GEMS Database Home Page
DNR Groundwater Environmental Monitoring Database
Welcome to the GEMS Database Home page.
This is the home page for on-line query access to the Groundwater Environmental Monitoring System (GEMS) Database maintained by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Waste Management Program. This Web site has been created to allow the public better access to our extensive environmental monitoring records. Using this tool, you have access to all of the monitoring data available for each facility on the system.
At any time, you may click the "Help" button at the top of any page to access information on how the queries work and how to access the data for which you are looking. If you are not familiar with some of the terms on any of these web pages, you may click the Glossary link at the bottom of this page to get the glossary of available terms, acronyms, and abbreviations used in the GEMS Database. For any other page, click the help button to find the glossary link near the top of the page.
Retrieval options:
GEMS Glossary of Terms and Definitions
Disclaimer
Please be advised that despite the DNR's best efforts to provide accurate data, there may be errors and omissions. There may also be delays in adding new data or correcting older data that is found to be incorrect or incomplete.
There are various steps along the groundwater monitoring data collection and analysis pathway at which the accuracy of the data could be compromised:
- Sample collection: groundwater samples may not have been collected and preserved properly in the field according to standard protocols.
- Sample storage: samples collected in the field may not have been stored properly according to standard protocol prior to and during shipment to laboratories for analysis.
- Sample analysis: samples may not have been analyzed properly for contaminants in the laboratory according to standard laboratory methodologies.
- Sample data transcription and loading: in the course of transmitting data from laboratories and various intermediaries, including consultants and municipal officials, to the DNR, data may be inadvertently lost, omitted, uploaded to the GEMS database incorrectly, or in the case of paper transmittals, transcription errors may occur. All groundwater data submitted to the GEMS database is currently provided in electronic format, but prior to 1996, many sites submitted paper forms from which data was transcribed by hand before being entered. Therefore, the older the data being viewed, the more likely it is to contain transcription errors.
The facility or lab representative or consultant that submits environmental monitoring data to the DNR must sign a certification form stating that to the best of their knowledge the data is correct. That certification is the best demonstration of accuracy of the results listed in GEMS. Nevertheless, it is not possible to prevent all errors.
It is very important that the user of this web site not make conclusions based on limited information such as one piece of data from one monitoring point. Instead, the data as a whole should be evaluated by a scientist who is experienced with such evaluations and considers changes over time and takes into account the location of each monitoring point as well as the natural variability of water quality. Data that appears to be elevated may be caused by naturally occurring substances or by a contaminant source other than the facility being monitored.
