Water Quality Data Retrieval Tutorial

This tutorial's goal is to provide the viewer with the steps needed to obtain the Bureau of Marine Water Monitoring's (BMWM) data. Since this involves the BMWM's website, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Window to my Environment (WME), as well as EPA's STORET, this tutorial was developed to explain the step by step process for the viewer. Questions not covered in this tutorial may be addressed by visiting the WME Help or STORET's Commonly Asked Questions. Some of the pages take a few minutes to load, please be patient.

1. First start by clicking on a map location you are interested in on the Bureau of Marine Water Monitoring's Data Retrieval page, this will open a separate page to EPA's Window to my Environment (WME). The WME page should show the same general area as you selected on the BMWM's map. Please wait until this page is fully loaded to proceed with further instructions.

2. At the bottom of the map you will see viewing options, these allow the viewer to zoom in, zoom out, recenter the map, or other such options as adding a background. For example, if Zoom In is selected, then use the mouse area on the map to locate the area you would like to zoom in to, and click the left mouse button. The viewer can also use the yellow corners of the map (where the orange arrow is pointing), which reposition the map in the chosen direction.

3. Once you have the general area you are interested in, locate the interactive legend on the left of the map. Under the heading EPA Water Monitors, check the box next to EPA Surface Water Stations. Then hit the Redraw Map button at the top or bottom of the legend.

Legend - Select EPA Surface Water Stations

4. The stations will show up on the map as green triangles. Below the map there will be a list of reference numbers for the stations on the map, any reference number that is followed by 21NJDEP is associated with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. Many of these stations located in marine waters are the Bureau of Marine Water Monitoring's stations. Once you find a station you are interested in, note the station number on the map, and select that station on the list below the map. Please be patient this step might take awhile to load.

5. This opens a page for the USEPA STORET (short for STOrage and RETrieval). The station you selected should automatically show up on the STORET page. STORET is a data warehouse for water quality, physical, and biological data. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection is just one of the many agencies that uses STORET to store data. All data entered in STORET is available to the public.

6. At the bottom of this screen pick the type of results you would like to look up (total coliform, fecal coliform, etc). Take note of the data range available for the selected station.

7. The 'Regular Results by Station' page will load. Scroll down and verify the station you selected is listed in the box of 'search stations' results. Highlight the station by clicking on it once.

8. Scroll further down on the 'Regular Results by Station' page, under the Date section, select a date range/s (currently, data from 1996 to the most recent year is available). Under the Activity Medium section highlight Water and under Characteristic hightlight the Characteristic desired (based on what you seleced in step 6). At the very bottom of this page is the Continue button, when you are satisfied with your selection hit Continue.

9. This will load the 'Result Search Summary' page. This page tells you the number of results returned and the search criteria you selected. Scroll down to the bottom of the page (we suggest leaving the 'Select Data Elements for Report' default settings intact) and hit the continue button if you are happy with your search results.

10. Now the Download Results page will load with the size of your report download. The options are to download the file now...or, for large files, compress the data file before download. If you download without compressing, a text page will load with the data. If you opt to compress the data file, another page will load showing you the size of the compressed file, click 'download your file now' and save it to a known location. Enjoy!

To return to the BMWM Data Retrival Site, click here.

To view the Water Quality Data page, click here.

For other means of accessing the Bureau of Marine Water Monitoring's Data, click here.

For Questions concerning the Bureau of Marine Water Monitoring, Contact Us.