DOI: 10.5066/p134kymx
title: Data for the Potomac River Watershed Accumulated Wastewater Viewer

description: 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).