After a busy summer field season, our volunteer water quality monitoring groups are working through the process of data management, analysis and upload. Monitoring Montana Waters offers laboratory analyses funding which supports the cost of analyzing water quality samples at Flathead Lake Biological Station’s Freshwater Research Laboratory. Once MMW funded groups have received all their data, the process of interpreting the results and submitting ambient water quality data to Montana Department of Environmental Quality (MT DEQ) begins.  

Montana uses a system called the Montana EquIS Water Quality Exchange (MT-eWQX) to store water quality monitoring data, including physical, chemical, biological and habitat data, from locations across the state. Once verified, these data are submitted to EPA's Water Quality Portal, where they are publicly available. Data from the previous year must be uploaded to the MT-eWQX database by Friday, February 28th.  

For instructions and additional information on data upload, MT DEQ has provided step by step guidance on their website. If you need assistance during the EDD (EDD = Electronic Data Deliverable) submittal process, you can contact Deanna Tarum at dtarum@mt.gov. Montana State University Extension Water Quality also has a series of tutorial videos to provide additional context to the detailed written guidance provided by MT DEQ. For creating graphs to visualize water quality data, MSU Extension has a series of tutorial videos. Monitoring Montana Waters personnel are here to assist with data interpretation and upload. If you have any questions or wish to set up a meeting to discuss data analysis and/or data upload, please contact us at mmw@flbs.umt.edu.