Question: What should I do when asked for a password?

Answer: Enter the password: JQPUBLIC and press the Log In button.

Question: What should I do to when I get a "Session Expired" message?

Answer: Click on the "refresh" button on the browser menu bar (and/or open up a new browser session), then re-select your query options.

Question: How do I locate water-quality data for surface-water sites near my home?

Answer: Select the "Surface Water/Bed Sediment" link under "Retrieve Data"

Select an output format from the "Choose a Surface Water Query Output below" drop-down menu, then press "Go"

Select the desired State and County options

Select the desired lab schedule(s) OR parameters

Select additional search criteria as needed Select "Apply Parameters" at the bottom of the page

Question: How do I retrieve data for multiple states, counties, etc?

Answer: Selecting (highlighting) multiple items from a domain list is a browser-dependant task. On Windows platforms, holding down the control key and left-mouse-button clicking allows multiple selections. On some platforms (Sun), simple clicking of items (without control key) allows multiple selections.

For example, to retrieve data for Alabama and Arizona: in the "Choose States" domain list, left-click on "Alabama" then ctrl-left-click "Arizona"---additional states can be selected using the ctrl-left-click procedure.

Multiple adjacent items can be selected by highlighting one end-member then "shift-left-clicking" on the other end member.

Question: Why do I get the message, "This worksheet doesn't contain any data?" although I know of at least one USGS sampling location in the state and county I selected?

Answer: The NAWQA program doesn't maintain a sampling site located in the state/county of interest (this answer assumes that all the selected search criteria are valid---check the "Miscellaneous hints" under "Help/Data Retrieval tips" for details). To retrieve data for USGS sites that aren't included in the NAWQA program, check the USGS "NWISweb" page at:

http://water.usgs.gov/nwis

Question: How do I export data to my local computer?

Answer: To place the results of a query into a file on your computer, select the "export data" option at the top of the page after the query has finished tabling the data. Next, select an export format from the drop-down menu then "hit" the "export data" button (and respond to the prompts, if any, depending on the data-type that was selected). From the browser's file menu, select "Save as" and respond to the directory and filename options.

Note: Large queries (ie >10000 rows and/or > 20 columns) export much easier to a tab-delimited text file rather than directly to Excel. Export to text file, then import to Excel being careful to maintain correct datatypes (ie be sure staid is a text field)

Question: How do I retrieve stream-discharge information?

Answer: To retrieve stream-discharge values associated with water-quality samples, select "DISCHARGE, INST." from the "Choose Parameter" query option.

"Daily Values" for stream discharge are available through the "Daily Discharge" link on the main page under RETRIEVE DATA

Question: What should I do to contact someone regarding additional information about the NAWQA study unit located in my State?

Answer: Study unit web pages are located at:

http://water.usgs.gov/nawqa/nawqamap.html

For additional information about water resources in your State, check:

http://water.usgs.gov/wrd002.html

Question: Are animal tissue analyses dry weight or wet weight?

Answer: Animal tissue analyses for organic compounds use wet weight; animal tissue analyses for metal compounds use dry weight.