, according to EPA, state and regional monitoring
councils can be effective in improving the availability of monitoring
data if properly supported. For example, EPA officials and others have
cited the Maryland Water Monitoring Council as a successful state
council. The Maryland council has conducted monitoring design workshops
and a stream monitoring roundtable to bring together organizations and
individuals planning to monitor streams in Maryland, exchange
information about the kinds of monitoring being planned, and prepare a
geographically-referenced compilation of monitoring sites to ensure
that everyone knows where monitoring is taking place. In addition,
while the Colorado council has struggled, it has organized "data swaps"
to allow monitoring organizations to share metadata and compare data
collected by various groups.
As we previously noted, EPA issued guidance to the states in March 2003
that recommends 10 basic elements of a state water monitoring and
assessment program. While EPA's guidance does not recommend
coordinating data collection activities as one of the basic elements of
state monitoring programs, it notes the importance of state monitoring
program managers working with other state environmental managers and
interested stakeholders as they develop their strategy. In addition,
the guidance recommends that states identify required or likely sources
of existing and available data and information and procedures for
collecting or assembling it.
Coordinating Entity with Sufficient Resources and Authority Suggested
as Potential Solution:
Because currently established coordinating entities lack the resources,
priority, and authority to make significant progress, some agency
officials have suggested the need for a clearly designated coordinating
body with both sufficient resources and authority. These agency
officials differ in their suggestions about the structure of this
coordinating body. For example, an official from the Advisory Committee
on Water Information believes that, with enhanced authority, the
Advisory Committee and its National Council could make significant
progress toward improving the coordination of data collection efforts
and increasing the amount of data watershed managers have available to
make decisions. The official recognized that, while the coordinating
entity will not be able to alter agency missions, it would be able to
address such things as establishing a clearinghouse to identify who is
collecting what type of data and developing clearly-defined and
generally accepted government metadata standards for water data
collection.
Officials from the Army Corps of Engineers provided a suggestion for an
alternative structure for a coordinating body. The officials believe
that the designation of one lead agency to define, locate, and
integrate available data sources within a specified time frame would
make data more easily accessible, available in a useful format, and
better enable local decision makers to make better informed decisions.
The Corps officials explained that a lead agency could, for example,
establish standards in cooperation with other agencies and establish a
clearinghouse for data. The officials suggested that an appropriate
lead agency would be one that already carries out and/or supports broad
water data collection responsibilities.
Data Management Challenges Also Limit Data Availability:
Water quality officials often noted that difficulties in data
management are a factor inhibiting their ability to use water quality
data to make watershed management decisions. These data management
concerns commonly focused on two areas: (1) complexity of using EPA's
storage and retrieval system (STORET) and (2) inability to integrate
data from various sources to provide a more complete picture of water
quality within watersheds.
Complexity of Using STORET:
From 1965 until 1998, water quality data were stored in the original
STORET Water Quality File, which is now called "legacy STORET." In
1999, EPA released "modernized STORET" to replace legacy STORET. This
newer version contains data collected beginning in 1999, along with
some older data that were transferred from legacy STORET. Some of the
major changes between legacy STORET and modernized STORET include the
following:
* Storing data in legacy STORET could only be accomplished by someone
with a mainframe user ID and specialized training. In contrast,
modernized STORET is installed on personal computers, and data can be
entered on those personal computers without requiring access to an EPA
computer. Local STORET users then choose if and when to upload their
data into national STORET.
* Unlike legacy STORET, modernized STORET contains metadata on why the
data were gathered; sampling and analytical methods used; the
laboratory used to analyze the samples; the quality control checks used
when sampling, handling the samples, and analyzing the data; and the
personnel responsible for the data.
EPA considers STORET to be its main repository for water monitoring
data and a cornerstone of its data management activities and water
program integration efforts. And, according to EPA officials, the
agency has worked hard to resolve a number of issues affecting the
database's wider use. Nonetheless, officials from many of the entities
we interviewed suggested that further progress is needed before they
can effectively use STORET. They cited the following difficulties: (1)
uploading data to STORET, (2) retrieving data from STORET, and (3)
dealing with the system's large number of data parameters. The last
point in particular was cited by Forest Service officials, who noted
that the large number of data parameters in the system made it
cumbersome to use. Consequently, less than 5 percent of Forest Service
data currently go into STORET, and the agency has yet to decide whether
to consolidate their water quality data into STORET or expend resources
to develop an in-house water quality module.
Officials in two of the three states we visited held similar views.
Officials from the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality
reported that they have not used STORET since it was updated because of
difficulties in uploading and retrieving data, and the state has
instead opted to develop its own data storage system. Mississippi
Department of Environmental Quality officials similarly reported that
they store their data in two state-run databases. Officials from both
states noted that they would prefer to have their data in STORET, but
would need additional assistance from EPA to do so. On the other hand,
one of the states we visited, Colorado, noted success in using STORET
to store its water quality data. In addition, officials from EPA's
Denver office noted that other states, such as Utah, have also had
success in using STORET.
Some local government and volunteer monitoring groups also have
encountered challenges using STORET. For example, a watershed group in
Colorado noted that, while their group recognizes that STORET is a
valuable data management system and made the decision to use the system
in 2000, the group had only a limited amount of data in STORET as of
fall 2003 because of difficulties uploading their data. The group
explained that unified federal support for the system is lacking, and
therefore, limited funding has been made available to address the
difficulties STORET users encounter. In addition, a volunteer
monitoring group from Virginia reported that while they had tried to
put their data into STORET, they had too much difficulty uploading data
into the system, and that EPA's resources were, at the time, stretched
too thinly to provide sufficient assistance. Moreover, officials from
Big Dry Creek Watershed Association in Colorado reported that while
they recognize the benefits to others of having their data in STORET,
they do not perceive a benefit to their association that warrants
spending the funding or time to do so.
Many of these issues were echoed by state and interstate agencies in a
2002 ASIWPCA survey. Most survey respondents, for example, indicated
that EPA does not have sufficient resources to support the system. Some
also noted that STORET is incompatible with their internal state
systems and reporting needs, data retrieval is difficult, and a good
deal of staff effort must be spent to manage incompatibilities.
EPA officials have acknowledged these problems, as well as concerns
over insufficient training and technical support. Nonetheless, the
agency has cited recent successes in dealing with STORET challenges,
pointing to growth in the number of states and other organizations
using the system. As of March 2004, over 120 organizations use STORET,
including 31 states, four EPA offices, interstate organizations such as
the Delaware River Basin Commission, federal agencies, American Indian
tribes, watershed groups, and volunteer monitoring groups. According to
EPA, over 7 million of the approximately 18 million monitoring results
contained in STORET were added in 2003 alone. EPA officials noted that
the agency has made efforts to encourage yet more states, federal
agencies, and other groups to make greater use of the system by (1)
working to make the system easier to use by, for example, releasing
revised versions of STORET and a STORET Import Module which make data
upload easier and (2) providing greater technical assistance. In
addition, according to EPA, the agency developed a new STORET data
warehouse in 2003 that has increased data retrieval speed by 200-fold.
With the completion of the data warehouse, the agency plans to
significantly increase customer outreach and support to better meet
states' needs for the STORET system.
Agencies Face Difficulties Integrating Data from Separate Sources:
Another key data management concern is that many different databases
with different formats and purposes are used to store water quality
data, often making it extremely challenging for data users to integrate
data from various sources. According to several federal agency
officials, entities that collect water quality data need to coordinate
their efforts during the planning phases of data collection to agree on
how to manage data. Without such agreement, data collected often either
cannot be used by other entities or entities must commit resources to
integrate data.
An EPA review of statewide watershed management approaches found data
incompatibility affects states' ability to compile data at the basin
and watershed level.[Footnote 33] As a result, it can be difficult to
obtain a complete picture of water quality problems and their sources.
Furthermore, several states reported that federal and state data
systems are often not compatible, and that more work is needed to build
and manage databases across agencies that have standardized protocols,
metadata reports, and georeferencing capabilities for mapping and
modeling.
The most significant example of incompatible databases involves the
U.S. Geological Survey's National Water Information System (NWIS) and
EPA's STORET. Officials from the U.S. Geological Survey explained that
different philosophies and different approaches to the database designs
have led to databases with data models that are not compatible. NWIS
contains only U.S. Geological Survey generated data or data the U.S.
Geological Survey has reviewed and ensured that data quality is known
and acceptable. In contrast, STORET accepts data of varying quality
from any source, contains significant metadata, and allows the data
owner to change or delete data.
According to an EPA official, NWIS was compatible with legacy STORET
and, through an agreement with the U.S. Geological Survey at the time,
NWIS data was regularly copied into legacy STORET. Furthermore, when
EPA modernized STORET, the U.S. Geological Survey and EPA worked
closely to ensure that modernized STORET and an expected modernized
version of NWIS would remain compatible. However, NWIS was not
modernized according to plan, and now the modernized STORET and NWIS
are incompatible. Additionally, according to a U.S. Geological Survey
official, for technical reasons the archived version of legacy STORET
no longer contains NWIS data.
As a result, according to federal and state agency officials,
integrating data from these two primary water quality databases takes
time and a significant commitment of resources. For example, an
official from New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection
explained that transferring data from NWIS into STORET--in order to
form a more complete picture of water quality within the state--takes
considerable time and effort from both state and U.S. Geological Survey
staff. Similarly, an official from the National Park Service explained
that the incompatibility of NWIS and STORET makes it very difficult to
retrieve data from NWIS and combine it with National Park Service data
stored in STORET to create one useable database of park water quality.
The official explained that, to effectively use U.S. Geological Survey
data from specific contracted studies, the National Park Service often
requests that raw data be put into STORET.
EPA and the U.S. Geological Survey have taken steps to address the
issue of data incompatibility. In February 2003, EPA and the U.S.
Geological Survey agreed to the following:
* Deliver data from NWIS and STORET in a common format to federal,
state, and tribal organizations, as well as to the general public and
scientific community.
* Ensure that the data from NWIS and STORET are documented to describe
their quality so that users can determine the utility and comparability
of the data.
* Their data systems will include metadata associated with each water-
quality result as soon as possible.
* Recognize that much data exists for which available documentation is
limited and yet these data are useful for certain purposes and,
therefore, the agencies will not exclude such data from their systems
because of these limitations.
* Facilitate and encourage the maximum use of metadata to enhance the
usefulness of the information for multiple purposes.
* Work with the National Water Quality Monitoring Council to develop a
geospatial Internet-based query tool (portal) for sharing data,
especially relying on data from STORET and NWIS. Since data cannot be
efficiently transported between the databases, the agreement between
the agencies focuses on a data portal as an alternative to copying data
into multiple databases. The agencies agreed to "strive to achieve
these objectives as soon as is practicable within the constraints of
available resources."
In addition to difficulties in integrating data from STORET and NWIS,
some agency officials noted difficulty in integrating data within
agencies. For example, according to EPA, the agency has historically
stored water data collected under the Superfund program in various
databases. Noting the inconvenience of this practice, four EPA regions
are working to consolidate Superfund data in STORET. In addition,
according to the Army Corps of Engineers, much of its data as well as
data from other agencies is stored using different formats in different
databases, making integrating the data and analyzing the information
for decision making extremely difficult and time consuming.
To address the difficulties integrating data, the Army Corps of
Engineers believes using a Geographic Information System (GIS) as the
foundation for managing water resources is the only viable solution to
effectively integrate vast amounts of disparate data needed to
effectively manage the nation's water resources. Thus, according to
Corps officials, the agency is taking steps to standardize and
integrate disparate data sets by developing an "Enterprise GIS" to
support watershed analyses. The Corps envisions that the Enterprise GIS
data, output from watershed modeling efforts, and many of the
analytical tools would be Web-enabled to make them accessible to
federal, state, and local governments. The Corps acknowledges, however,
that the agency's implementation of Enterprise GIS at the national
level has been slow, citing funding constraints.
Conclusions:
The acute shortage of accurate and reliable water data has been
documented by GAO, the National Academies of Science, and other
organizations. The consequences of this shortage have been amplified in
recent years as states and local communities have come under increased
pressure to identify and address--in a scientifically sound and legally
defensible manner--which of their waters do not meet standards and
should, therefore, be targeted for cleanup. The consequences of
inadequate water data have also been amplified by the nation's
increased reliance on the watershed approach, a strategy whose success
relies heavily on the availability of comprehensive and reliable
information.
With this critical need in mind, some may find it perplexing that
literally hundreds of organizations collect water quality data that are
not being sufficiently brought to bear on critical decisions. Our
findings suggest that improved coordination could go a long way toward
alleviating this problem.
However, the national, regional, and state monitoring councils that
exist to promote such coordination have frequently been impeded by a
lack of authority to make key decisions, a shortage of funding to
undertake key coordinating activities, and low priority attention from
data collecting organizations. Among the most notable of these is the
National Water Quality Monitoring Council, which is co-chaired by EPA
and U.S. Geological Survey, and which includes representatives from
federal, interstate, state, tribal, local, and municipal governments,
watershed groups, volunteer monitoring groups, and the private sector.
Some have cited these difficulties in calling for a clearly designated
lead water data coordinating body at the national level; one with both
sufficient resources and authority. They differ, however, on the
precise form this body would take. One model would enhance the role of
the National Water Quality Monitoring Council, as the nation's premier
water data coordinating body. Another approach suggested by some would
be to designate a lead federal agency to assume this role--one that
already carries out and/or supports broad water data collection
responsibilities. We believe that it is most appropriate for the
Congress to exercise the judgment call as to whether and how such an
effective coordinating body should be established.
Matter for Congressional Consideration:
To enhance and clearly define authority for coordinating the collection
of water data nationwide, we recommend that the Congress consider
formally designating a lead organization (either an existing water data
coordinating entity or one of the federal agencies with broad water
data collection responsibilities) for this purpose. Among its
responsibilities, the organization would:
* Support the development and continued operation of regional and state
monitoring councils.
* Coordinate the development of an Internet-based clearinghouse to
convey what entities are collecting what types of data. As part of this
effort, the organization could advance the development of a geospatial
Internet-based query tool (portal) that would allow users access to
information about water data available within a given watershed.
* Coordinate the development of clear guidance on metadata standards so
that data users can integrate data from various sources.
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of the Interior, and
the Environmental Protection Agency offered comments on a draft of this
report that were particularly germane to the material in this chapter.
The Corps offered additional information about planned activities to
use a comprehensive integrated watershed management approach, which we
included in finalizing the chapter.
The Department of the Interior cautioned that the designation of a lead
water data organization would not necessarily remove all of the
barriers that are currently limiting the coordination of data
collection activities. Interior noted that while designating a lead
organization or agency has value, resources are needed and some
barriers, such as differing purposes for data collection and variation
in data collection protocols, would remain. We agree and, accordingly,
view Congress' designation of a lead organization as an important step
toward addressing the challenges of coordinating data collection. We
believe that such a step would enhance and more clearly define the
authority needed to address many of these barriers.
Interior also stated that a crucial distinction between NWIS and other
databases mentioned in the report, particularly STORET, is that NWIS
serves not only as a data archive but also as a data processing system
that applies quality control tests. In addition, Interior explained
that establishing one large Federal database is neither feasible nor
desirable. We agree with both points. Regarding the first point, we
recognize that NWIS holds data that are consistently subjected to
quality assurance and quality control, while STORET and other databases
contain some data of varying or unknown quality. Regarding the second
point, many federal agency officials and others noted that it would be
neither realistic nor necessary to establish one database that contains
all water data. Rather, they generally explained that an Internet-based
tool that allows them to link to data sources in a particular
geographic area would be both practical and sufficient.
EPA agreed on the need for reliable, comprehensive, and accessible data
on water quality to effectively implement the watershed approach. EPA
noted, however, that the report should further discuss recent
significant improvements to the STORET system and the emphasis placed
on coordination and data sharing in EPA's "Elements of a State
Monitoring and Assessment Program" guidance. The draft report contained
some information on these issues, but we incorporated additional detail
in response to EPA's comments.
[End of section]
Chapter 4: Water Quantity Data Are Limited, but Efforts to Collect Them
Are Generally Well-Coordinated:
Many stakeholders use water quantity data to make decisions with
important economic, environmental, and social implications. Among other
things, water quantity data are needed to help make water quality
determinations. The quantity of water flowing through a river, for
example, affects the concentration of a regulated pollutant in that
river. The importance of water quantity data, however, extends beyond
their impacts on pollutant concentrations. Federal, state, local,
tribal, and private organizations also rely heavily on water quantity
data to fulfill critical responsibilities such as ensuring an adequate
water supply to meet a variety of competing needs.
Officials at both the federal and state level most often reported that
their biggest concern about water quantity data is the lack of data
available to make these economically and socially important watershed
management decisions. However, where data are available, there is broad
consensus among federal and state data collectors we interviewed that,
while not always flawless, the coordination of water quantity
collection efforts is less complicated and more effective than the
coordination of water quality data collection.
Water Quantity Data Are Needed for Decisions with Important Economic,
Environmental, and Social Implications:
As pressure on existing supplies continues to grow, water supply and
management issues, and therefore water quantity data, are increasingly
important. Much as debits, credits, and savings in a financial budget
need to be quantified to maintain fiscal responsibility, the nation's
water supply and use need to be comprehensively quantified within the
water budget context to ensure adequate availability of water as water
demands fluctuate regionally because of changes in climate, urban
growth patterns, agricultural practices, and energy needs.
Scientific water quantity data make it possible to understand and
protect water for many economically, environmentally, and socially
important uses such as safe drinking water, habitat for fish and
wildlife, rivers and streams for recreational activities, and water
allocations among competing uses by industry, agriculture, and
municipalities. A broad group of stakeholders use water quantity data
to support decisions concerning these uses. These stakeholders--water
managers, engineers, scientists, emergency managers, recreational
water users, and utilities--use water quantity data to evaluate current
water supplies and plan for future supplies; forecast floods and
droughts; operate reservoirs for hydropower, flood control, or water
supplies; make informed evaluations of the nation's water quality;
navigate rivers and streams; and ensure safe fishing and boating. Many
of these activities require decisions to be made on a daily basis,
which means timely, yet reliable, data are necessary.
Overall Lack of Water Quantity Data Is a Key Concern:
Among federal and state officials we interviewed, the most frequently
cited concern about water quantity data was the general lack of data
available to aid decision making. As shown in figure 9, the majority of
federal agencies using water quantity data for watershed management
reported having "less" or "far less" than the amount of data that they
need to make well-supported decisions, for almost all the listed water
quantity parameters, according to our survey of 15 federal agencies.
Additionally, in a 2003 GAO survey of state water quantity managers,
managers in 39 states ranked expanding the number of federal data
collection points, such as streamgage sites, as the most useful federal
action to help their state meet its water quantity information
needs.[Footnote 34] In particular, several officials at the federal and
state level reported that the decline in U.S. Geological Survey
streamgaging stations is a concern, and respondents from the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Weather
Service and the Agricultural Research Service reported that there are
gaps in precipitation monitoring stations.
Figure 9: Federal Agencies Reporting on the Amount of Data That They
Have to Make Well-Supported Watershed Management Decisions:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
According to several federal and state agencies, they are particularly
concerned about the continuing decline in U.S. Geological Survey
streamgaging stations, which provide many entities with water quantity
information needed for key watershed management decisions. Officials at
the Colorado Department of Natural Resources explained that in their
state, the U.S. Geological Survey has cut streamgage stations that
collect data that the state needs. Where possible, the Colorado
Department of Natural Resources has taken on the abandoned sites, but
it has had to leave some abandoned because of resource constraints.
U.S. Geological Survey officials in Mississippi reported that the state
Department of Environmental Quality decided to drop Cooperative Program
funding to support 19 streamgages, which accounted for half the state's
streamflow monitoring. According to officials at Mississippi's
Department of Environmental Quality, some of these gages collected data
the state needs to enforce diversion permits, and others have 50 to 60
years of continuous data collection on record, which they do not want
to discontinue. However, the state does not have the funds to support
expensive U.S. Geological Survey gages, according to the state
officials. Similarly, an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regional
official reported that one state within its region--Wyoming--recently
applied for EPA funding to reactivate needed U.S. Geological Survey
streamgage stations.
As figure 10 shows, a large number of U.S. Geological Survey long-
record streamgages have been discontinued over the past 70 years.
According to a U.S. Geological Survey headquarters official, the loss
of long-record streamgages is a serious matter because trend data from
these gages are requisites for understanding climate change issues and
for designing bridges to withstand floods, among other concerns. While
the number of long-record streamgages has declined over the past 70
years, the number of total gages remains largely the same from year to
year. In many cases, as long-record gages were eliminated, new shorter-
term gages were established through the Cooperative Program. The U.S.
Geological Survey expects funding from cooperators to decline this year
and the next due to current state fiscal constraints, which will likely
cause the overall number of gages to go down in the next couple of
years.
Figure 10: Cumulative Number of U.S. Geological Survey Gages with 30 or
More Years of Record Discontinued, 1933-2003:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Officials at two federal agencies also identified NOAA's National
Weather Service rain gauge data as an area with information gaps.
According to the National Weather Service, while currently its
observation systems primarily exist at airports, it is trying to
improve coverage, especially in the West where the biggest gaps exist.
According to a National Weather Service official, studies conducted by
the Agricultural Research Service and the National Weather Service show
that improving the coverage of monitoring sites to a 20 mile by 20 mile
grid would improve stage forecasting by 50 percent. If this coverage is
realized, the federal government could save $700 million annually
through more accurate flood forecasts, according to the official. To
achieve this better coverage, the National Weather Service is beginning
to add 4,000 new sites and to upgrade 4,000 existing sites. As we
previously reported, the U.S. Geological Survey and the National:
Weather Service stated that a lack of sufficient funding is their
primary barrier to expanding or automating data collection.[Footnote
35]
Efforts to Coordinate Water Quantity Data Collection Have Been
Comparatively Successful:
While the lack of funds for monitoring water quantity parallels the
lack of funds for monitoring water quality, efforts to coordinate water
quantity data collection have generally been successful and are
comparatively unimpeded by barriers. Federal and state officials cited
several key reasons for better coordination of water quantity data as
follows:
* Water quantity data collection is more centralized among fewer
entities, which allows users and collectors to more easily identify
data sources that may be helpful in making watershed management
decisions and encourages coordination to meet a common purpose.
* Critical, urgent, and controversial decisions concerning issues such
as water rights and flood management require accurate and complete
real-time water quantity data and provide an impetus for groups to
collaboratively generate such data.
* Advanced technology, such as satellites that relay data monitored in
stream to computers and radio technology that reports data from
collection sites to the Internet, greatly improve the ability of data
collectors to share data.
* The general consistency of water quantity data parameters, a result
of the well-developed methods available to measure and report them,
allows data users to more easily integrate data from separate
collection efforts.
Data Collection Is More Centralized among Fewer Entities:
Compared with water quality data, collection of water quantity data is
more centralized among a smaller number of primary data collectors,
according to several federal and state officials. As discussed in
chapter 2, in most states, the U.S. Geological Survey collects the
majority of streamgaging data, while other agencies have clearly
delineated responsibilities for collecting other water quantity data.
While these efforts are cleanly divided, they also share the common
purpose of predicting and measuring the nation's water availability and
use, which facilitates better coordination, according to some
officials. For example, once NOAA's National Weather Service, the
Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the U.S. Geological Survey
collect their data, they combine them to forecast water supplies and
floods.
Some officials also cited the common purpose of data collection as a
reason coordinating data collection efforts on water quantity has been
more successful than for water quality. According to the U.S.
Geological Survey, all states participate in its Cooperative Program,
in which nonfederal entities and the U.S. Geological Survey jointly
fund water resources projects that involve water quantity data
collection.
Critical and Time-Sensitive Water Quantity Management Decisions Require
Accurate and Complete Water Quantity Data:
Accurate and complete data are critical in supporting urgent and
controversial water quantity management decisions made by state and
federal agencies. According to many federal and state officials, there
is generally a more critical need for accurate and complete real-time
water quantity data than there is for water quality because important
decisions must be made daily with regard to water allocation, reservoir
projects, flood and drought management, navigation, and evaluation of
compliance with water withdrawal permits.
According to water quantity officials in Virginia, the critical need
for water quantity data increases as the quantity of available water
becomes more equivalent to the amount of water being used, or where
floods occur. In some of these instances, water quantity decisions must
be made quickly with accurate data. For example, according to an Army
Corps of Engineers official, when floods occur, managers must make
critical on-the-spot decisions, such as which residents need to be
evacuated or how much water should be released from a reservoir to
reduce risk and optimize flood reduction. Similarly, according to a
U.S. Geological Survey official in Virginia, during the state's drought
in 2002, discharge permit holders with limits on how much they could
discharge at various streamflows relied on hourly streamflow data to be
sure that their discharges were not exceeding permitted levels. Several
federal and state officials explained that this critical need for data
has prompted water quantity officials to coordinate better.
Numerous officials also noted the need for accurate and complete data
for controversial decisions, especially when they may be challenged in
court. In particular, states need data to, among other things,
administer water rights to various users, establish and maintain in-
stream flow requirements for endangered species and, generally, to
comply with interstate compacts. The need for adequate data for these
sensitive decisions is especially critical in western states, like
Colorado, where rising populations combined with increasing demand for
water for recreation, scenic value, and fish and wildlife habitat, have
resulted in conflicts and litigation. An official in Colorado explained
that in his state, there is great emphasis on keeping track of water
because "every drop of water is owned by someone."
When water is improperly allocated, states can face costly
consequences, which encourages states to coordinate data collection and
share results. For example, according to Colorado water officials, the
state may be required to pay almost $30 million to Kansas as a result
of litigation Kansas initiated when Colorado allegedly withdrew more
than its share of water from the Arkansas River as a result of ground
water pumping. The officials acknowledged that at the time, the state
did not have adequate ground water use data. The state has since
decided to focus its resources to bring high-quality data together to
make well-supported decisions instead of paying for litigation and
payments resulting from inadequately supported decisions. Toward this
end, the state has established the Colorado Decision Support System, a
central query-based data system that incorporates data from various
entities in the state.
Technology Allows for Immediate Distribution of Some Data:
Advanced technology within the water quantity field allows for data to
be directly and almost instantaneously delivered to data users, which
makes it easier to share data and facilitates coordination of water
quantity data collection, according to many federal and state
officials. Part of the reason that water quantity data is easier to
collect and share is because many of the water quantity parameters for
which groups collect data can be measured in situ through electronic
equipment. This is not true of most water quality parameters, which
require manually intensive sampling and subsequent lab processing and
analysis to obtain the final data values.
Where data are measured electronically, telemetry systems such as
satellite technology--depicted in figure 11--can relay data from the
instrument to data users almost immediately. For example, much of the
U.S. Geological Survey's streamflow data, which are collected
continuously by electronic in-stream equipment, are available within 4
hours of collection through use of satellite systems or other telemetry
systems such as phones and radios.
Figure 11: Satellite Used to Relay Collected Water Quantity Data to
Data Users (Lawson, Colorado):
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Since the mid-1980s, the proportion of the U.S. Geological Survey's
streamgages with telemetry has increased dramatically, as shown in
figure 12. The U.S. Geological Survey's computers also have built-in
checking routines, which provide some quality assurance, according to a
Colorado U.S. Geological Survey official. Satellites, in particular,
transmit much of the hydrologic data collected by the U.S. Geological
Survey to data users. Once data are picked up by satellite, they can be
transmitted to users in a couple of ways. For example, some data
collected by the Bureau of Reclamation can be captured directly by
users with their own domestic satellite receivers, or can be accessed
on the Web through NOAA's National Geophysical Data Center, a
repository for satellite data within the National Environmental
Satellite, Data, and Information Service.
Figure 12: Increase in the Use of Telemetry Systems at U.S. Geological
Survey Streamgage Stations:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Another telemetry system--"meteor burst" communication technology--
used by the Natural Resources Conservation Service also facilitates
timely sharing of water quantity data. Meteor burst technology (see
figure 13) is the ability to reflect radio signals, sent from remote
locations, off of ionized meteorite trails 50 to 75 miles above the
earth's surface. With this technology, collection sites as far apart as
1,200 miles can communicate with one another for short time intervals,
which are sufficient to "burst" relatively short data messages between
sending and receiving stations. This method of communications is
preferable for transmitting snowpack data because, among other reasons,
interference that mountains often cause in conventional communications
is not a problem for a meteor burst system, long-term costs are lower
than they are for satellite technology, and data transfer reliability
is higher for meteor burst. The Natural Resources Conservation Service
operates over 700 automated, high-elevation snow and climate
measurement sites in 12 western states and Alaska; these sites use
advanced radio technology to report data on the Internet about once
each day.
Figure 13: Meteor Burst Communication Technology Used to Relay Radio
Signals from Remote Collection Locations to a Master Station:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Water Quantity Data Parameters Are Generally More Consistent
Nationwide:
Water quantity parameters, such as streamflow and precipitation, are
generally more uniform nationwide than water quality parameters,
according to several federal and state officials, making it easier for
groups to integrate data from separate collection efforts. For example,
water withdrawal is measured as a volume of water in gallons, and stage
is measured as the height of water in feet, which can be easily
compared. Water quality parameters, on the other hand, are less
uniform. Sediment concentration in water is one example of a measure
that may be described by multiple parameters--total suspended solids,
turbidity, and transparency--that are not easily integrated.
According to several federal and state officials, water quantity
parameters are more uniform partly because traditional parameters and
the same methods of measurements have been around for decades. For
example, the U.S. Geological Survey has operated its streamgaging
network to measure streamflow since 1889, and the Army Corps of
Engineers has collected stage data as far back as 1785 on the
Mississippi River with more regular measurements beginning about 1838.
Their monitoring methods and standardized techniques for converting
stage data to flow data are established and relatively uniform among
entities, according to an Army Corps of Engineers official. Many water
quality parameters and assessment methods, on the other hand, are
relatively new. For example, an EPA bioassessment guidance document
noted that many natural resource agencies throughout the country have
begun the process of developing and implementing biological assessment
and criteria programs. In part because these processes are relatively
new, sampling methods differ across agencies, impeding data sharing.
In addition to water quantity parameters being more uniform, there are
also fewer than for water quality, which lessens the burden of
coordination according to some of the federal and state officials we
spoke with. While water quantity can be characterized by a relatively
small number of parameters (in magnitude of tens) concerning the volume
of water available and the volume that is used, a much larger number of
chemical, physical, and biological parameters (in magnitude of
thousands) are required to provide an accurate picture of water
quality. Chemical measures alone account for a large number of
parameters because there are so many agricultural, industrial,
pharmaceutical, and household chemicals in use today that are found in
surface waters. According to a U.S. Geological Survey official, the
agency's water quantity monitoring largely concentrates on discharge
and water height (stage) measurements. In contrast, the U.S. Geological
Survey alone collects water quality data on about 500 different
chemicals and identifies thousands of biological species in streams,
lakes, and reservoirs.
Conclusions:
We found a broad consensus that, for a variety of reasons, water
quantity data collection efforts have relatively been well coordinated.
At the same time, we found that more water quantity data are needed to
make well-supported watershed management decisions. The efficient
collection and use of water quantity data will only grow in importance,
as the nation's population grows and water supplies continue to face
increasing demands among competing uses. And given the inherent
interrelationship between water quality and water quantity, it will
also be increasingly important for data collectors to extend their
collaborative efforts to include organizations that collect both water
quantity and water quality data.
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of the Interior
offered comments on a draft of this report that were particularly
germane to the material in this chapter. The Corps commented that the
lead agency concept described in the previous chapter applies here as
well, stating its belief that "designation of a lead federal agency by
Congress to operate as a clearinghouse for water quantity data is an
important step to improving data collection and management." The Corps
noted that setting up a clearinghouse of water quantity data could
result in significant savings for the federal government, while also
assisting state and local governments with their land use decisions. As
noted in the conclusions to this chapter, there is an inherent
interrelationship between water quality and water quantity. We
recognize that it is increasingly important for data collectors to
extend their collaborative efforts to include both water quantity and
water quality data collection.
The Department of the Interior expressed agreement with our concern
that while water quantity data collection is comparatively well
coordinated and consistent, the data currently being collected is not
adequate to address the needs of decision makers trying to address
water quantity-related questions. Interior explained that it is
particularly troubled by the loss of many of the long-term data
collection stations, which are needed for trend analysis to answer many
important questions about flood and drought conditions and their
recurrence.
[End of section]
Appendixes:
Appendix I: Water Data Collection Activities by Federal Agency:
We identified 16 key federal agencies that collect water data. The
following descriptions provided by each agency detail their data
collection activities, including general information about the purpose
for which their agency collects data, the specific data parameters for
which they collect data, the geographic scope and frequency of
collection, how their data are stored, and how their data can be
accessed.
Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service:
Agency Mission:
The Agricultural Research Service conducts research to develop and
transfer solutions to agricultural problems of high national priority.
It disseminates information related to this research to:
* ensure high-quality, safe food and other agricultural products;
* assess the nutritional needs of Americans;
* sustain a competitive agricultural economy;
* enhance the natural resource base and the environment; and:
* provide economic opportunities for rural citizens, communities, and
society as a whole.
Water Quality Data:
As shown in table 1, the Agricultural Research Service collects data on
a variety of water quality parameters. The primary purpose for which
the Agricultural Research Service collects water quality data is
research and technology transfer. Most of the research is conducted on
farms or ranches, with varying types of data collected. The second
purpose for which the Agricultural Research Service collects water
quality data is to provide research information to other federal
agencies, as well as public and private agricultural customers and
organizations. In terms of water quality data and research, the
Agricultural Research Service's primary customer is the Natural
Resources Conservation Service, which helps owners of private land
conserve their soil, water, and other resources. The Agricultural
Research Service also cooperates with the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Geological Survey in the collection and
dissemination of water quality data.
Table 1: Water Quality Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the
Agricultural Research Service:
[See PDF for image]
Source: Agricultural Research Service.
[A] The Agricultural Research Service also collects project-specific
pathogen data. The frequency of collection varies depending on the
objectives of site-specific research studies.
[B] The frequency of data collection varies depending on the objectives
of site-specific research studies.
[C] The Agricultural Research Service collects very little habitat and
indicator bacteria data.
[End of table]
Water Quantity Data:
As shown in table 2, the Agricultural Research Service collects data on
a variety of water quantity parameters. The Agricultural Research
Service primarily collects water quantity data in conjunction with
water quality data to provide research information to other federal
agencies, as well as public and private agricultural customers and
organizations. In addition, the Agricultural Research Service collects
some water quantity data in cooperation with other agencies, such as
the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the National Weather
Service, and the U.S. Geological Survey, to forecast water supplies and
drought.
Table 2: Water Quantity Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the
Agricultural Research Service:
[See PDF for image]
Source: Agricultural Research Service.
[A] The frequency of data collection varies depending on the objectives
of site-specific research studies.
[End of table]
Storage Method and Accessibility:
According to the Agricultural Research Service, its water data are
stored in numerous databases, largely on a project-specific basis.
These data are publicly accessible via the Internet, by specific
request, and through publications.
Department of Agriculture's Cooperative State Research, Education, and
Extension Service:
Agency Mission:
The mission of the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension
Service (CSREES) is to advance knowledge for agriculture, the
environment, human health and well being, and communities. The primary
functions, as follows, of CSREES are to provide:
* program leadership to identify, develop, and manage programs to
support university-based and other institutional research, education,
and extension; and:
* fair, effective, and efficient administration of federal assistance
implementing research, education, and extension awards and agreements.
Water Quality Data:
CSREES does not collect water quality data directly but funds a lot of
data collection on a wide variety of parameters (as shown in table 3)
through research projects at universities, government laboratories, and
nonprofit organizations. All data collected through CSREES-funded
projects are used for educational or research purposes. Water quality
data collection is funded under the following programs:
* $15-20 million is provided to states through the Hatch Act for
agricultural research. Individual research projects collect water
quality data as needed.
* $12 million is provided through the National Integrated Water Quality
Program, which emphasizes integration of research, education, and
extension. Approximately $6 million is used to support a network of
regional coordination projects for state water quality coordinators.
* $4.5 million is provided through the National Research Institute for
research projects focused on watershed management and hydrologic
processes.
* $2-3 million is provided through congressionally directed projects to
states. Projects supported through this funding mechanism include the
National Drought Mitigation Center at Lincoln, Nebraska, which studies
drought preparedness.
Table 3: Water Quality Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by CSREES:
[See PDF for image]
Source: CSREES.
[A] CSREES sponsors research and education projects that collect water
quality data in support of investigator-defined project objectives.
[B] The frequency of data collection varies for each parameter based on
project needs.
[End of table]
Water Quantity Data:
Although CSREES programs tend to focus on water quality, researchers
need flow data to interpret and support their findings. Therefore,
CSREES encourages researchers to collect water quantity data in
conjunction with water quality data. As shown in table 4, CSREES
researchers collect data on a variety of water quantity parameters.
Table 4: Water Quantity Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by CSREES:
[See PDF for image]
Source: CSREES.
[A] CSREES researchers collect a lot of streamflow data; a fair amount
of soil moisture data; some surface water storage data, a little
surface runoff, aquifer recharge, snowpack, and precipitation data; and
occasional water withdrawal parameters.
[B] The frequency of data collection varies for each parameter based on
project needs.
[End of table]
Storage Method and Accessibility:
According to CSREES, it does not have a central database for water data
collected with CSREES funding. Individual researchers store the data
they collect, and the data can be accessed by request.
Department of Agriculture's Forest Service:
Agency Mission:
The mission of the Forest Service is to sustain the health, diversity,
and productivity of the nation's forests and grasslands to meet the
needs of present and future generations. The Forest Service manages
public lands in national forests and grasslands through activities such
as the following:
* Protection and management of the natural resources of the national
forests and grasslands through the national forest system.
* Research on all aspects of forestry, rangeland management, and forest
resource utilization through the research branch.
* Management of nonfederal forest and rangelands to improve conditions
in rural areas through state and private forestry programs.
* Formulating policy and coordinating United States support for the
protection and sound management of the world's forest resources through
the International Assistance Program.
Water Quality Data:
As shown in table 5, the Forest Service collects data on a wide variety
of water quality parameters. The Forest Service generally collects
water quality data for two purposes: research studies (done through the
research branch) and forest administrative studies (usually implemented
through the national forest system). Research studies are often long-
term studies that require the collection of various parameters at
frequencies that are specific to each individual research project. For
example, there are at least a dozen projects throughout the Forest
Service that currently involve the collection of long-term data.
However, no two share identical objectives and, as a result, data
collection methods vary based on individual project needs. Research
grade projects tend to be executed with a high level of concern for
technical rigor and statistical validity.
Forest administrative studies are shorter-term studies intended to
evaluate the environmental impact of forest management practices. For
example, the agency performs best management practice evaluations to
determine the implementation rates and effectiveness of water
protection measures. Administrative studies are normally more
qualitative in nature than research projects. Administrative studies
may also involve more focused evaluations of individual projects or
seek to answer more site-specific questions that relate to local
management concerns. Forest scientists or researchers may collect data
for 10 or more years, but typically, an administrative project
implemented at the forest level takes 1 to 3 years to complete. Like
research studies, forest administrative studies may also implement
technically rigorous projects, but statistical rigor is usually not
required to answer the more locally relevant questions these studies
generally pose.
Table 5: Water Quality Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the Forest
Service:
[See PDF for image]
Source: Forest Service.
[A] The Forest Service conducts no routine monitoring for water quality
parameters except in the case of individual research projects. Most
data are collected for specific research or administrative studies.
[B] Water systems are sampled monthly for indicator bacteria.
[End of table]
Water Quantity Data:
Although the Forest Service generally relies on data collected by the
U.S. Geological Survey in order to estimate the amount of water
available to manage the national forests, the agency collects a limited
amount of its own water quantity data. Data collection is usually
limited to projects where more site-specific information is needed. The
data are used, for example, along with U.S. Geological Survey data, to
estimate the total flows yielded from national forests and determine
how that water may be allocated to other uses. Table 6 shows the water
quantity parameters collected by the Forest Service and the scope and
frequency of collection.
Table 6: Water Quantity Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the Forest
Service:
[See PDF for image]
Source: Forest Service.
[A] Data are collected as needed for specific projects. In addition,
the Forest Service relies on data from other federal agencies, such as
the U.S. Geological Survey.
[End of table]
Storage Method and Accessibility:
According to the Forest Service, its water quality data are currently
stored in scattered internal databases, and a limited amount of data
are stored in EPA's Storage and Retrieval (STORET) System. Recently,
the agency has established a centralized data storage system that is
now being implemented. Access to data varies, with some data available
through the Internet and other data available by request in electronic
or paper formats. Water quantity data are stored in published reports
and are available by request through the U.S. Geological Survey.
Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service:
Agency Mission:
The mission of the Natural Resources Conservation Service is to provide
leadership in a partnership effort to help people conserve, maintain,
and improve our natural resources and environment. The Service also
helps owners of America's private land to conserve their soil, water,
and other natural resources. The Service works with local partners and
serves almost every county in the nation, and in the Caribbean and
Pacific Basin.
Water Quality Data:
As shown in table 7, the Natural Resources Conservation Service
collects water quality data on a watershed or site-specific scale, such
as an agricultural location, for project-specific purposes. For
example, the Service collects data in watersheds to determine effects
of animal feeding practices on water quality and to identify potential
mismanagement of manure.
Table 7: Water Quality Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the
Natural Resources Conservation Service:
[See PDF for image]
Source: Natural Resources Conservation Service.
[End of table]
Water Quantity Data:
The Natural Resources Conservation Service collects water quantity data
(as shown in table 8) primarily to derive forecasts of water supply in
western states. The Service produces reservoir storage reports and a
water supply outlook report, posted on its Web site daily from January
through spring, to identify snowpack and runoff amounts. The data are
used by states to predict water surpluses and shortages.
The Service collects snowpack and precipitation data in association
with the National Weather Service and the U.S. Geological Survey. In
addition, the Soil Climate Analysis Network measures soil temperature
and moisture content, which aids in determining the severity of
drought.
Table 8: Water Quantity Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the
Natural Resources Conservation Service:
[See PDF for image]
Source: Natural Resources Conservation Service.
[A] The Natural Resources Conservation Service collects surface water
storage data in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana,
Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.
[B] The Natural Resources Conservation Service collects snowpack and
precipitation data in the western states.
[C] The Natural Resources Conservation Service collects soil moisture
data at over 80 real-time sites in 39 states and territories.
[End of table]
Storage Method and Accessibility:
According to the Natural Resources Conservation Service, water quality
data are stored primarily with the partners who collect the data. The
data are most likely stored in paper-based project files and are
available by request. Snowpack and precipitation data are stored in
Internet-accessible databases and in published reports.
Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, National Marine Fisheries Service:
Agency Mission:
The mission of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's
(NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service is the stewardship of living
marine resources through science-based conservation and management and
the promotion of healthy ecosystems. NOAA's National Marine Fisheries
Service is responsible for the management, conservation, and protection
of living marine resources within the United States Exclusive Economic
Zone. It also plays a supportive and advisory role in the management of
living marine resources in coastal areas under state jurisdiction,
provides scientific and policy leadership in the international arena,
and implements international conservation and management measures as
appropriate.
Water Quality Data:
The Service collects project-specific water quality data (as shown in
table 9) for a variety of uses. For example, data are used to
substantiate whether a species should be covered under the Endangered
Species Act, to designate a critical habitat, to establish a recovery
plan and/or substantiate the rate of recovery, to conduct a
consultation and work with federal and other entities to determine
effects, to determine effects of different programs on the environment,
or for enforcement. The Service collects water quality data at varying,
project-specific frequencies, durations, and locations through its
Science Centers, Office of Protected Resources, and Office of Habitat
Conservation.
Table 9: Water Quality Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by NOAA's
National Marine Fisheries Service:
[See PDF for image]
Source: NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service.
[A] These parameters are not routinely collected. The frequency of
collection depends on project-specific needs.
[End of table]
Water Quantity Data:
As shown in table 10, the National Marine Fisheries Service collects
water quantity data on a project-specific basis. The Service collects
some water quantity data such as those needed to understand the effects
of freshwater flowing into coastal habitats. The Army Corps of
Engineers provides some funds to NOAA to collect streamgage data, and
NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service provides funding to federal,
state, and local groups to collect water quantity data through the
Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund.
Table 10: Water Quantity Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and
the Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by NOAA's
National Marine Fisheries Service:
[See PDF for image]
Source: NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service.
[A] These parameters are not routinely collected. The frequency of
collection depends on project-specific needs.
[End of table]
Storage Method and Accessibility:
According to the National Marine Fisheries Service, it does not
maintain a centralized, internal water database. Some water data are
stored in the National Oceanographic Data Center and some data are
stored in paper or electronic files, which are dispersed throughout the
agency. Data stored in the National Oceanographic Data Center are
available via the Internet, while other data are available upon
request.
Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, National Ocean Service:
Agency Mission:
The mission of NOAA's National Ocean Service is to preserve and enhance
the nation's coastal resources and ecosystems along 95,000 miles of
shoreline and 3.5 million square miles of coastal ocean. At the same
time, it works to support economic growth for the long-term benefit of
the nation.
Water Quality Data:
As shown in table 11, the National Ocean Service collects data on a
project-specific basis. These projects primarily seek to assess the
health of coasts and establish trends in the health of coastal systems
through activities such as monitoring the health of coral reefs and
mapping sea grass beds. According to the Service, it collects water
quality under a number of programs, such as the following:
* National Status and Trends Program.
* National Estuarine Research Reserves System Program.
* National Marine Sanctuary System Program.
* Benthic Habitat Assessment Mapping Program.
* Coral Reef Monitoring Program.
* Harmful Algal Bloom Monitoring Program.
Table 11: Water Quality Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by NOAA's
National Ocean Service:
[See PDF for image]
Source: NOAA's National Ocean Service.
[A] NOAA's National Ocean Service also collects harmful algal bloom
data on a project specific basis.
[B] Pesticides, other organic contaminants, and metals data are
collected every year under the National Status and Trends Program;
however, only half the stations are occupied per year.
[C] The frequency of collection varies depending on project needs.
[D] Data is collected on both fish and shellfish tissue. In general,
shellfish tissue data are collected yearly, and fish tissue data are
collected on a varying frequency depending on project needs.
[End of table]
Water Quantity Data:
The National Ocean Service collects precipitation data (as shown in
table 12) at some data collection locations through its National
Estuarine Research Reserve System Program, which seeks to track short-
term variability and long-term changes in coastal ecosystems
represented in the reserve system. In addition, through the National
Water Level Program and its National Current Observation Program, the
agency measures tide levels and water levels in the Great Lakes, tidal
currents for navigation purposes, and storm surges associated with
tropical storms and hurricanes. Water level data and tidal current data
are collected on a continuous long-term basis.
Table 12: Water Quantity Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and
the Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by NOAA's
National Ocean Service:
[See PDF for image]
Source: NOAA's National Ocean Service.
[A] NOAA's National Ocean Service also collects tidal current and tide
and water level data on a continuous, nationwide basis.
[End of table]
Storage Method and Accessibility:
According to the National Ocean Service, it stores its water quality
data in internal program databases, with each National Ocean Service
program having its own database. Some of these data are available
online through NOAA data centers, and some are archived in project
files that are accessible by request. Its water quantity data are
stored in a NOAA national water level database and are available
through the Internet.
Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, National Weather Service:
Agency Mission:
The mission of NOAA's National Weather Service is to provide weather,
hydrologic, and climate forecasts and warnings for the United States,
its territories, adjacent waters and ocean areas, for the protection of
life and property and the enhancement of the national economy. National
Weather Service data and products form a national information database
and infrastructure, which can be used by other governmental agencies,
the private sector, the public, and the global community.
Water Quality Data:
The National Weather Service does not collect water quality data.
Water Quantity Data:
NOAA's National Weather Service collects water quantity data (as shown
in table 13) to support weather forecast activities and aviation
operations, as well as the needs of the meteorological, hydrological,
and climatological research communities. Two of its programs, the
Automated Surface Observing Systems Program and the Cooperative
Observer Program, serve as the nation's primary weather and climate
observation networks. Through these programs, data are gathered on a
long-term, daily basis and are used to define the climate of the United
States and to support forecast, warning, and other public service
programs of NOAA's National Weather Service.
Table 13: Water Quantity Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and
the Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by NOAA's
National Weather Service:
[See PDF for image]
Source: National Weather Service.
[End of table]
Storage Method and Accessibility:
According to the National Weather Service, its data are stored in the
National Climatic Data Center of NOAA's National Environmental
Satellite, Data, and Information Service and are available to the
public via the Internet.
Department of Defense's Army Corps of Engineers:
Agency Mission:
The Army Corps of Engineers' mission is to provide quality, responsive
engineering services to the nation, including:
* planning, designing, implementing and, in some cases, operating water
resources and other civil works projects (navigation, flood and storm
damage reduction, environmental protection and restoration,
hydropower, water supply, disaster response, etc.);
* designing and managing the construction of military facilities for
the Army and Air Force (military construction); and:
* providing design and construction management support for other
Defense and federal agencies (interagency and international services).
Water Quality Data:
The Army Corps of Engineers collects water quality data (as shown in
table 14) on a broad geographic scale at many of its approximately 700
water projects. These projects primarily are operated to facilitate
navigation, reduce flood or storm damages, provide water supply
storage, or generate hydropower. It also collects some data for other
projects, such as the Florida Everglades. In that particular case, the
Army Corps of Engineers collects data on pesticides, nutrients, and
dissolved oxygen in order to maintain the health of the Everglades.
Table 14: Water Quality Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the Army
Corps of Engineers:
[See PDF for image]
Source: Army Corps of Engineers.
Note: The Army Corps of Engineers noted that it collects additional
data for purposes such as planning and design. These additional data
are collected by staff in district offices for specific needs and the
data are stored in project-specific files at the district offices.
[A] In addition to its in-house data collection, the Army Corps of
Engineers partners with multiple agencies and often contracts out data
collection activities to others (e.g., the U.S. Geological Survey,
NOAA's National Weather Service, universities, and private
contractors).
[B] The frequency of collection varies depending on project needs.
[End of table]
Water Quantity Data:
The Army Corps of Engineers collects water quantity data (as shown in
table 15) largely in association with its water management projects.
For example, it keeps track of rainfall amounts, reservoir storage, and
inflow and outflow as part of operating specific projects. It also
collects stage data to monitor flood control efforts. In addition to
their data collection activities, the Army Corps of Engineers funds
approximately 25 percent of the U.S. Geological Survey's National
Streamflow Information Program. Moreover, according to the Army Corps
of Engineers, it contributes to the analysis of water data by
developing water resources software models that are used worldwide.
Table 15: Water Quantity Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and
the Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the
Army Corps of Engineers:
[See PDF for image]
Source: Army Corps of Engineers.
[A] In addition to its in-house data collection activities, the Army
Corps of Engineers partners with multiple agencies and often contracts
out data collection activities to others (e.g., the U.S. Geological
Survey, NOAA's National Weather Service, universities, and private
contractors).
[End of table]
Storage Method and Accessibility:
According to the Army Corps of Engineers, it stores its data in a
number of databases, including internal databases as well as EPA's
STORET and the U.S. Geological Survey's National Water Information
System (NWIS). Many of these data are available through their district
or division Web pages. In addition, some water quality data are stored
in district offices in individual project files for which the data were
collected. Many of these data are accessible upon request. Some Corps
water data are not publicly available for security reasons.
Department of Energy's Bonneville Power Administration:
Agency Mission:
The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) markets wholesale electrical
power and operates and markets transmission services in the Pacific
Northwest. The power comes from 31 federal hydroelectric projects, one
nonfederal nuclear plant, and several other nonfederal power plants.
The hydroelectric projects and the electrical system are known as the
Federal Columbia River Power System. About 45 percent of the electric
power used in the Northwest comes from BPA. BPA's transmission system
accounts for about three-quarters of the region's high-voltage grid and
includes major transmission links with other regions.
Water Quality Data:
BPA collects water quality data in conjunction with some of the
hundreds of fish and wildlife projects it funds each year throughout
the U.S. portion of the Columbia-Snake River Basin. As shown in table
16, BPA collects a variety of water quality data on a project-specific
scale. The purpose for data collection is usually to obtain baseline
water quality data in a specific area and then compare it with water
quality after a project is complete. BPA collects data in both small
watersheds as well as big watersheds, such as the Columbia River Basin.
BPA provides funds to a variety of agencies to collect water quality
data, including state departments of fish and wildlife, NOAA's National
Marine Fisheries Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, local
soil and water conservation districts, and tribes in the Columbia River
Basin. BPA's fish and wildlife program has an approximately $140
million annual budget and operates hundreds of projects, of which as
many as 50 to 75 percent collect a small amount of water quality data.
Table 16: Water Quality Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by BPA:
[See PDF for image]
Source: BPA.
[A] BPA also collects total dissolved gas data on a project-specific
basis.
[B] Because BPA lacks a database that could provide information on the
specific type and frequency of data collection, they were not able
provide more detailed information for frequency of collection. Project-
specific data is collected on anywhere from a daily to yearly basis.
[C] Projects last one to several years, and data is collected and
analyzed for one or more watersheds or subbasins.
[End of table]
Water Quantity Data:
As shown in table 17, BPA collects a wide variety of water quantity
data on a project-specific scale. Generally, water quantity data are
used for complying with the Endangered Species Act and dam operations.
BPA water quantity data are also used by others such as state fish and
wildlife agencies and the Northwest Power and Conservation Council and
Columbia River Basin navigation programs. BPA also uses data collected
by the U.S. Geological Survey, Army Corps of Engineers, Bureau of
Reclamation, and Natural Resources Conservation Service, which are
readily available via the Internet. In addition, BPA sometimes funds
data collection by others, such as the U.S. Geological Survey, tribes,
and states.
Table 17: Water Quantity Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and
the Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by BPA:
[See PDF for image]
Source: BPA.
[A] The frequency of data collection varies depending on project-
specific needs.
[End of table]
Storage Method and Accessibility:
According to BPA, the water quality data collected with BPA funding are
stored in external, project-specific databases that are maintained by
the data collectors. Most of the data are available by request,
although small amounts of data are available via the Internet. Water
quantity data are stored in internal, project-specific databases. Data
are available through publications and via the Internet.
Environmental Protection Agency:
Agency Mission:
The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) mission is to protect human
health and to safeguard the natural environment and to ensure the
following:
* All Americans are protected from significant risks to human health
and the environment where they live, learn, and work.
* National efforts to reduce environmental risk are based on the best
available scientific information.
* Federal laws protecting human health and the environment are enforced
fairly and effectively.
* Environmental protection is an integral consideration in U.S.
policies concerning natural resources, human health, economic growth,
energy, transportation, agriculture, industry, and international
trade, and these factors are similarly considered in establishing
environmental policy.
* All parts of society--communities, individuals, business, state and
local governments, tribal governments--have access to accurate
information sufficient to effectively participate in managing human
health and environmental risks.
* Environmental protection contributes to making our communities and
ecosystems diverse, sustainable, and economically productive.
* The United States plays a leadership role in working with other
nations to protect the global environment.
Water Quality Data:
EPA supports states' monitoring programs to assess the quality of their
waters and to identify waters that do not meet water quality standards.
While EPA obtains most of the water quality data it uses from states,
tribes, grantees, contractors, and regulated entities, EPA's
laboratories collect some data for independent studies to determine the
environmental impacts of special concerns, such as mining operations
and underground storage tanks. In addition, EPA also collects or funds
the collection of some water quality data (as shown in table 18) under
the following monitoring programs:
* Water Quality Protection Program for the Florida Keys National Marine
Sanctuary;
* Monitoring and Reporting on the State of the Chesapeake Bay Program;
* Monitoring and Reporting on the State of the Great Lakes Ecosystem;
* Gulf of Mexico Monitoring;
* Office of Research and Development Environmental Monitoring and
Assessment Program;
* National Estuary Program: National Coastal Assessment Intensive
Sampling;
* Regulation of Ocean Dumping;
* National Marine Debris Monitoring Program and the International
Coastal Cleanup;
* Pesticides in Selected Water-Supply Reservoirs and Finished Drinking
Water, 1999-2000;
* National Study of Chemical Residues in Lake Fish Tissue;
* Beach Program; and:
* Atmospheric Deposition.
Table 18: Water Quality Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by EPA:
[See PDF for image]
Source: EPA.
Note: The information provided in this table is primarily based on the
following six programs: the Beach Program, Chesapeake Bay Program,
Great Lakes Program, National Estuary Program, Water Quality Protection
Program for the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, and National
Study of Chemical Residues in Lake Fish Tissue.
[A] According to EPA, data is collected on varying geographic scales,
depending on the project.
[B] EPA noted that the frequency of collection varies depending on
program needs. EPA only provided frequency information for data
collected under the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary Program,
which collects data on nutrients, dissolved oxygen, pH, temperature,
and turbidity on a quarterly basis.
[End of table]
Water Quantity Data:
EPA does not collect water quantity data, except in rare circumstances.
Storage Method and Accessibility:
According to EPA, most of its water quality data are stored in STORET,
which is Internet accessible. Data collected under some programs, such
as the Water Quality Protection Program for the Florida Keys National
Marine Sanctuary and the Chesapeake Bay Program, are stored in external
databases that are managed by others. Project-specific data are added
to contractor databases, some of which are available through STORET. In
addition, some water quality data collected under Superfund has
recently been loaded into STORET.
Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management:
Agency Mission:
The mission of the Bureau of Land Management is to sustain the health,
diversity, and productivity of the public lands for the use and
enjoyment of present and future generations. The Bureau manages 262
million acres of land--about one-eighth of the land in the United
States--and about 300 million additional acres of subsurface mineral
resources. It is also responsible for wildfire management and
suppression on 388 million acres.
Most of the lands the agency manages are located in the western United
States, including Alaska, and are dominated by extensive grasslands,
forests, high mountains, arctic tundra, and deserts. The Bureau
oversees a wide variety of resources and uses, including energy and
minerals; timber; forage; wild horse and burro populations; fish and
wildlife habitat; wilderness areas; archaeological, paleontological,
and historical sites; and other natural heritage values.
Water Quality Data:
The Bureau uses water quality data in its management of public lands
and to fulfill its obligations under the Clean Water Act. In most
cases, its data are collected at the agency's 157 field offices for
specific projects. It uses project-specific water quality data to
understand the conditions of the lakes, rivers, streams, and ponds on
agency-managed lands. As shown in table 19, the Bureau collects data on
a variety of water quality parameters.
Table 19: Water Quality Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the Bureau
of Land Management:
[See PDF for image]
Source: BLM.
[A] This information is based on 22 of BLM's 157 field offices. Water
quality data collection varies among field offices, and BLM data are
not aggregated at the national level.
[B] BLM's 22 field offices indicated that they collect data on both
regional and project-specific geographic scopes. However, a BLM
official noted that field offices vary in their interpretation of
"regional."
[C] While BLM did not provide specific information for the frequency of
data collection, it reported that data collection at 22 of its 157
field offices was typically conducted annually and rarely on a monthly
or continuous frequency.
[End of table]
Water Quantity Data:
BLM collects and analyzes water quantity data for a variety of needs,
such as:
* designing a variety of fish and wildlife habitat and stream channel
stabilization projects,
* in-stream flow analysis for habitat and recreation needs,
* floodplain management,
* fire management,
* fuel treatment planning,
* analyzing water quality data, and:
* habitat assessments for fisheries.
Examples of types of water quantity data collected by the Bureau of
Land Management are as follows:
* streamflow and stream discharge data, in conjunction with water
quality data on a project-specific basis;
* snowpack data, in conjunction with the Department of Agriculture's
Natural Resources Conservation Service;
* surface water storage and groundwater data, perhaps once or twice a
year (at the beginning or end of a growing season) to monitor
agricultural areas;
* precipitation and evapotranspiration data during the growing season;
and:
* data from rain storage gages.
As shown in table 20, the Bureau collects data on a variety of water
quantity parameters.
Table 20: Water Quantity Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and
the Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the
Bureau of Land Management:
[See PDF for image]
Source: BLM.
[A] This information is based on 22 of BLM's 157 field offices. Water
quantity data collection varies among field offices, and BLM data are
not aggregated at the national level.
[B] More than half of the 22 BLM field offices indicated that they
collect data on a project-specific basis. Three responses indicated
that data are collected on a regional scale. However, a BLM official
noted that field offices vary in their interpretation of "regional."
[C] Data collection at BLM's field offices varies depending on specific
project needs. Staff may collect data at any of the above listed
frequencies.
[End of table]
Storage Method and Accessibility:
According to the Bureau of Land Management, its data are stored
primarily at the local level, such as in field office databases. In
addition, a small amount of Bureau data are stored in EPA's STORET
database and the U.S. Geological Survey's NWIS. While the data stored
in STORET and NWIS are publicly available via the Internet, most of the
Bureau's water data are available by request.
Department of the Interior's Bureau of Reclamation:
Agency Mission:
The mission of the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) is to manage,
develop, and protect water and related resources in an environmentally
and economically sound manner in the interest of the American public.
Reclamation:
* manages, develops, and protects water and related resources in an
environmentally and economically sound manner in the interest of the
American public;
* serves as the fifth largest electric utility in the 17 western states
and the nation's largest wholesale water supplier, administering 348
reservoirs with a total storage capacity of 245 million acre-feet (an
acre-foot, 325,851 gallons of water, supplies enough water for a family
of four for one year);
* provides one out of five western farmers (140,000) with irrigation
water for 10 million farmland acres that produce 60% of the nation's
vegetables and 25% of its fruits and nuts;
* operates 58 hydroelectric power plants averaging 42 billion kilowatt-
hours annually;
* delivers 10 trillion gallons of water to more than 31 million people
each year for municipal, rural, and industrial use; and:
* manages in partnership over 300 recreation sites visited by 90
million people a year.
Water Quality Data:
As shown in table 21, Reclamation collects a wide variety of water
quality data to meet project needs. Reclamation works together with the
Natural Resources Conservation Service to collect water quality data
under the Colorado River Basin Salinity Control program. In addition,
Reclamation collects water quality data in compliance with its
responsibilities under the Clean Water Act.
Table 21: Water Quality Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the Bureau
of Reclamation:
[See PDF for image]
Source: Bureau of Reclamation.
[A] In addition, a Reclamation official indicated that some projects
collect data on the following parameters: phytoplankton, cyanotoxins,
total dissolved gas, and pharmaceuticals.
[B] The frequency of data collection varies for each parameter based on
project needs (i.e., the Bureau may not collect a particular parameter
for some projects but may collect the parameter on a regular basis for
other projects).
[End of table]
Water Quantity Data:
As shown in table 22, Reclamation collects water quantity data on a
project-specific basis. For example, Reclamation measures inflow,
outflow, and reservoir surface elevation at reservoirs.
Table 22: Water Quantity Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and
the Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the
Bureau of Reclamation:
[See PDF for image]
Source: Bureau of Reclamation.
[A] The frequency of data collection varies for each parameter
depending on project needs (i.e., the Bureau may not collect a
particular parameter for some projects but may collect the parameter on
a regular basis for other projects).
[End of table]
Storage Method and Accessibility:
According to Reclamation, it often stores project-specific water
quality data in internal databases. These data are generally available
in hard copy or in publications. In addition, a small amount of Bureau
data are stored in EPA's STORET and the U.S. Geological Survey's NWIS.
These data are available via the Internet.
Water quantity data are stored in project-specific, internal databases
or in Reclamation's Hydromet and Agrimet databases. Hydromet and
Agrimet are available via the Internet. All water quantity data are
generally available by request, though some data may be restricted due
to security concerns.
Department of the Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service:
Agency Mission:
The mission of the Fish and Wildlife Service is, working with others,
to conserve, protect and enhance fish, wildlife, and plants and their
habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. The Service
manages the 95 million-acre National Wildlife Refuge System of 543
National Wildlife Refuges and thousands of small wetlands and other
special management areas. Under its Fisheries and Habitat Conservation
Program, the Fish and Wildlife Service also operates 66 National Fish
Hatcheries, 64 fishery resource offices, and 78 ecological services
field stations.
Among its key functions, the Fish and Wildlife Service enforces federal
wildlife laws, protects endangered species, manages and conserves
migratory birds, restores nationally significant fisheries, conserves
and restores wildlife habitat such as wetlands, manages the world's
largest system of lands devoted to the conservation of fish, wildlife,
and plants, and helps foreign governments with their international
conservation efforts. It also oversees the federal aid program that
distributes hundreds of millions of dollars in excise taxes on fishing
and hunting equipment to state fish and wildlife agencies for fish,
wildlife, and habitat conservation.
Water Quality Data:
As shown in table 23, the Service typically collects water quality data
on a project-specific basis. For example, the agency collects data in
order to assist in restoration of Superfund sites, where a suspected
contaminant may affect lands within the National Wildlife Refuge
System, or may collect data in specific watersheds where threatened or
endangered species are present. The agency also collects data for the
National Irrigation Water Quality Program--a cooperative effort with
the Bureau of Reclamation, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and U.S.
Geological Survey that operates mostly in the West to study endangered
species on trustee land. In general, the Fish and Wildlife Service does
not conduct long-term monitoring.
Table 23: Water Quality Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the Fish
and Wildlife Service:
[See PDF for image]
Source: Fish and Wildlife Service.
[End of table]
Water Quantity Data:
The Fish and Wildlife Service collects a modest amount of water
quantity data and often relies on data from other agencies, such as the
U.S. Geological Survey. The Service collects water quantity data on a
project-specific basis (as shown in table 24), to protect water rights
and assure proper management of lands within the National Wildlife
Refuge System, such as during drought conditions in order to protect
endangered species.
Table 24: Water Quantity Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and
the Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the
Fish and Wildlife Service:
[See PDF for image]
Source: Fish and Wildlife Service.
[A] The frequency of data collection varies depending on project needs.
[End of table]
Storage Method and Accessibility:
According to the Fish and Wildlife Service, its water data are stored
in project-specific databases at agency field offices. In addition, it
has historically stored some data in a database operated by Maryland's
Department of Environmental Quality. While some of its water quality
information may not be publicly available for legal reasons, other
water quality and water quantity data are available by request.
Department of the Interior's U.S. Geological Survey:
Agency Mission:
The U.S. Geological Survey is a nonregulatory agency that serves the
nation by providing reliable scientific information to describe and
understand the earth; minimize the loss of life and property from
natural disasters; and manage water, biological, energy, and mineral
resources. The U.S. Geological Survey provides comprehensive, high-
quality, and timely scientific data and information to decision makers
and the public faced with complex natural resources issues.
Water Quality Data:
The U.S. Geological Survey collects water quality data on a wide
variety of parameters, as shown in table 25. The U.S. Geological Survey
operates several large national water quality programs, including the
National Water Quality Assessment Program and the National Stream
Quality Accounting Network. The programs describe and provide an
understanding of water quality in major river basins and aquifer
systems, as well as in small watersheds, and cover about two-thirds of
the land area of the conterminous United States.
Water quality data are also collected through the Cooperative Water
Program, which is an ongoing partnership between the Geological Survey
and nonfederal agencies in every state (as well as Puerto Rico and
several U.S. trust territories). Through this program, about half of
the $64 million of appropriated funds and $90 million of local matching
funds are used for water-quality programs. Data collected for this
program, along with a scientific understanding of these data the U.S.
Geological Survey provides, are often used to address local management
needs. The U.S. Geological Survey Cooperative Water Program funds
approximately 750 projects targeted at specific water-resource issues,
such as the effects of urbanization, agricultural practices, and energy
development on water quality.
Table 25: Water Quality Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the U.S.
Geological Survey:
[See PDF for image]
Source: U.S. Geological Survey.
[A] In addition, a U.S. Geological Survey official indicated that the
agency collects data for the following parameters: radio chemistry,
stable isotopes, major ions, solid phase chemistry, alkalinity, plant
tissue, and bed sediments.
[End of table]
Water Quantity Data:
The U.S. Geological Survey collects water quantity data on a variety of
parameters, as shown in table 26. The U.S. Geological Survey is the
main collector of streamflow data (the volume of water moving down a
stream) under the National Streamflow Information Program, the
Cooperative Water Program, and federal reimbursement agreements. The
Geological Survey continuously collects streamflow data from rivers and
streams at about 7000 gaging stations nationwide.
The Geological Survey is also a major collector of water use data under
its National Water Use Information Program. It works in cooperation
with local, state, and federal environmental agencies to collect water-
use information at a site-specific level, such as the amount of water
used to produce power at a fossil-fuel power-generation plant in
Georgia. It also compiles the data from hundreds of thousands of these
sites to produce water-use information aggregated up to the county,
state, and national levels. Every 5 years, data at the state and
hydrologic region level are compiled into a national water-use data
system and are published in a national circular.
Table 26: Water Quantity Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and
the Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the
U.S. Geological Survey:
[See PDF for image]
Source: U.S. Geological Survey.
[End of table]
Storage Method and Accessibility:
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, it stores water quality data
primarily in NWIS and the National Water Quality Assessment Program
data warehouse. Data from both databases are available via the
Internet. Water quantity data are also available through NWIS.
Department of the Interior's National Park Service:
Agency Mission:
The National Park Service preserves unimpaired the natural and cultural
resources and values of the national park system for the enjoyment,
education, and inspiration of this and future generations. It
cooperates with partners to extend the benefits of natural and cultural
resource conservation and outdoor recreation throughout this country
and the world. Among its primary responsibilities is the preservation
of natural resources. In order to make sound management decisions,
National Park Service managers need accurate information about the
condition of park natural systems, how they change over time, and what
amount of change is within natural variability. Therefore, the Service
has begun long-term natural resource monitoring throughout the national
parks.
Water Quality Data:
In the area of water quality, the National Park Service has three main
data collection programs:
* The Natural Resource Challenge-Vital Signs Monitoring Program is a
Service-wide program that involves long-term water quality monitoring
in parks for key indicators of change that could impair the long-term
health of natural systems. The National Park Service, contractors, or
cooperators, such as the U.S. Geological Survey, may collect data for
the Vital Signs Monitoring Program.
* The National Park Service-U.S. Geological Survey Water Quality
Assessment and Monitoring Partnership Program was initiated in 1998.
Under this program, the U.S. Geological Survey funds and conducts water
quality projects that address high priority National Park Service water
quality issues identified by parks. The data collected are shared
between the agencies and made available for public use.
* The National Park Service funds the collection of water quality data
in parks to address specific problems. The agency calls for single-or
multiyear projects in an annual call for park project proposals and may
also conduct some discretionary projects that have high national
priority. These projects may be conducted directly by the Service or by
contractors or cooperators.
As shown in table 27, the National Park Service collects a wide variety
of water quality data.
Table 27: Water Quality Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the
National Park Service:
[See PDF for image]
Source: National Park Service.
[A] Most water quality data collected by National Park Service staff,
contractors, and cooperators are project-specific.
[B] Frequency of collection for all data types is prescribed in
individual Project Implementation Plans, Vital Signs Monitoring Plans,
or applicable program plans. Frequency of collection varies based on
those plans.
[C] Planning is under way for Service-wide water quality monitoring as
part of the Park Vital Signs Monitoring Program. On-the-ground
monitoring will begin in fiscal year 2005.
[End of table]
Water Quantity Data:
The Service's Water Resources Division assists parks in identifying
water quantity needs and in pursuing appropriate means to secure and
protect water supplies for resource protection and administrative
purposes. In addition, some water quantity data are collected in
conjunction with water quality data. As shown in table 28, the type,
frequency, and geographic scope of water quantity data collected in and
around parks depend on project needs and can vary substantially from
one project to another.
Table 28: Water Quantity Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and
the Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by the
National Park Service:
[See PDF for image]
Source: National Park Service.
[A] Most of the National Park Service's water availability data is
collected by contractors (especially the U.S. Geological Survey), and
the type, location, and frequency are determined on a site-specific
basis by project needs.
[End of table]
Storage Method and Accessibility:
According to the National Park Service, its water quality data are
stored in an in-house version of EPA's STORET, and all data are
available via the Internet through EPA's national STORET database. The
agency's water quantity data are stored separately within the agency,
though the Service's water quantity data that are collected by the U.S.
Geological Survey are available through NWIS.
Tennessee Valley Authority:
Agency Mission:
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federal corporation and the
nation's largest public power company. As a regional development
agency, TVA supplies affordable, reliable power, supports a thriving
river system, and stimulates sustainable economic development in the
public interest. It operates fossil, nuclear, and hydropower plants,
and has also begun producing energy from renewable sources. It manages
the nation's fifth-largest river system to minimize flooding, maintain
navigation, provide recreational opportunities, provide water supply,
and protect water quality in the 41,000-square-mile watershed. The
river system covers about half of Tennessee and parts of Mississippi,
Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia.
Water Quality Data:
TVA collects water quality data to evaluate ecological health in
reservoirs throughout the Tennessee Valley. TVA conducts Reservoir
Ecological Health Assessments, using a scoring process based on five
ecological indicators (dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll, fish, bottom
life, and sediment contaminants). Chemical analysis (pesticides,
organics, and metals) is conducted for fish tissue and sediment
contaminant monitoring. As shown in table 29, TVA collects a wide
variety of water quality data on a regional scale and at varying
frequencies. TVA provides its data to states to use at their discretion
for determining whether their waters meet water quality standards.
Others, such as industry and environmental groups, also use TVA data to
perform environmental assessments.
Table 29: Water Quality Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and the
Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by TVA:
[See PDF for image]
Source: TVA.
[A] TVA also collects yearly data on sport fish populations (primarily
focused on largemouth bass) and weekly data on zebra mussel and
corbicula populations. These data are collected at 60 sites on 25
reservoirs from spring to fall.
[B] TVA analyzes fish tissue and sediment samples for pesticides,
organics, and metals contamination. Sediment contaminants monitoring is
conducted at 59 sites on 32 reservoirs.
[C] These data parameters are collected under TVA's core monitoring
program, which has 59 sites on 32 reservoirs and 18 major tributary
inflows. Reservoirs are monitored annually with data collections
monthly from April through October. Tributary inflows are monitored on
a 2-year rotation with quarterly data collections.
[D] Data on the structure/function of aquatic communities is collected
on a 2-year rotation at 69 sites on 31 reservoirs and a 5-year rotation
on 650 streams.
[E] Fish tissue data is collected on a 4-year rotation at 69 sites on
31 reservoirs and a 2-year rotation on 18 major tributaries.
[F] Habitat data is collected on a 5-year rotation on 650 streams.
[G] Data on the health/abundance of aquatic species or fish populations
is collected on a 2-year rotation at 69 sites on 31 reservoirs and a 5-
year rotation on 650 streams.
[H] Indicator bacteria data is collected at 300 formal and informal
swimming areas.
[End of table]
Water Quantity Data:
TVA collects water quantity data to help decide how much water should
be released from its 49 dams, for purposes such as protecting aquatic
habitat, assimilating waste, and cooling power plants. To make these
decisions, TVA needs to know how much and where water is entering the
system, how much water is stored within the system, and rainfall
amounts. As shown in table 30, TVA collects data on several water
quantity parameters on a regional scale, and the data are collected on
either a continuous basis or periodically.
Table 30: Water Quantity Parameters for Which Data Are Collected and
the Frequency and Geographic Scope of Collection, as Reported by TVA:
[See PDF for image]
Source: TVA.
[A] Surface runoff data and streamflow data are collected through a
network of streamgages. Data on water levels at dams are also collected
through this network.
[B] Precipitation data are collected through the rain gauge network.
[C] Withdrawal, consumptive use, and return flow data are collected for
a periodic 5-year survey.
[End of table]
Storage Method and Accessibility:
According to TVA, its data are stored in internal databases and
generally available by request. Some data are classified and not
available to the public.
[End of section]
Appendix II: Comments from the Army Corps of Engineers:
DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS
WASHINGTON, D.C.
20314-1000:
MAR 10 2004:
REPLY TO ATTENTION OF:
Mr. John B. Stephenson:
Director, Natural Resources and Environment
U.S. General Accounting Office:
441 G Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20548.
Dear Mr. Stephenson:
This is the Department of Defense response to the GAO draft report,
`WATERSHED MANAGEMENT: Better Coordination of Water Data Collection
Efforts Can Increase Data Available to Support Key Decisions,' dated
February 10, 2004, (GAO Code 360320/GAO-04-382).
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has reviewed the draft report and
agrees with the majority of the findings. Most importantly, we agree
with the conclusion that better coordination of data collection and
analytical tools would lead to significantly improved decision-making
capability with the Tribal, State and local governments, as well as
provide important information to the general public. The Corps believes
that designation of a lead Federal agency by Congress to operate as a
clearinghouse for water quantity data is an important step to improving
data collection and management.
Data acquisition through the many and varied Civil Works projects along
with permit evaluation, is one of the most significant capabilities of
the Corps. During development of this report, we provided to the study
team a paper that summarized and exemplified these activities and their
relationship to watershed principles. Most Corps projects collect large
quantities of data on water quality and quantity, in addition to other
factors important to a watershed assessment. The report does not
clearly and accurately reflect the enormous amount of water quantity
and quality data that is collected and maintained by the Corps. For
example, projects like the Upper Mississippi River, the Everglades, and
Coastal Louisiana Restoration efforts generate tremendous datasets
containing both water quantity and quality information. However, due to
the absence of statutory authority and funding, most data do not reach
Tribal, State and local government or the public. Another category of
water quantity and quality data in the custody of the Corps comes from
the more than 80,000 Clean Water Act permits issued each year. These
permits incorporate data from various Tribal, State, and local
agencies, as well as data developed by applicants, for project-specific
analysis of impacts. Finally, the Corps has served as an agent for a
number of large projects carried out by other agencies and maintains
large quantities of water quality and water quantity data from these
efforts. A notable example of this type of effort is the Department of
Energy (DOE) Pantex Facility near Amarillo, Texas. State and local
governments have told us that all these data are of a great value but
not conveniently accessible to them or the public. The Corps, along
with other Federal agencies, is evaluating opportunities to organize
and provide these data to State and local governments through
initiatives that organize water data along watershed boundaries.
The Corps is moving forward with a new vision for a comprehensive
integrated watershed management approach to take advantage of the
interdisciplinary team approach and integrate all of its programs,
projects, and data collection responsibilities within a holistic
watershed framework. This comprehensive management approach envisions
that all water resources management activities and decisions, whether
they be for planning, operations, regulatory, engineering, or military
construction, will be made with full consideration of the effects on
the particular watershed(s) in which the action would occur. Data
generated through these programs would be made available to everyone
through web-based applications based on these watershed boundaries. A
preliminary draft mission statement has been developed:
"The Corps will use a comprehensive, integrated watershed management
approach in all activities, projects, and permits, using data and
analytical procedures for evaluating the physical, environmental,
economic, social and political elements characterizing that
watershed."
This watershed approach will include a unified framework of analytic
tools and watershed data that will be used to support the Corps and
stakeholders' decision to be shared among the community of water
interests outside the Corps. An integrated system of analyses,
applicable to any watershed, will be used to evaluate the
environmental, economic, and social equity aspects of all decisions.
Furthermore, these data will be used with various environmental models
that predict the impact of decisions on the values and functions of the
watershed.
Because watershed data have an inherent spatial context, Enterprise
Geographic Information Systems (EGIS) technology will be employed to
collect and organize these data. The transparency associated with
sharing data and analytical tools empowers collaboration and consensus
building and thereby produces sustainable decisions with wide
acceptance by all affected parties and stakeholders. These data,
analytical tools, and procedures permit the evaluation of alternatives
and clarify the trade-offs and balance required among value and
function, the environment, economy, and social equity values. For
example, from the outset of project development within this framework,
planners and project managers will share the data and analyses with
stakeholders to formulate holistic solutions having broad based
support. Designers and engineers will define solutions within the same
collaborative framework, ensuring that shared stakeholder concepts are
incorporated into implementation. Existing projects will be operated
with an awareness of integrating and balancing the impacts and benefits
of management decisions on the watersheds where projects are located.
The public will have the advantages of a transparent set of data,
decision tools, and timely access to key Corps managers to facilitate
their participation in the process. Wetland permit decisions will also
be watershed based and the full community of stakeholders will be able
to participate in an open process empowered by direct access to the
shared framework.
The Corps is taking the next steps to develop and utilize its
watershed-based approach through the effective management of all
programs within the agency. We are acquiring significant amounts of
data through our internal efforts as well as importing externally
generated
data from other sources for use by our programs. In many places where
State, regional or local agencies have led or are leading the way, the
Corps can work with those agencies cooperatively to integrate those
data for use in this approach. These data are being systematically
compiled and most are being made available to other agencies and the
general public for broader use. As we compile these data, we are
incorporating the EGIS into all core business processes. The Corps is
moving to leverage our existing investments in data acquisition by
integrating mapping and EGIS technology across all districts and
divisions. EGIS will provide the information foundation for the Corps,
support the district offices in their conduct of multi-level analysis
and associated decision making, and provide an over-arching national
view of water resources initiatives and their associated practitioners.
Implementation of the Enterprise GIS will facilitate the identification
of data gaps, identify potential sources of external data and
underscore the need for refinements in analytic tools.
Integrating comprehensive watershed management on a regional basis
depends on the formation of partnerships between governments and the
public, across disciplines and borders, and among water users,
planners, engineers, and regulators with different interests and
missions. Achieving and maintaining close, functional linkages with our
Tribal, State and local partners, are the keys to effective execution
of the watershed management concept. The Corps, with its on-going
efforts, is strategically placed to play a vital role in this effort in
the future. The Corps appreciates the opportunities that would be
afforded to State and local managers and the public by making these
large data sets available in EGIS format. Unfortunately the Corps lacks
statutory authority to seek funds to compile and make this data
accessible to the public. Studies and projects are cost shared by
project sponsors making undesirable and inequitable the use of project
overheads to centrally fund the management of these data. The Corps
would be willing to participate in any discussions associated with
establishing a clearinghouse for water quantity data. Setting up a
clearinghouse of water quantity data could result in significant
savings for the Federal government as well as assisting State and local
governments with their land use decisions.
We thank you for the ability to provide these comments on an important
subject that will have great benefits to our country in the future.
Sincerely,
Signed by:
Carl A. Strock:
Major General,
U.S. Army
Director of Civil Works:
[End of section]
Appendix III: Comments from the Department of the Interior:
United States Department of the Interior:
OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY:
Washington, D.C. 20240:
Mr. John B. Stephenson:
Director, Natural Resources and the Environment:
U.S. General Accounting Office:
441 G Street, N. W.
Washington, D.C. 20548:
MAR 12 2004:
Dear Mr. Stephenson:
Thank you for providing the Department of the Interior (DOI) the
opportunity to review and comment on the draft U.S. General Accounting
Office (GAO) report entitled, "Watershed Management: Better
Coordination of Water Data Collection Efforts Can Increase Data
Available to Support Key Decisions," (GAO-04-382). The GAO has done an
excellent job of gathering information from many sources and assembling
the perspectives into a well-organized document. Considering all the
organizations and issues around water resource information, management,
and remediation at the national and local level, and the various
competing mission responsibilities, the GAO has brought many of the
most important perspectives of successes and challenges to light. The
GAO is commended on their comprehensive job in assembling information
on a large complex subject in a short time frame.
Several issues are worth comment from the DOI perspective: a) The
suggestion that Congress consider designating a lead organization or
agency for coordinating water data collection nationwide; b)
identification of deficiencies in the coordination and collaboration of
water-quality data collection that such a designee might address, and
what deficiencies would remain; c) determination of data sharing and
database issues that need to be addressed, and those that should remain
even after collaboration is maximized; and d) examination of what is
still missing for the more highly coordinated water quantity data
collection issue that needs support.
The Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) Memorandum 92-01 designates
the:
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) as the lead agency for coordinating water
information. As a result of implementing OMB M-92-O1, the USGS has
worked with other agencies to establish and operate the Water
Information Coordination Program. As GAO mentioned (pages 52-56),
though advancements have been made through the Advisory Committee on
Water Information (ACWI) and the National Water-Quality Monitoring
Council (NWQMC), the USGS lacks financial resources to facilitate
further coordination and collaboration. Many agencies at the Federal
and local level participate in ACWI and NWQMC on a voluntary basis,
with staff time only marginally available.
The issue is not the absence of an established process or lead agency,
but rather the level of funding and personnel resources dedicated to
these efforts across all of the participating agencies.
Even if the suggestion of designating a lead agency were implemented,
some issues would remain, including: 1) Differing purposes for data
collection; 2) variation in data collection protocols; 3) lack of
awareness regarding who is collecting water data; and 4) low priority
and insufficient funding for collaboration of water data collection and
data sharing. Of these four key barriers to coordination and
collaboration, the suggestion for a lead organization with resources
would address #3 and #4, but the first two barriers would remain.
The first barrier results primarily from differing mission
responsibilities, and from implementing legislation or regulations.
That barrier can be lowered to some extent by coordination and
collaboration; however, bureaus will continue to have distinct
responsibilities and missions, which require that they ask different
questions about water resources. These different questions lead to
differences in geographic scale and timing of data to provide the
answers. For example, in managing water delivery for a large watershed
area, the Department needs information over a large area covering
seasonal to annual variations. In contrast, in managing habitat for a
protected species, the Department needs water resource data for a small
stream reach over shorter time scales. These responsibilities require
different data collection efforts. The data collection protocols also
may vary across organizations for two reasons: 1) Different questions
often lead to separate approaches or protocols; and 2) as long as
protocol selection is voluntary (as it is among the States),
differences will remain as each authority selects its preferred
approach.
The GAO accurately described many of the database issues in the draft
report. We want to further highlight a few points. First, databases are
used for other purposes beyond that of a data repository. Within the
Department, the USGS National Water Information System (NWIS) is not
only an archive containing data of known quality and origin, but also a
data processing system that automatically and continuously applies
quality control tests as new data enter NWIS. This is a crucial
distinction between NWIS and other databases mentioned in the GAO
report such as the new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Storage
and Retrieval System. The processing capability within NWIS allows the
USGS to provide continuous streamflow and water-quality data from
monitoring locations within a few hours of data generation. Although
those data are subject to further review and quality assurance, they
are quickly provided to the public over the Internet after an automatic
first level of quality control review. This crucial distinction between
NWIS and the other databases mentioned in the GAO report illustrates
why the Department needs NWIS to meet mission responsibilities to
protect life and property.
In addition, as we have observed the evolution of data systems, we have
become convinced that establishing one huge Federal database is neither
feasible nor desirable. Current database and Internet technology is
best suited to multiple databases that conform to data standards,
creating the ability to identify and share data among systems. When
data systems are too large and remote from the data generation
responsibility, maintaining data integrity becomes difficult and
inefficient. Thus, data sharing can be achieved through developing a
data portal. Development of such a portal should also create
organizational interest in identifying other data that could be made
available for sharing through the portal. Such an approach is the one
currently pursued by the USGS and EPA. The major constraint for both
organizations right now is working within the limit of resources
available; however, progress is being made and the first phases of this
effort will be made public soon.
The GAO has accurately identified water quantity data collection as
being more highly coordinated and consistent because fewer agencies and
organizations are involved in the majority of data collection
activities. In addition, the science of water quantity data collection
is more mature than the science supporting water quality data
collection. What is primarily missing in water quantity data
collection, as appropriately identified by the GAO, is adequate data.
More data production at this point will not result from efficiencies of
coordination and collaboration; what is lacking at all levels of
government are the financial resources to support more data collection.
Especially troubling is the loss of long-term data collection stations
(Figure 10), as many important questions around flood and drought
conditions and their recurrence require long-term data sets to answer.
The USGS is striving to work with many Federal, State, and local
partners to continue long-term data collection within existing
resources.
Finally, coordination and collaboration is a huge challenge because of
the multitude of agencies and organizations involved. The Department
and its bureaus are committed to making water data collection and
coordination activities as effective as possible at all levels of
government. While designating a lead organization or agency has value,
without resources we will not see fast results. All organizations are
working within a complex environment including changing water quality
perspectives and needs and differing mission responsibilities, which
result in legitimately different approaches. Thus, one cannot expect
that coordinated approaches will answer all questions or meet all water
resource needs.
The enclosure provides specific comments from the U.S. Geological
Survey, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, and
the Bureau of Reclamation. We hope our comments will assist you in
preparing the final report.
Sincerely,
Signed by:
P. Lynn Scarlett:
Assistant Secretary - Policy, Management and Budget:
General Accounting Office,
441 G Street NW, Room 7149
Washington, D.C. 20548:
[End of section]
Appendix IV: Comments from the Environmental Protection Agency:
UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20460:
OFFICE OF WATER:
MAR 2 2004:
John B. Stephenson, Director:
Natural Resources and Environment:
U.S. General Accounting Office:
441 G. Street, N. W.
Washington D.C. 20548:
Dear Mr. Stephenson:
Thank you for the opportunity to review the draft March 2004 report
"Watershed Management: Better Coordination of Water Data Collection
Efforts Can Increase Data Available to Support Key Decisions.":
As the draft report notes, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
has long believed that the watershed approach is the best way to manage
the nation's water resources. We agree with GAO that effective
implementation of the watershed approach depends upon reliable,
comprehensive, and accessible data on water quality. These data are
also necessary in order to characterize the state of the nation's
waters.
EPA believes that it is important for the report to reflect the
critical leadership role that States have in implementing programs
under the Clean Water Act. We also believe that the report could be
strengthened by noting: (1) the high cost of monitoring, (2) recent
significant improvements to the STORET system, and (3) the emphasis
placed on coordination and data sharing in EPA's "Elements of a State
Monitoring and Assessment Program" guidance.
Regarding the high cost of monitoring, states report that they
currently have an annual shortfall of $100-150 million for their water
quality monitoring programs. The magnitude of this shortfall
underscores the importance of collaboration and coordination on data
collection efforts.
Regarding STORET, the report recognizes that data should be stored in
accessible databases, and identifies STORET as the only database
available to most users. STORET is evolving quickly. Last year, EPA
completed a new STORET data warehouse that has increased data retrieval
speed from STORET by 200-fold. With the completion of the data
warehouse, EPA has now significantly increased customer outreach and
support to better meet States' needs for the STORET system. We believe
that the report should note new developments to the STORET system in
conjunction with comments on past performance of the database.
EPA's "Elements of a State Monitoring and Assessment Program" guidance
specifically addresses the issues of better coordination and data
sharing. The first page of the guidance states:
"EPA recommends that State monitoring program managers work with other
State environmental managers and interested stakeholders (including EPA
Regions, other Federal water quality and land management agencies,
volunteer monitoring organizations, and academic institutions) as they
develop their strategy. This collaboration provides the State water
quality program an opportunity to maximize its use of other parties'
data and effectively expand its monitoring resources. Many States have
formed monitoring councils that help facilitate coordination of
monitoring activities among various organizations."
The guidance also states on page 10:
G. Data Analysis/Assessment:
The State has a methodology for assessing attainment of water quality
standards based on analysis of various types of data (chemical,
physical, biological, land use) from various sources, for all waterbody
types and all State waters... The methodology describes how the state
integrates its primary data - collected specifically for making
attainment decisions according to a State QAPP - with data from
secondary sources, collected for a variety of purposes under a variety
of quality control practices. (Secondary data could include, for
example, volunteer monitoring data or discharge monitoring reports) The
methodology should:
* Identify the required or likely sources of existing and available
data and information and procedures for collecting or assembling it,...
Please see our additional specific technical comments, enclosed. EPA
appreciates this opportunity to comment on the draft report. The Agency
agrees with GAO on the critical importance of coordination and
collaboration on data sharing. We appreciate your undertaking this
investigation and look forward to working with you in the future. If
you have any questions, please contact Peter Grevatt, Chief of the
Monitoring Branch, at 202-566-1925.
Sincerely yours,
Signed for:
Benjamin H. Grumbles:
Acting Assistant Administrator:
Enclosure:
[End of section]
Appendix V: Comments from the Department of Commerce's National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration:
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
The Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere
Washington, D.C. 20230:
MAR 4 2004:
Mr. John B. Stephenson:
Director, Natural Resources and Environment:
United States General Accounting Office
Washington, D.C. 20548:
Dear Mr. Stephenson:
Thank you for the opportunity to review and comment on the General
Accounting Office's draft report entitled, "Watershed Management:
Better Coordination of Water Data Collection Efforts Can Increase Data
Available to Support Key Decisions." GAO-04-382. Enclosed are the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's comments on the draft
report.
These comments were prepared in accordance with the Office of
Management and Budget Circular A-50.
Sincerely,
Signed by:
Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Jr.
Vice Admiral, U.S. Navy (Ret.)
Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere:
Enclosure:
NOAA Comments on the GAO Draft Audit Report Entitled:
"Better Coordination of Water Data Collection Efforts Can Increase Data
Available to Support Key Decisions" (GAO-04-382):
General Comments:
All occurrences of "Fisheries" or "NOAA's Fisheries" should be replaced
with "NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service" throughout the draft
report.
The Executive Summary and Introduction section of the draft report
should clarify the information contained in the report relates to
"freshwater," not "saltwater."
We recommend eliminating, in general, references to "watersheds" for
two major reasons: (1) The draft does not include many references to
"watersheds," and (2) the remainder of the draft report would not be
affected, if revised. All of it supports the second part of the present
title, "Better Coordination of Water Data Collection Efforts Can
Increase Data Available to Support Key Decisions."
Specific Comments:
Page 1, paragraph 1: Delete "both" before the phrase, "significant
environmental and financial implications."
Page 1, paragraph 2, second sentence: Insert the article, "the" before
"states' standards."
Page l, paragraph 2, third sentence: Insert the article, "the" before
the noun, "states."
Page 3, footnote 3: Add the acronym "(NOAA)" after the "National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration," under footnote 3, page 3.
Page 4, first sentence: Revise top of page 4 by deleting the article,
"the" before "National Weather Service" and substitute "NOAA's" in lieu
thereof.
Page 6, seventh sentence: Delete in its entirety and replace with the
following: "It stores these data in the National Climatic Data Center
of NOAA's National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information
Service and makes them available to the public via the Internet."
Page 25, use of the term "STORET": Beginning on page 25, STORET is
introduced and perhaps the distinction between the old STORET and the
modernized STORET should be introduced at this point to make it clear
the current system goes a long way to correct the apples and oranges
approach to the original system and the current emphasis on metadata.
Page 27, subheading: Revise the subheading, Federal Water Quality Data
Storage, page 27, by deleting the last line of the first paragraph in
its entirety and replacing it with the following:
"... used to assess the health of marine and coastal ecosystems in
internal program-specific databases."
Page 39, subheading: Revise the subheading, Storage and Accessibility
of Federal Water Quantity Data by deleting "Commerce's" before
"National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service" and
replace it with "NOAA's."
Page 50, in the section entitled, "Different Metadata Standards: To
clarify the meaning of the term "metadata" we suggest providing a
characteristic such as mode of sample collection or periodicity of
sampling. "Quality of the data" is determined by a user who assesses
the metadata to better understand the standard used to collect,
analyze, and assess the data set.
Page 52, in the section entitled "Data Coordination is Often Assigned a
Low Priority:" The authors discuss the reasons for limited coordination
even where efforts have been made to coordinate and consolidate the
data collection, such as the National Council effort, the participation
is only as useful as the breadth of knowledge that the agency
representative has of the Agency's water quality collection efforts.
Too often, individuals represent their individual office activities but
make limited effort to reflect the other activities in other offices of
the Agency. In many cases, there is little interaction or awareness of
other programs so any error in presentation is one of omission and not
volition.
Page 77, first paragraph: The thought suggests the water quantity data
will become more important as populations grow and, by the way, we
should collect water quality data too. Water quantity data are critical
to protect human and natural populations at times of extreme events,
i.e., floods and droughts, and must be monitored to avoid errors in
water distribution. With increases in population density, water quality
data will become increasingly important to everyday needs of protecting
humans and wildlife exposure to increased concentrations of biological
and chemical products of human activities thrust upon an environment
that has exceeded its capacity to store or neutralize the daily
assaults. One set of data collections is more important to protect and
improve management responses to extreme events while the other set of
data collections are of increasing importance on a daily and long term
scale.
[End of section]
Appendix VI: GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments:
GAO Contacts:
John B. Stephenson, (202) 512-3841 Steve Elstein, (202) 512-6515:
Staff Acknowledgments:
In addition to the individuals named above, Leah DeWolf, Laura Gatz,
Barbara Patterson, and Emmy Rhine made key contributions to this
report. Also contributing to this report were Robert Crystal, Lynn
Musser, and Carol Shulman.
(360320):
FOOTNOTES
[1] Environmental Protection Agency, National Water Quality Inventory:
2000 Report (Washington, D.C.: August 2002).
[2] U.S. General Accounting Office, Water Quality: Key EPA and State
Decisions Limited by Inconsistent and Incomplete Data, GAO/RCED-00-54
(Washington, D.C.: Mar. 15, 2000).
[3] While not an exhaustive list of federal agencies that collect water
data, GAO identified the following agencies: Within the Department of
Agriculture--Agricultural Research Service, Cooperative State
Research, Education, and Extension Service, Forest Service, and Natural
Resources Conservation Service. Within the Department of Commerce's
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration--National Marine
Fisheries Service, National Ocean Service, and National Weather
Service. Within the Department of Defense--Army Corps of Engineers.
Within the Department of Energy--Bonneville Power Administration.
Environmental Protection Agency. Within the Department of the Interior-
-Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, Fish and Wildlife
Service, U. S. Geological Survey, and National Park Service. Tennessee
Valley Authority.
[4] ASIWPCA is an independent, nonpartisan organization of state and
interstate water program managers.
[5] Streamgage data include measurements of depths, areas, velocities,
and rates of flow in natural or artificial channels.
[6] Metadata describe the content, quality, condition, and other
characteristics of data. They provide data users with information about
the data so that they can make informed decisions as to the quality of
the data and the comparability of the data for their questions or
purposes.
[7] Mehan III, G. Tracy, EPA Assistant Administrator for Water,
Committing EPA's Water Program to Advancing the Watershed Approach.
Memorandum to EPA Office Directors and Regional Water Decision
Directors. (Washington, D.C.: 2002).
[8] Environmental Protection Agency, National Water Quality Inventory:
2000 Report (Washington, D.C.: August 2002).
[9] GAO/RCED-00-54.
[10] The National Water Quality Monitoring Council was created in 1997
and has representatives from federal, interstate, state, tribal, local
and municipal governments; watershed groups; the volunteer monitoring
community; universities; and the private sector. The purpose of the
council is to provide a national forum to coordinate consistent and
scientifically defensible water quality monitoring methods and
strategies. This council's activities, including its role in
coordinating water data collection, are discussed in greater detail in
chapter 3.
[11] This report focuses largely on freshwater.
[12] Some agencies do not collect all of the listed parameters
themselves, but provide funding to others to collect the data. For
example, the Bonneville Power Administration, Natural Resources
Conservation Service, and Cooperative State Research, Education, and
Extension Service do not collect all of their water quality data
themselves but instead provide funding to other entities that collect
data.
[13] Association of State and Interstate Water Pollution Control
Administrators, Water Quality Monitoring Programs 2002: A Survey Report
of the Status and Future of State Ambient Water Quality Monitoring
Programs (Washington, D.C.: 2003).
[14] The states and interstate agencies estimated their total resource
need at $211 million, meaning they faced a shortfall of $99 million for
water quality monitoring in 2002.
[15] U.S. General Accounting Office, Water Quality: Inconsistent State
Approaches Complicate Nation's Efforts to Identify Its Most Polluted
Waters, GAO-02-186 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 11, 2002).
[16] Environmental Protection Agency, Elements of a State Water
Monitoring and Assessment Program (Washington, D.C.: March 2003).
[17] The National Water Quality Monitoring Council was created in 1997
and has representatives from federal, interstate, state, tribal, local,
and municipal governments; watershed and environmental groups; the
volunteer monitoring community; universities; and the private sector.
The purpose of the council is to provide a national forum to coordinate
consistent and scientifically defensible water quality monitoring
methods and strategies. This council's activities, including its role
in coordinating water data collection, are discussed in greater detail
in chapter 3.
[18] Stage is a measure of the height of a water surface.
[19] Some of these agencies reported that they provide funding to
others, such as contractors or academics, to collect water quantity
data rather than collecting the data themselves.
[20] National Research Council, Estimating Water Use in the United
States (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 2002).
[21] U.S. General Accounting Office, Freshwater Supply: States' Views
of How Federal Agencies Could Help Them Meet the Challenges of Expected
Shortages, GAO-03-514 (Washington, D.C.: July 9, 2003).
[22] GAO/RCED-00-54.
[23] Nonpoint sources of pollution are diffuse sources that include a
variety of land-based activities, such as timber harvesting,
agriculture, and urban development.
[24] National Research Council, Assessing the TMDL Approach to Water
Quality Management (Washington, D.C.: July 2001).
[25] The Environmental Forum, Sample Problem (September/October 2002;
vol. 19, no. 5, p. 26).
[26] Metadata describe the content, quality, condition, and other
characteristics of data. They provide data users with information about
the data so that they can make informed decisions as to the quality of
the data and the comparability of the data for their questions or
purposes.
[27] Environmental Protection Agency, The Volunteer Monitor's Guide to
Quality Assurance Project Plans (Washington, D.C.: September 1996).
[28] The federal agencies we interviewed that use data to make
watershed management decisions include the EPA, Bureau of Land
Management, Bureau of Reclamation, National Park Service, Fish and
Wildlife Service, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Forest
Service, Army Corps of Engineers, Bonneville Power Administration
(BPA), Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), and NOAA's National Ocean
Service.
[29] According to its terms of reference, National Council membership
cannot exceed 35 member organizations, allowing for representatives
from 10 federal agencies and 10 states (1 state from each of the 10
federal regions). Other organizations that participate on the National
Council represent the following interests: Native Americans,
agriculture, environmental interest groups, industry, local agencies
and municipalities, river-basin commissions, and/or associations,
universities, and volunteer monitoring groups.
[30] The Water Information Coordination Program, established by a
December 1991 Office of Management and Budget memorandum, was created
to ensure coordination of water information programs and designated the
U.S. Geological Survey as the lead agency.
[31] State councils are Maryland, Virginia, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado,
Kentucky, and Wisconsin. The regional councils are Chesapeake Bay, Lake
Michigan, and New England. A state council was previously established
in Montana but has since disbanded. According to EPA, three more states
are considering forming state monitoring councils.
[32] Environmental Protection Agency, Evaluation of State and Regional
Water Quality Monitoring Councils (Washington, D.C.: August 2003).
[33] Environmental Protection Agency, A Review of Statewide Watershed
Management Approaches (Washington, D.C.: April 2002).
[34] GAO-03-514.
[35] GAO-03-514.
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