You can retrieve water quality data from two different sources: The National Storet Data Warehouse , and the Montana Storet Data Warehouse.

When you submit your data to this VWM site, the administrator will first review your data to make sure it is meets the many requirements of the STORET database system. When the data is ready, he/she will upload your data sheet to the Montana STORET Data Warehouse via a web application called WebSIM. Your data will reside there permanently and may be accessed along with other data from Montana and the region. The administrator of the Montana STORET Data Warehouse will submit all of the Montana data to the National STORET Data Warehouse at regular intervals -- probably monthly.

This means that the data you submit here on this site may not appear in the National STORET Data Warehouse for up to a month depending on where you fall within the monthly schedule.

When searching the National STORET Data Warehouse you may use the Organization ID MTVOLWQM to find any data submitted by members of this site and others who do volunteer water monitoring in Montana. You could also use the Organization ID MONTDEQ or MTDEQ to find past and more current data submitted by Montana DEQ. The Tri-State Water Quality Council also submits data using the Organization ID TSWQC.

National Storet Data Warehouse

The National Storet Data Warehouse is a public-access database where anyone can download water quality data stored in the database. It is a very large and sometimes cumbersome database, so we've put together a tutorial on how to retrieve data, and use it in meaningful ways.

The EPA people have made available a short tutorial in PDF format outlining the basic steps in data retrieval. We've taken that tutorial a step futher and made it into a graphic slideshow. The slideshow goes through the process step-by-step and shows you the actual screenshots and actions necessary. The slideshow is available in two formats: A Flash Movie and a web-based slideshow. Click on the links below to view either show. We've also provided a link the the original PDF versions prepared by the EPA, and well as a PDF version of our slideshow.

Flash Movie:	View Flash Movie [2 MB Flash Movie] Requires Flash Player 6 or greater. Download the player HERE
HTML Slideshow:	Start the Slideshow HERE
PDF Documents:	Download EPA PDF Document [100 KB Acrobat PDF Document] Download Slideshow PDF Document [5.7 MB Acrobat PDF Document] Requires Adobe Reader 4 or greater. Download it HERE

Montana Storet Data Warehouse

This data warehouse is not yet open to the public. We hope to have a connection to it in the near future. Please check back.