Basic Instructions for Retrieving Water Quality Data from
EPA's MODERNIZED STORET System

Introduction
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection's fixed Water Quality
Network (WQN) data is stored in the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA)
STORET system. The system is broken down into two programs - the Legacy STORET
system and the Modernized STORET system. Data collected after September 1998 is
included in the Modernized STORET system. Currently, the Modernized STORET
system houses the WQN stream chemistry data. The WQN lakes, fish tissue, and
macroinvertebrate data will be posted in the coming months.

To retrieve Water Quality Data from the MODERNIZED STORET system go to EPA's
website www.epa.gov/storet and follow the directions below.

Obtaining Water Quality Data from the MODERNIZED STORET system:
? Click on "Obtaining Water Quality Data"
? Click on the yellow box for "Modernized STORET."
? Click on the yellow box "Country, State/Province, County."
? Highlight Pennsylvania or your desired state
? Click on "Show Counties."
? Choose a specific County by highlighting it or you can choose "Select All" to
view all stations in all counties. If you want to select more than one county,
highlight one of your counties, hold down the Control key and highlight the
remaining counties. Once you have the county or counties that you would like,
choose "Show Stations."
Note: This can take a long time to process!!
? Highlight Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection 21PA for WQN,
Fish Tissue, WQN lakes or Groundwater Network information or "Select All" if
you would like to see all organizations in Pennsylvania and their data.
? Choose which type of station(s) you would like to see or "Select All."
? Click "Show Station."
? The screen will display all sites under the specified organization and location
information you provided. You can choose a specific site by highlighting it or
you can choose multiple sites by holding down the Control key and selecting the
desired sites. If your site listing does not fit into view on the screen you are
looking at, there is a scroll on the very far right of the site listing, but if you use it,
you cannot see which sites are listed. I would recommend clicking any site that
you can see and using your down arrow to reach the desired site(s).

? Once a site(s) is chosen, there are three options you have for downloading data.
They are outlined below:
1. Download Short Description – this option will give you a tilde (~) separated
file with very abbreviated site data (i.e., name, latitude, longitude, location,
etc.), which can be copied and placed in a spread sheet or other document.
This option will not give you numerical results.
2. Download Site Long Description – detailed site information that can be
copied to another document. This option will not give you numerical results.
3. Click "Station Visits" for actual samples and results.
? You can specify dates using the drop down arrows, or you can leave the dates as
the default dates.
Note: Modernized STORET will only yield results from September 1998 to the
present, even though the default year is 1950!
? Click "Show Station Visits."
? If you want to view a specific sample on a specific date, you can choose it by
highlighting the desired sample. If you want to choose more than one sample,
hold down the control key and highlight the desired samples. If you want to view
all of the results for your chosen site(s), highlight "Select All" and click "Show
Activities."
? If you are only interested in field results, click "Field Msr/Obs." If you are
interested in the chemical lab samples, click "Sample." If you want to view all
results, both field and lab, highlight "Select All" and click "Show Activities."
? Click "Download Results"
? Click "Download your file now"
? You will see a screen with a tilde (~) separated file that can be copied and pasted
into an Excel or other database application by choosing Edit ? Select All ? Edit
?Copy
? In a separate program, open a spreadsheet or database and paste the information.
You may need to format the data further depending on the program where you've
pasted the data.

If further queries in STORET are desired, click the "Back" arrow on your browser until
you reach the desired screen and start the process over.

Revised 9-9-02