EPA’s electronic Greenhouse Gas Reporting Tool (e-GGRT) is now open for 2012 Greenhouse Gas (GHG) reporting under EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP). Thousands of facilities and suppliers across the country are expected to report their annual GHG data to EPA through the tool by the April 1, 2013, deadline. To access e-GGRT and enter GHG data, please visit: https://ghgreporting.epa.gov

To learn more about EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program or to view published GHG data using EPA’s Facility Level Information on Greenhouse Gases Tool (FLIGHT), please visit: http://www.epa.gov/ghgreporting

Kong Chiu
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
P: 202.343.9309
E: chiu.kong [at] epa.gov

To promote greater awareness of Exchange Network Governance activities, important discussions and action items from EN Governance meetings, conference calls, and events are consolidated into monthly activity summaries and posted to the Exchange Network website.

The January 2013 EN Governance Activity Summary is available here.

The schedule of upcoming Governance calls and meetings is available here.

9th Annual Environmental Information Exchange Network Tribal Conference
Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tulsa
Tulsa, OK
March 27-28, 2013

Tribal Exchange Network Meeting Highlights:
– Networking opportunities
– Learn what’s new in EN data flows
– Explore tools available for your Tribe’s use
– Data management best practices
– Hands-on-training
– Tips on writing an EN grant application

Limited travel funding is available for Tribal representatives.

Hotel Reservations
– Phone: 800.760.6700
– Group rate code: NCAI132513
– Deadline: March 11,2013 to receive the special group rate

For more information, please contact Robert Holden.

Robert Holden
National Congress of American Indians
P: 202.466.7767 x221
E: rholden[at]ncai.org

EPA will hold three public meetings to discuss and obtain input from stakeholders on developing a national electronic manifest (i.e., e-Manifest) system, as authorized by Congress, to replace the current paper-based hazardous waste tracking system. The purpose of these meetings is to engage states, industry, and other stakeholders in discussions about what expectations and technical requirements EPA should consider when developing an e-Manifest system. EPA is seeking participants from a variety of professional backgrounds to attend, including program experts and information technology professionals from both state hazardous waste programs and hazardous waste handlers (e.g., generators, transporters, waste management firms). Meeting dates and locations are:.

– February 25-26, 2013; Arlington, VA
– March 14-15, 2013; Chicago, IL
– March 21-22, 2013; Denver, CO

For more information and to register, please visit:
http://www.epa.gov/osw/hazard/transportation/manifest/e-man.htm

Kristen Gunthardt
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
P: 703.347.8955
E: gunthardt.kristen@epa.gov

The North Carolina Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (CGIA) is developing the Integrated Cadastral and Land Use Data Exchange (INCLUDE) to compile, integrate, and share cadastral data (i.e., tax parcel boundaries and associated information). The CGIA is seeking a vendor to develop technical solutions for a web interface for uploading and translating property boundaries and associated attributes to a standard data model, integrating translated geospatial datasets, and exchanging web services through the Exchange Network and through a geospatial portal.

For more information on the INCLUDE project, or to obtain a copy of the Request for Proposals, please email Jeff Brown at jeff.brown [at] nc.gov.

Jeff Brown
Coordination Program Manager
Center for Geographic Information and Analysis
State of North Carolina
E: jeff.brown [at] nc.gov

The Exchange Network Leadership Council (ENLC) has released its draft “Implementation Plan for Phase 2 of the Exchange Network.” The Plan is designed to guide the Network’s growth and expansion through 2016. In the Plan, the ENLC identified four goals for Phase 2 and a set of underlying strategies and actions aimed at achieving these goals. The Plan’s Executive Summary broadly reviews these goals and strategies. Both the draft Plan and the Executive Summary are available here.

On February 20, 2013, from 2:00-3:30pm ET, the ENLC will sponsor an Open Conference Call to review the Plan and discuss your comments and questions. You are encouraged to submit your questions in advance of the Open Call by emailing them to Kurt Rakouskas, Exchange Network Coordinator, at kurt [at] exchangenetwork.net. If you are unable to participate in the Call, the ENLC asks that all comments be submitted to Kurt NO LATER than 5pm ET, February 28, 2013.

To register and participate in the Open Call, please visit: 

Andrew Battin
EPA ENLC Co-Chair
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
P: 202.566.2140
E: battin.andrew [at] epa.gov

Andrew Putnam
State ENLC Co-Chair
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment
P: 303.692.3579
E: andrew.putnam [at] state.co.us

The Exchange Network Leadership Council (ENLC) is nearing completion of its draft “Implementation Plan for Phase 2 of the Exchange Network.” The Plan sets goals and priorities to guide the Network’s growth and expansion in the coming years. The ENLC will share the Plan with the entire Network community in the coming days and we welcome your feedback and questions.

On February 20, 2013, from 2:00-3:30pm ET, the ENLC will sponsor an Open Conference Call to review the Plan and discuss your thoughts and questions about our proposed activities. To register and participate, please visit: 

Andrew Battin
EPA ENLC Co-Chair
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
P: 202.566.2140
E: battin.andrew [at] epa.gov

Andrew Putnam
State ENLC Co-Chair
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment
P: 303.692.3579
E: andrew.putnam [at] state.co.us

I am excited to announce that the newest version of EPA’s NetDMR, the internet-based Discharge Monitoring Report electronic reporting tool (NetDMR v1.5), went into production on January 25, 2013.

Version 1.5 includes a significant number of enhancements and problem fixes. These changes include solutions to the highest priority issues identified by the States, EPA Regions, and EPA Headquarters.

If you have any questions regarding this release, please contact the NetDMR Customer Support Staff by email at netdmr[at]epa.gov or by phone at 202.564.7756.

John Dombrowski
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
P: 202.566.0742
E: dombrowski.john[at]epa.gov

To promote greater awareness of Exchange Network Governance activities, important discussions and action items from EN Governance meetings, conference calls, and events are consolidated into monthly activity summaries and posted to the Exchange Network website.

The December 2012 EN Governance Activity Summary is available here.

The schedule of upcoming Governance calls and meetings is available here.

The storage-related issues at EPA’s National Computer Center have been corrected. All NCC-hosted Agency systems should now be available. If you are experiencing any ongoing issues,please contact the Node Help Desk at 888.890.1995 or nodehelpdesk [at] epacdx.net.

Tina Chen
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
P: 202.566.0248
E: chen.tina [at] epa.gov

The EPA’s National Computer Center (NCC) is experiencing a major outage of its storage systems. Numerous NCC-hosted Agency systems are currently unavailable. The NCC is working to restore service as quickly as possible. Additional information will be distributed as soon as it is available.

If your system and/or application is affected, please contact the Node Help Desk at 888.890.1995 or nodehelpdesk [at] epacdx.net.

Tina Chen
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
P: 202.566.0248
E: chen.tina [at] epa.gov

The EPA’s Tribal Identification data standard specifies the Tribal names and codes needed for identification of Federally recognized American Indian and Alaska Native entities. Implementing the Tribal Identification standard helps to ensure consistency in the names and codes for Tribal entities and facilitates exchange and integration of Tribal information. To support implementation of this standard, EPA’s Office of Environmental Information has developed the TRIBES Web Services to allow systems to consume the current list of political (i.e., non-geographic) Tribal names and codes, as well as EPA Internal Identifiers to ensure unambiguous identification of Tribal entities.

The TRIBES Data Exchange is available here.

Michael Pendleton
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
P: 202.566.1658
E: pendleton.michael [at] epa.gov

EPA’s Office of Environmental Information has released an updated Exchange Network Glossary. The Glossary, which builds upon previous work conducted by a range of Partners, provides a single point of reference for understanding terms that are relevant to the Exchange Network. There are more than one hundred definitions available, ranging from “Node Client” to “Flow Configuration Document” to “Integrated Project Team.”

This glossary is one of many that are cataloged in EPA’s Terminology Services (www.epa.gov/ts), a repository of environmental and other terms and definitions in use by EPA and other organizations. States, Territories, Tribes, and other Network Partners can create direct links from their web pages to the EN Glossary.

The Exchange Network Glossary is available in the Knowledge Base.

Angelina Hurst
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
P: 202.566.0701
E: hurst.angelina [at] epa.gov

The Exchange Network Leadership Council is excited to announce that EN2014, the 2014 Exchange Network National Meeting, will be held February 25-27, 2014, at the Sheraton Society Hill Hotel in Philadelphia. A Welcome Reception will be held the evening of February 24.

Keep up to date on EN2014 at https://www.exchangenetwork.net/en2014/

The Great Lakes National Program Office (GLNPO) collects environmental data on a wide variety of constituents in water, biota, sediment, and air. After these studies are completed, the data remain. Central to the data management effort is a computerized relational database system to house Lake Michigan Mass Balance and other project results. The Great Lakes Environmental Database (GLENDA) was developed to provide data entry, storage, access and analysis capabilities to meet the needs of mass balance modelers and other potential users of Great Lakes data. The GLENDA Data Exchange provides data services that can be used by Partners to retrieve substance information from the GLNPO system based upon a variety of identifiers and substance characteristics.

The GLENDA Data Exchange is now available here.

Kenneth Klewin
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
312.886.4794
klewin.kenneth [at] epa.gov

Dear Exchange Network Friends and Partners,

As Co-Chairs of the Exchange Network Leadership Council (ENLC), we are excited to share an update on the state of the Exchange Network. In 2012, Network Partners reached an important milestone in the ongoing expansion of the Exchange Network. Four years ago, the ENLC set an ambitious 2012 goal to complete Phase 1 of the Network by fully implementing Exchange Network data flows for ten EPA National Systems. In 2009, senior leaders from States and EPA reaffirmed this goal and their collective commitment to the Exchange Network partnership. Since that time, Network Partners have put in tremendous efforts to achieve our goal. The Exchange Network has been working closely with EPA’s Program Offices and the Office of Environmental Information to eliminate duplicate reporting pathways and to ensure that Network data flows are ready to use. New tools such as the Exchange Network Services Center are helping more Partners participate in Network data flows. States, Tribes, Territories, and other Partners have worked diligently to switch to the Exchange Network as their primary means of sharing environmental data with EPA.

Thanks to these collective efforts, the Exchange Network is now the sole means of electronically flowing data for eight of the ten Phase 1 National System Data Flows! These flows include Facility Identification, Beach Notification, the Water Quality Exchange (WQX), the Emissions Inventory System (EIS), the Air Quality System (AQS), ICIS-NPDES, Toxic Release Inventory (TRI), and Underground Injection Controls (UIC).

The remaining Phase 1 National Systems—the Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS) and RCRAInfo—also have Exchange Network data flows available; however, they will continue to operate alongside other non-Exchange Network pathways in the near-term. The SDWIS user community is planning to modernize that data system in 2014. The ENLC encourages Partners to continue their current submission practices until that modernization effort is concluded, rather than force a change now and risk rework in two years’ time. In the meantime, the ENLC will be working closely with the EPA Office of Water to ensure that the modernized SDWIS takes full advantage of the Exchange Network’s data exchange capabilities. In the case of RCRAInfo, there are factors that limit the value of an Exchange Network data flow for some Partners. Most significantly, RCRAInfo has an exceptionally large number of direct users that do not need a solution for automated data submissions. Instead, many Partners will benefit from outbound data flows that give program managers easier access to their data. The ENLC looks forward to working with the RCRAInfo community to build data access solutions that will improve environmental program management and decision-making.

Network staff members are updating the Data Flow Implementation Guides for each flow. The Guides will offer Partners a detailed summary of the available options for flowing data along with updated implementation advice so Partners can more easily plan their development efforts. We will distribute an Exchange Network Alert when the updated Guides are posted to the Network website in early 2013. The ENLC will continue to work with EPA Program Offices and Regions to ensure that programmatic grant guidance includes clear expectations on use of the Exchange Network to report and share data for each of the ten Phase 1 data flows.

Otherwise, Phase 1 is now officially complete. As many of our Partners know, we have been tracking our progress in an implementation matrix, which we have shared with you throughout the years. It brings us great pleasure to share the final version of the matrix, which shows the readiness of eight National System data flows. The matrix is available at: https://www.exchangenetwork.net/about/network-management/#phase1

While we will no longer routinely produce this matrix, we anticipate that it will grow increasingly green in the coming weeks as Partners migrate to information exchange tools powered by the Network.

The end of Phase 1 hardly means that our work is done. We have established a rock-solid foundation, but we have only just begun to scratch the surface of what is possible. The Network’s approach to information sharing opens the door for us to build new tools and capabilities that enable people to find, integrate, and use data in ways that were not previously possible. The next phase of our growth will look beyond database synchronization and seek out opportunities to expand data access to improve our nation’s ability to understand, manage, and protect human health and the environment.

The ENLC is developing an implementation plan for Phase 2 of the Exchange Network. We will share the draft plan with the entire Network community in early 2013. We welcome your input and comments on our proposed activities. The Phase 2 Implementation Plan will be a living document that will reflect comments from the Network community and evolving Partner priorities. For example, States and EPA are beginning to discuss a new initiative called e-Enterprise for the Environment, which is geared toward automating electronic data collection and environmental monitoring. The Exchange Network is committed to aligning its Phase 2 work with the e-Enterprise initiative and to providing it with a technical platform and an existing partnership from which to build. We hope to complete the initial Phase 2 Plan in time for review at the March 2013 meeting of the Environmental Council of the States. We look forward to working with all Network Partners over the next few months to collectively define Phase 2.

In reflecting on the progress of the last four years, we both are incredibly impressed by the amount of effort that Partners have invested in the Exchange Network. What we have collectively built is a testament to your hard work and the value of the Exchange Network. We very much look forward to our continued partnership in 2013 and beyond.

Sincerely,

Karen Bassett
State Co-Chair of the Exchange Network Leadership Council
Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality

Andy Battin
EPA Co-Chair of the Exchange Network Leadership Council
U.S. EPA Office of Environmental Information

ICIS Production will be unavailable on 14 December 2012 beginning at 4:00PM ET. This outage is to allow for the FRS data transfer to ICIS. There will be no access to data entry or reports.

Service will be restored by 9:00AM ET on 15 December.

Thank you for your patience during this service interruption.

Wendell Wright
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
P: 202.564.4259
E: wright.wendell [at] epa.gov

This upgrade to ICIS-NPDES, known as version 4.0, adds functionality for processing 22 new data families. Users of the ICIS-NPDES data flow can now submit all of their NPDES data families to EPA’s ICIS system the same way they have done in the past.

Prior ICIS-NPDES schema versions 2.1 and 3.2 of the schema will continue to be supported as well for existing State and Tribal submissions. Note that version 2.1 only supports the flow of DMRs, while version 3.2 only supports flows of basic permit, master general permit, general permit covered facility, unpermitted facility, permit tracking event, narrative condition/permit schedule, permitted feature, limit set, limit, and DMR data.

More information on the ICIS-NPDES data flow is available here.

Alison Kittle
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
P: 202.564.6233
E: kittle.alison [at] epa.gov

To promote greater awareness of Exchange Network Governance activities, important discussions and action items from EN Governance meetings, conference calls, and events are consolidated into monthly activity summaries and posted to the Exchange Network website. The October 2012 EN Governance Activity Summary is now available here.

The schedule of upcoming Governance calls and meetings is available here.

ICIS Production will be taken down at 5:00PM EST on Friday, November 30, 2012, for the implementation of ICIS v6.0 and the migration of the remaining 15 states from PCS. ICIS v6.0 implements Release 3 of NPDES Full Batch allowing for the electronic submission of enforcement action, violation, and program report data. This effectively completes the PCS Modernization project. ICIS is scheduled to be back online at 7:00AM EST on Monday, December 10, 2012.

*Please note* ICIS will be unavailable for both data entry and reports until Monday, December 10, 2012.

Of special note:

1. The Official RNC for FY2012 Q4 will be run the evening of November 30, 2012, instead of the currently scheduled date of Saturday, December 1, 2012.

2. The Official QNCR for FY2012 Q4 has been postponed one week and will be run on Saturday, December 22, 2012, instead of the scheduled date of Saturday, December 15, 2012. This will allow additional time for users to enter any necessary manual overrides especially for the migrating states.

3. Before the migration process begins, ICIS Production data will be copied to ICIS Test so that users will be able to run Business Object reports using the latest production data while ICIS Production is down. ICIS TEST URL:

4. During the ICIS downtime, both NetDMR and NeT will be available to users for data entry, but all data being submitted to or extracted from ICIS will be held in a queue awaiting processing until ICIS comes back up. All data for these tools should be processed before the morning of Monday, December 10, 2012.

5. As of November 30, 2012, PCS data will be available only for retrievals; no further data entry will be allowed. PCS data will continue to be available for retrieval during the ICIS outage.

Wendell Wright
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
P: 202.564.4259
E: wright.wendell@epa.gov