Volunteer Monitoring Resources

Quality Assurance Project and Sampling and Analysis Plans

Organizations wishing to participate in the Volunteer Monitoring Program must complete a plan which documents why they are doing the monitoring, how the data will be used, what methods will be used and how the data will be reported. General procedures are outlined in the Water Quality Volunteer Monitoring QAPP. Groups should review this QAPP to make sure they understand and agree to the general procedures that pertain to volunteer groups. Organizations then must complete their own Sampling and Analysis Plan (SAP) which describes aspects of the monitoring that are specific to their project. Completed SAP's are submitted to the ODEQ Volunteer Monitoring Specialist for review and approval by the ODEQ Quality Assurance Officer. The Volunteer Monitoring Specialist is available to meet with your group to help work through the details of these plans.

• Visit the U.S. EPA’s volunteer monitoring website for guidance on preparing a monitoring plan.
• Download:
  • ODEQ Water Quality Volunteer Monitoring Quality Assurance Project Plan PDF
  • Sampling and Analysis Plan Template
    The template includes questions to help draft your SAP and guide you through the process.

Equipment and Protocols

• Download a listing recommended equipment and estimated costs.
• Download a summary of required quality control measurements for water quality parameters
• Download the OWEB Water Quality Monitoring Guidebook.
• Read guidance on Monitoring for Temperature Total Maximum Daily Load Development to learn how your data can be used to help develop TMDL's in your basin.

Data Management and Data Submission to DEQ

Volunteer monitoring groups submit continuous temperature and grab water quality data to the Volunteer Monitoring Specialist. Data providers are asked to assign data quality levels to all results submitted to the DEQ; however, all electronic quality control information should be submitted with field results to assist with DEQ's data review. 

Continuous Temperature data

Tools for managing continuous temperature data include:

• General information on  Vemco data processing PDF
• Excel files for recording and submitting quality control information.
  Audit_Master or Continuous AuditFormat 2.3 and the help
• The PrePostExtractor to speed up accuracy check data processing
• The HYDROSTAT_Simple 8.7mb tool for graphing and generating summary statistics for data from one site
• The TEMPTURE tool and instructions for generating statistics from multiple files.

Continuous temperature data may be submitted to the Volunteer Monitoring Specialist in one or two formats:

1. Audit_Master.xls  sheet containing all the required metadata and quality control information. Raw, unclipped, field data is attached as individual text files or as multiple spreadsheets in a single workbook file; or
    
2. Continuous_AuditFormat_2.3.xls workbook containing all required metadata, quality control information and spreadsheets with all the unclipped temperature results from the field deployment.

For more information on continuous temperature submission options contact the Volunteer Monitoring Specialist.

Grab water quality data

The Evaluating Your Data for Data Quality presentation provides information on assigning data quality levels to grab water quality data.

The Accuracy_Calculator.xls file can be used to keep track of routine accuracy checks for grab water quality parameters.

Grab Water Quality data should be submitted to the Volunteer Monitoring Specialist in the Vol_WQ_Grab_Data_SubmittalFormat_2.1.xls format. Descriptions of the required data elements for this format can be found within the workbook or in the grab data submittal help file.

Find Volunteer Water Quality Data

Data generated by organizations using DEQ Volunteer Monitoring Program equipment is public information.

• A periodic report is available on the status of volunteer data uploads to the DEQ database
• The most current volunteer data can be accessed from the Laboratory Analytical Storage and Retrieval Database LASAR.

To find data from an organization in your area locate monitoring stations by selecting search criteria and choose your local organization. For more information on using the LASAR Web interface visit the LASAR Help page.

If you are a volunteer data owner who has submitted your data to DEQ and it has not appeared on the LASAR web page please contact Steve Hanson by email or at 503.693.5737

Data Analysis and Presentation Workshop

The following presentations were part of a presentation co-facilitated by Steve Hanson, DEQ Volunteer Monitoring Specialist, and Beth Lambert, Watershed Management Educator, OSU Extension Service, Tillamook. Download the following presentations:

• Evaluating Your Data for Data Quality PDF
• Interpreting and Presenting Data PDF 3.6mb
• Temperature Data Analysis PDF
• Trend Analysis PDF
• Effectiveness Monitoring PDF 1.4mb