Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Skip to content

Data for the Potomac River Watershed Accumulated Wastewater Viewer

Metadata Updated: September 13, 2025

This data release contains measured streamflow data from U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) streamgages and reported wastewater data from wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) discharge monitoring reports (DMRs) within the Potomac River watershed between October 1, 2021 and September 30, 2024. Mean monthly streamflow data was obtained from 117 USGS streamgages (Table1_Streamgages.csv). Average monthly reported wastewater discharge volumes to surface water were obtained from National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits using the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s (USEPA) Environment and Compliance History Online (ECHO) database to obtain DMRs from the Integrated Compliance Information System National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (ICIS-NPDES). Quality assurance procedures that were used to avoid inclusion of inaccurate data that can be reported on DMRs (Table2_WWTP_DMRs.csv) are documented within the Process Step fields of the metadata. At each streamgage the average monthly accumulated wastewater percentage (ACCWW) was calculated by dividing the total amount of reported wastewater upstream of the streamgage by the measured amount of streamflow (Table3_Streamgage_ACCWW.csv) following similar methods described in Miller and others (2024) and Barber and others (2025). The ACCWW calculations were computed monthly at each streamgage using reported total wastewater discharge, municipal wastewater discharge, and municipal-plus-industrial per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) wastewater discharge which includes municipal wastewater in addition to wastewater from industrial WWTPs that are potential PFAS handling industry sectors defined by the USEPA (2023). The term ‘municipal’ is used here to represent NPDES-permitted facilities with the Standard Industrial Classification code 4952 (‘sewerage systems’) and 'industrial' refers to permitted facilities with Standard Industrial Classification codes other than 4952. Monthly predicted environmental concentrations and constituent loads (i.e. mass fluxes) of eight PFAS and 14 pesticides were estimated at each streamgage following methodology presented by Barber and others (2025) and Miller and others (2024). Monthly PFAS loads were computed by multiplying the discharge volumes from municipal and industrial WWTPs that are potential PFAS handling industry sectors by the median PFAS concentrations measured and reported in Barber and others (2025). Monthly pesticide loads were computed by multiplying the discharge volumes from municipal WWTPs by the median pesticide concentrations reported in Miller and others (2024). Wastewater effluent concentrations from Miller and others (2024) and Barber and others (2025) are provided in Table4_Parameters.csv. Monthly predicted constituent loads from wastewater were summed from WWTPs that discharged to every National Hydrography Dataset Version 2.1 (NHDPlus V2; USEPA, 2012) stream segment Common Identifier (COMID) upstream of each streamgage, not including the COMID where the streamgage was located, to calculate the predicted monthly load at each streamgage (Table5_Streamgage_Parameter_Predictions.csv). Predicted monthly concentrations from wastewater were calculated by dividing the predicted monthly load by measured monthly streamflow at each streamgage (Table5_Streamgage_Parameter_Predictions.csv).

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date September 13, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 13, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date September 13, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 13, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/usgs-67911220d34ea6a4002bf7f9
Data Last Modified 2025-06-05T00:00:00Z
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://ddi.doi.gov/usgs-data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id d06d7c3b-7060-4787-944b-9c4fda0757c2
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -79.6996, 37.8604, -76.2368, 40.2385
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 526435042c81a9fd2128ef55607eb670b7cc7a7e9cfa26915b43ca948dddd8eb
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -79.6996, 37.8604, -79.6996, 40.2385, -76.2368, 40.2385, -76.2368, 37.8604, -79.6996, 37.8604}

Didn't find what you're looking for? Suggest a dataset here.