Software Release Notes for May 14, 2010 –

Changes to AQS

The Design Values Report is now available under Standard Reports in AQS! There are also a number of other fixes. Here’s the list:

General

• Changing Primary Monitor Period did not resummarize site daily values for Lead. Corrected. A change to the Primary Monitor Period will trigger a resummarization.

• Conditions for Losing the Certification Flag on Data - Data Certification flag (if there is one present) is lost only when the reported sample measurement or its units code is updated. (The bug was that only a change to the actual sample measurement lost Certification.) The Certification flag is not lost for any other changes.

• AMP350 – The Raw Data report was showing some PM10 values as exceedences when they were not. (Quicklook was doing it correctly.) This has been corrected.

• Pre-1993 Summaries missing method codes and counts. Instead of a method code, "ERR" was displayed on report and stored in the work file. Annual Summary records had method counts of “0” for pre-1993 data. Problems corrected.

Maintain Site – Form bugs

• There was an error in the Maintain Site form: It was possible for a user to update the Status Indicator field of a Site record after duplicating the record. Fixed. The Status Indicator field is disabled while in update mode.

• Error when a user updated fields in the “User Coordinates” section. The alert "Do you want to save the changes” appeared when trying to exit the form. If the user clicked on 'Yes', then received the message "Changes to User coordinates were not saved either because Geography lookup was not performed or changes were not committed. The “User Coordinate” changes had been saved, so these were erroneous messages. This is fixed.

• Screening group/monitor ownership bugs fixed. User logged in as EPA_HQ (from a screening group that does not own a monitor at the site) is only allowed to update HQ_EVAL_DATE; similarly, logged in as REGIONAL_ADMIN only allowed to update REGIONAL_EVAL_DATE.

• Bug on the Agency Roles tab: “Insert Record” button took you to Basic Site Data tab, but now correctly stays on the Agency Roles tab

• Processing for standard coordinate conversion has been corrected to blank out the original values for city and urban area codes.

• Maintain Accuracy – Form problems if the user executed a query and the query didn't return any records. If the user clicked on the enter query button from the toolbar again, then the error "Function keys are not allowed" was displayed. Rollback record did not clear the form if there was an error in the updated record (Indicated and

Actual Values only). And, finally, when user tried to create a new Accuracy audit record and clicked on “Save”, then the message '"No changes to save" message appeared; the record was not saved to the database. This is fixed.

Internal

• Patch to correct Site Daily Values truncation – the truncation was hard-coded and is now table-driven to make any future changes easier.

Design Value Report (AMP480)

Users had requested a report that would generate the statistics used for NAAQS determinations. Report also allows 1) the assessment of the effect of exceptional event flagging on Design Values, and 2) the assessment of attainment issues based on partial data. Three “parts”:

1. Formatted report for each pollutant with 3-Year Design Values (Ozone, PM 2.5, PM 10)

2. Workfile available so users can import data into spreadsheets

3. Data accessible via Discoverer - “folders” for each pollutant with 3-Year Design Values

The selection criteria for the report include:

• Data Selection o Any Geographical Selection o Parameter Code o Screening Group o Year Range o Monitor Type o Land Use o PQAO

• Sorting: Fixed sort order o Page Breaks on: Parameter Code, Design Value Year

o Within page: Tribal Code, State Code, County Code, Site Number, POC

• Options

• • • Each row is for a specific site or monitor. User selectable metadata: {Street Address, Local Site ID, Local Site Name, County Name, City Name, CBSA Name, Urbanized Area}.

    • Include quarterly statistics in workfile for PM 2.5 and PM 10

    • Standard Exceptional Data Type Selection

    • Standard Pollutant Standard Selection (e.g. 1997 Ozone vs 2008 Ozone) o User selectable workfile delimiter; either ‘|’ or ‘,’

Usage Notes:

• 1. Each row on the report, workfile, or Discoverer folder is a summary of 3 years of data, the last of which is the “Design Value Year”. So, if you select a single year, then for each site-monitor, you will get one row of output that summarizes that year and the two prior years. If you select multiple years, you will get multiple pages of output with each design value year on a separate set of pages.

  2. If you request a workfile, the system will always return a zip archive containing multiple files, as follows:

     1. A PDF - the cover page showing your report criteria, and/or a formatted report

     2. A file ending in -0.txt that contains the Ozone data. (empty if no ozone data)

     3. A file ending in -1.txt that contains the PM 2.5 data. (empty if no PM2.5 data)

     4. A file ending in -2.txt that contains the PM 10 data. (empty if no PM10 data)

Caveats and Limitations

• If two different AQS sites are judged “equivalent” and the second site starts data collection at the same time that the first site stops data collection, then the EPA may combine data from both sites for NAAQS determinations. AQS does not have this capability.

• The CFR discusses spatial averaging, and computing spatially averaged design values. AQS does not have this capability.

• If no ozone data is selected, or no ozone data is found meeting the user’s criteria, then the first page of the report will be blank. (limitation of tool)

• The workfile for PM10 has a quarterly field for “Schedule Samples” (i.e. number of samples scheduled in the quarter, based on Required Collection Frequency). This field is not yet populated.