Data Management

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Data Management

• Sharon Doyle
• City of Grand Prairie
• Ph 972-237-8224
• Email sdoyle_at_gptx.org

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Does Your Office Look Like This?
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How many filing cabinets do you have?
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Data Management

• What kind of data do you manage?
• Think about what you need to manage in order to
  keep your pretreatment program compliant
• Paperless world??????
• Unlikely at this point
• Still required to keep hard copy data for at
  least 3 years
• Computerized data management systems are a good
  start
• Keep data at your fingertips
• Especially sample data
• Improves scheduling, logging, and report
  generation

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Our System

• Trinity River Authority regional pretreatment
  program
• City of Grand Prairie
• 40 42 permitted IU
• 28 30 monitored IU
• gt 300 IU survey, commercial/manufacturing
  facilities
• Its just me and a half person ?

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What are you dealing with?

• Paper trail
• Everything is still on paper
• Maintaining files
• Sampling includes scheduling, data analyses,
  etc.
• Inspections
• IU Reports
• Enforcement
• Correspondence

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What kind of data can you manage with a computer
program?

• Anything to be scheduled
• Sampling
• Inspections
• Anything with numbers
• Sampling data
• Anything that can be automatically generated
• General correspondence
• NOVs

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Scheduling Management

• Sample schedule
• Old Way
• Set out on a calendar
• COCs hand written
• Log books to ensure samples were taken
• Log books to record problems with sample
  collection
• Log books for QC duplicates

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Sample Scheduling

• New Way
• Automatic COC generation
• Samplers log in to computer to print out assigned
  COCs
• COC has COC number, required parameters,
  preservatives, bottle type, etc. pre-printed
• Samplers log back in to record whether a sample
  was taken

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Sample Management

• COCs waiting for lab data
• Data is matched to the COC field data sheet that
  we keep and then entered in to system
• QC duplicate data
• RPDs compared and then kept on file
• Periodically samples are thrown out based on bad
  duplication

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Pros and Cons

• Pros
• Relieves sampler from using and keeping up all
  those log books
• Automatic sample generation in the system
• Reduces writing/transcription errors on COC

• Cons
• Depending on your sampling scheme, still labor
  intensive to enter in the sample schedule and to
  generate the COCs

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A word about QC

• If you have a Quality Assurance/Control system
  set up, can track the collection of QC samples
  for example
• We take a duplicate sample every 10th sample,
  every sampler, per parameter
• Our COC generator tracks this and asks if a dup
  needs to be taken
• Keeps track of the number of cadmiums a
  particular sampler has taken
• Automatically generates a separate COC for the
  duplicate samples

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Inspection Scheduling

• Inspections can be scheduled throughout the year
• Inspections can be recorded in the system when
  they are done
• Upcoming
• tablet PCs to take with us on inspections and
  write them up in the field

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Numbers Management

• Sample data results
• A sample is automatically generated when the
  sampler confirms that a sample was collected
• Includes the COC number, date collected, sampler
  ID, parameters, IU address
• When data is received, the results can be entered
  into the system
• Reduces some data entry
• Still have to enter field parameters (pH) and
  combine TTO results manually
• Upcoming
• Data dump for laboratory results
• Still issues with pH and TTO

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Numbers

• Excellent report generation capabilities
• Especially with respect to sample results
• SNC calculations are very quick
• Historical data summary for a particular IU are
  quick to obtain and can be very useful
• Violation summaries quite useful
• Year end report data
• Number of samples
• Number of inspections
• Number and type of enforcement activities

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Report Generation

• Notice of Violation
• Automatically flag violations when data is
  entered
• Does system compare to monthly averages as well
  as daily averages? How about 4-day averages?
• Capability of generating NOV
• SNC Summaries
• Report used to report quarterly SNC status to the
  approval authority
• Sample Summaries
• Customized summary by IU
• Late sampling reports
• Generally, reports should be fairly easily
  customizable

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Correspondence

• Most systems will have some kind of mail merge
  capability
• Gives you one place to make updates to IU
  information
• This is very important

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Permit Issuance

• Permits are about 95 standard language and 5
  individualized
• Permittee name, address, description
• Permit length
• Outfall information
• Location, monitoring frequency, parameters,
  limits
• Special instructions
• Spill/TOMP plan updates due
• 90 compliance reports due

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Enforcement

• Generate NOVs using a standard format
• Non-standard enforcement still has to be
  generated manually
• Citations
• Compliance schedules

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Future Modifications

• Laboratory data transfer
• Almost eliminate data entry
• Except for field parameters and TTO
• Tablet PCs
• Fill in forms in the field (i.e. inspection
  forms)
• Generate NOV in field
• Wrestle with signature issues

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Do computerized systems help?

• YES!!!
• Cant go paperless
• Everything will have to have a hard copy in the
  file
• Still have to maintain files
• Data/information is at your fingertips
• Dont have to spend time searching through files
  for information
• Dont have to rely on your memory to schedule
  events

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What does my office look like now?

• Much the same
• BUT
• it could look worse
• maybe its me

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True Test

• Is your data centralized and organized?
• Is the pretreatment program easier to implement?
• Is anything being forgotten?

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• Data management is a must
• Its up to you how you do it

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Questions?