2022 Season Beach Data Verification Process FINAL 10-21-22 Notification Data to PRAWN (Schema 2.4 and/or Access Database v2.3, February 3, 2017 or later) 1. By January 31, 2023, each jurisdiction (state, tribe and territory) submits its 2022 Season notification data to PRAWN. 2. Upon completion of submissions, notify Bill Kramer ( kramer.bill(a)epa.gov ). Bill will update the jurisdiction status from "submitting" to "verifying" on: https://ofmpub.epa.gov/apex/beacon2/f?p=beacon2:50:13625461014736: 3. Because EPA cannot know what beach or action entries are missing, as soon as possible after their final submission each jurisdiction verifies their notification data in BEACON. The date for completion of verification (including corrections) is March 31, 2023. (For guidance on conducting a verification, see Appendix A and accompanying file). If complete and correct, notify Bill; If not complete and correct, go to 4. 4. If the data is not complete and correct, the jurisdiction uses the documents on the "Submitting to EPA" webpage in conjunction with CGI Federal if necessary, to submit corrections to PRAWN. https://www.epa.gov/beach-tech/submitting-data-epa 5. If requested by the jurisdiction, Bill will direct CGI Federal to, e.g., create new beach IDs, or revise "Historical status" data and then notify the jurisdiction. The jurisdiction will then submit any new or revised data to PRAWN as necessary (including initial data for new beach IDs, attribute and L/L data), and then conduct another review of BEACON and if it is accurate, notify Bill. 6. If the BEACON report appears to misrepresent otherwise correct and complete data, please describe in an email to Bill the query settings that were used, for EPA review and corrective action. Monitoring Data to WQX/Water Quality Portal (WQP) 7. By January 31, 2023, each jurisdiction submits its 2022 Season monitoring data to WQX. 8. Upon completion of submissions, notify Bill Kramer ( Kramer.bill@epa.gov ). 9. As soon as possible after their final submission each jurisdiction reviews their data in the WQP (usually the Wednesday or Friday after upload from WQX) and/or in the BEACON Water Quality Report (usually the next day); and if complete and correct, notifies Bill. 10. If the data is not complete and correct, the jurisdiction submits new or revised data to WQX and then conducts another review and when it is accurate, notifies Bill. EPA Post-verification Review (Dx) 11. EPA conducts a post-verification review of BEACON (Dx) to characterize the quality of the national dataset and to determine plans for updates for the next reporting cycle. This review may result in questions to individual jurisdictions regarding, for example, plans for periodic submissions during the year, corrections, or additions of data for optional data elements (see step 5 above, upon notification Bill will update the jurisdiction status from "verifying" to "complete" on: https://ofmpub.epa.gov/apex/beacon2/f?p=beacon2:50:13625461014736: For jurisdictions that have already begun their review, if we are working with you on data issues you should discuss with us whether to wait until they are resolved or whether to begin to verify the balance of your data. If you begin to verify the balance of your data and discover additional issues for which you need our assistance, let us know. Page 1 of 5 ------- Appendix A (for Verifying Notification Data from PRAWN as viewed in BEACON) Review (if you did not prior to your submissions) notes on changes yet to be made to previous year submissions. - Roll forward unchanged attributes for all BEACH Act beaches (only need to change Effective Year) - Change or delete any prior data as necessary - Add any new data - If you have data that you do not want carried through from year to year, please see the FAQs and contact us and we can offer a suggestion based on the data element and/or the information. GUIDANCE DOCUMENTS 1. See the "Submitting Data to EPA" page (previously "Data Users" page) https://www.epa.gov/beach-tech/submitting-data-epa 2. General FAQs - consolidated including new for 2021 or more recent. 3. BEACON User Guide - current dated October 2021 or more recent 4. Accompanying this Verification Process, a separate file: Verification Matrix for 2022 Season. 5. And/or use the verification Tool (vT) - release 2.0 and User Guide, 06/2021 or more recent To display all BEACH Act Beaches (including non-reporting T4 and Historical) in the BEACON Wizard, Step 2, in "INACTIVE" add Historical, in "ACCESS" and add Private. Non-BABs can be displayed by adding a green check, they will show in the main Beach Profile report. 6. COVID-19 Beach Data Guidance for 2022 Season FINAL, emailed 10/12/2021 (no change for 2023 Season) Suggested Report Review Sequence: (To check for completeness, correct values) Jurisdiction listing on: https://ofmpub.epa.gov/apex/beacon2/f?p=beacon2:50:l [check links] For Agency, spell out the "Organization Name", and do not use the WQX ORGJD (see §3.1.1. of https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-12/documents/beachnotification-user-guide.pdf) (NLB)-Tribe ID (for Tribes) Your Tribal Organization Name and EPA ID Number should show in the NLB state level page: https://ofmpub.epa.gov/apex/beacon2/f?p=BEACON2:12:Q::NO::P12 YEARS:Current Beach Attributes Report - Do not Include non-BEACH Act Beaches (e.g., above the mouth of a river or Federal properties. Let us know non-BAB beach ids and we will mark them Historic. (FAQ definitions, https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2020- 08/documents/faqs-2020-seasonal-data.pdf pp 50-52 or more recent) A FAQ on the definition of BAB is under review - so you don't need to do anything now, except check to see where your jurisdiction delineates "the mouth of the river" compared to EPA's How's my Waterway* and labeled on BEACON maps as, e.g., "River" or "Lake". *How's my Waterway (HMWW) User Instructions: Go to: https://mvwaterwav.epa.gov/ - In the Search field, enter a location of interest, click on "GOģ" - In the returned map, upper right, click on the top-most "layers icon"; select at least "Mapped Water (all)" - In the lower right corner, expand the map to full screen - In the upper left corner, use the + and - to zoom in and out until the "mouth of the river" aka "headland-to- headland" delineation shows as the darker blue color Page 2 of 5 ------- - Click on darker blue colored area - note State Waterbody name and ID - name should include "river" or other inland water name e.g., "lake", "pond" - Compare HMWW and BEACON screenshots If a beach does not have L/L data (or if it changes), let us know when you send the L/L to PRAWN and we can map them for you. Mapping (indexing) will be needed because we are considering using jurisdiction total beach length as a weighting factor in the allotment formula based on the lengths calculated from the indexing, rather than reported lengths. Possible Pollution Sources - Lists each source type identified across years, even for beaches with investigation but w/o actions. Those beaches not investigated (or investigated with sources found but no further source information) should at least have the "unknown" source listed (next to right-most source column). See the Notification User Guide (p. Ill) the only time to not include "Unknown" is when a beach has been investigated and no possible sources found and no history of WQ problems. Then if, in the future that beach does have an action, if a source cannot be named, "Unknown" would be entered. - "Activity Source" means that source was identified in a Beach Action. - Cross-check against Beach Action report, each action's sources, should show. Beach Actions (Advisories and Closures) - Main report: if actions based on monitoring, check that the beach in the Beach Profile report has a Monitoring Frequency > 0 - Swim Day length "Time Beach is open (in hours)" value present? - Check for missing prior year data exposed by the 5-yr charts in the DNR and BEACON (back to 2011). [please see "New Trend Charts" item at end of this document] Those years' data should also be in your Database of Record. - Detailed Report: to check for duplicate actions (only need to check if Detailed report totals > Main report totals) If they are duplicates, you can remove them (see the Notification User Guide section 3.1.6; the vT User Guide G.2.4; or have CGI assist you to remove them. - Are there overlapping actions (multiple actions at the same beach on the same day(s)) - if so, these will make the counts here and percentages in the State Summary report incorrect. - Note also, that the detailed report shows "Comments" columns. - Check to see if other than monitoring results (based on a model, monitoring by a sentinel station at another beach, or policy) are shown for Beach Actions - see Beach Actions, below.* - Check to see that any COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2 related reason/source/indicator comments are displayed in the Beach Profile report, Beach Action Report and that Beach Comments and Irregular Monitoring comments show in the alternate Season and Monitoring Frequency Report, Monitoring Frequency Report (see below), or in the detailed report (click on Beach ID). See updated COVID-19 Guidance for 2021 Season final distributed October 12th. - Action-specific sources will automatically show in the Possible Pollution Sources report - Station IDs for beaches with actions will automatically show in the Beach Profile details (click on Beach ID) Beach Days: *lf any active reporting beaches that are not monitored, also show no days under an advisory - should they be dormant or T4? If the jurisdiction's Program would, if justified, issue a Beach Action even without monitoring data (based on a model, monitoring by a sentinel station at another beach, or policy), then the tier designation does not need to change. Beach Profile - defaults to main report Waterbody name and type, are required if the beach is on a Great Waterbody (if on a Great Lake, specify which lake) Page 3 of 5 ------- Note BEACH Act beaches (BAB) used by the public but in a permanent non-reporting status, beginning with the 2017 season, should be Tier 4. If non-reporting (at least actions) for 2 seasons or less, mark "Dormant." If longer than 2 seasons request "Historic" status, which can be reversed. You can use the Beach Act Beach (BAB) column to identify beaches that should not be marked non-BAB. For beaches that should be marked non-BAB, reset their flag and request "Historic" status). To view all beach profile data elements indicated in the matrix, be sure to click on a sample of Beach IDs, as many of the data elements are not in the primary report. For example, Off Season monitoring frequency (or see Beach Monitoring Frequency report), and although Local Decision Action Procedures to notify the public show in the new LAPD Report (see below), the Beach Profile report is the only place where assessment and internal LADPs show. If deficiencies are found in a sample of individual Beach Profile reports (e.g., sample by county and/or monitoring status, and/or Tier and/or ownership/access), your submission file may have a systematic error. Beach Profile alternate Season and Monitoring Frequency Report The Beach Status column facilitates confirming that Non-reporting (Dormant and Tier 4) beaches have a value of "0" for: season length, advisory reporting frequency to EPA, and Monitoring reporting frequency to EPA. A Dormant beach may be monitored but not have advisories/closures issued and still be considered dormant if it is not open to the public. All other beaches should have values for those data elements. Also check that any COVID-related Beach Comments and Irregular Monitoring Comments for the reporting year show. If the season is short or 0, or monitoring frequency irregular or 0, check to see if dormant, check that any COVID-related Beach Comments and Irregular Monitoring Comments show. For Off Season monitoring frequency see the Beach Monitoring Frequency report. Beach Profile alternate Contact Information Check all beaches for submitted data. (May use a jurisdiction-level webpage if beach-level information is found on that webpage). OK for T4 beaches to not have contact information. Local Action Decision Procedures This report, for each beach: Identifies Local Action Decision Procedures (LADP) used to notify the public of beach actions. The list is sorted by county and beach name. For details on a particular beach see the Beach Profile report. [Uncheck year and BAB flag, scroll down for prior years - need to specify year to see current year e.g., 2023] If you don't see a beach in the report, it means that the beach does not yet have Local Action Decision Procedures used to notify the public of beach actions associated with it for the year(s) selected. To see the latest LADPs; in the Wizard, step 2, do not select a year. The Beach Profile report (click on Beach ID) is the only place where assessment and internal LADPs show. WQS Criteria This report presents a table of all WQS criteria values for all BEACH Act beaches. This report includes monitored and non-monitored beaches because all BAB waters have primary contact WQS. Water Quality - If results are found, check that Monitoring Frequency is > 0 for the related Beach IDs, even where no actions resulted. - Check to see that the whole beach season (& off-season, if monitored) has data by sorting on "Start Date". - During 2021 Season submissions, we advised of duplicates showing for 30 days after a submission. This is due to a change in the USGS's Water Quality Portal (WQP), we are working on a fix. After 30 days, check to see if duplicates remain and if so remove them. Page 4 of 5 ------- Dynamic National Report (DNR) Trend Charts We have added multi-year Trend Charts (like those found in the Dynamic National Report - DNR) to the following BEACON reports. You should review the completeness of prior-year data for at least 2018-2022; but also, back to include 2011, and if necessary, update your database of record. See: Action Duration (DNR Chart 4) Pollution Sources (DNR Chart 3) State Summary Number of Program Beaches, Number monitored, Percent monitored .... (DNR Chart 1) Percent Time Open w/o Notification Action (DNR Chart 5) Percent beaches with Notification Actions (DNR Chart 2) Page 5 of 5 ------- |