Metadata for Montana Groundwater Information Center Water Well Data

- Identification Information
- Data Quality Information
- Spatial Data Organization Information
- Spatial Reference Information
- Entity and Attribute Information
- Distribution Information
- Metadata Reference Information
- Full FGDC Metadata in XML format

Identification Information:

Citation:
  Originator: Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology (MBMG)
  Publication date: 07/13/2011
  Title: Montana Groundwater Information Center Water Well Data
  Publication place: Helena, Montana
  Publisher: Montana State Library
  Online linkage: http://nris.mt.gov/nsdi/nris/shape/gwicwells.zip
  Online linkage: http://nris.mt.gov/mapper
Abstract:
  This data set contains point locations and selected attributes for water wells within Montana abstracted from databases maintained at the Ground-Water Information Center (GWIC) at the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology. Original data sources include water rights filings, water well logs, visits to water wells, and publications of the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology, the U.S. Geological Survey, and others. The databases are maintained at the Ground-Water Information Center. Ground-water site locations and selected fields are forwarded quarterly to NRIS.
  Fields provided in this data set are a subset of the fields available in the database at the GWIC. Additional data for ground-water resources in Montana can be obtained from the GWIC website at http://mbmggwic.mtech.edu.
Purpose:
  Data from GWIC are useful for describing the ground-water resources of Montana, land use planning, determination of drilling depths, and understanding ground-water flow.
Time period of content:
  Beginning date: 1860
  Ending date: 07/09/2011
  Currentness reference: ground condition
Status:
  Progress: Current with receipts of new water well logs
  Maintenance and update frequency:
    The GWIC database is active and thousands of data corrections and thousands of new well logs are added to the system annually. Updates of the database are forwarded quarterly to NRIS.
Access constraints: None
Use constraints:
  These data are currently intended to provide information on the distribution of wells in general rather than the locations of specific wells. Most of the well locations are derived from 1:250,000 scale maps and individual well identities should not be shown at map scales larger than this.
  Well data is updated continually at GWIC, and individual records at NRIS may be obsolete. Current data for any well, or updated data sets, can be obtained directly from the GWIC website at http://mbmggwic.mtech.edu.
Point of contact:
  Thomas Patton
  Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology
  1300 West Park Street
  Butte, MT 59701
  Telephone: (406) 496-4153
  E-Mail: tpatton@mtech.edu

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Data Quality Information:

Attribute accuracy report:
  New well log data are entered into the database from original documents and verified one time during the data entry process. Historic data are verified against historic documents on a county by county basis. Due to work loads, well records for all Montana counties have not been verified against the original documents. To view the current status of verification, go to the "On-Line Help" section of the GWIC website at http://mbmggwic.mtech.edu.
Logical consistency report: None
Completeness report:
  Well locations in GWIC do not represent the locations of all water wells in Montana. Although the total number of water wells constructed in the state is unknown, GWIC locations are thought to represent 50-60% of all water wells.
Horizontal Positional Accuracy Report:
  Unless otherwise noted in the GWIC database by the presence of a site visit record, coordinates are derived from unverified locations provided by the landowner or water well driller. Significant errors in location occur in the unverified data. Points with verified locations are generally within 10's of feet of their true position. The GEOMETHOD attribute indicates how the coordinates were obtained and are an indicator of the positional accuracy of each point.
  The meaning of commonly used GEOMETHOD codes are as follows:
  -- TRS-TWN: generated from township, range, section, and tract using township corners digitized by the U.S. Geological Survey in the 1970s from 1:250,000 scale maps.
  -- TRS-SEC: generated from township, range, section, and tract using section corners digitized from 1:24,000 maps.
  -- NAV-GPS: uncorrected Global Positioning System locations.
  -- SURGPS: corrected Global Positioning System locations.
  -- MAP: digitized from 1:24,000 USGS Topographic maps
  NAV-GPS, SUR-GPS, and MAP represent confirmed locations. TRS-SEC and TRS-TWN represent unconfirmed locations if the number of tract designations in the TRACT field is less than 4 and there is no site visit record in the GWIC database. A complete description of the GEOMETHOD flags can be found in the "On-Line Help" section of the GWIC website at http://mbmggwic.mtech.edu.
  The coordinates for the majority of the wells were obtained with the TRS-TWN method. Coordinates in selected counties (Flathead, Lake, Mineral, Missoula, Ravalli, Yellowstone, and Treasure) were obtained using the TRS-SEC method. However, in both cases the greatest source of horizontal error is the original landowner/water well driller's ability to correctly fill out the township, range, section, and tract description.
  Coordinates converted from township, range, section, and tract descriptions generally fall within the boundaries of the smallest described tract. Section based conversions are more accurate than township based conversions because the section corners used in section based conversions have been digitized, and not interpolated from township corners.
Lineage:
  Source information:
    Originator:
      Ground-Water Assessment Program at the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology
    Publication date: 07/13/2011
    Title: Montana Ground-Water Information Center Water well log data
    Publication place: Butte
    Publisher: Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology
    Type of source media: paper records
    Source contribution: The data set was generated from this source.
    Beginning date: 1860
    Ending date: 07/09/2011
  Process step:
    Water well log data are entered into the GWIC database from original paper documents and verified to match original data during the data entry process. Some well records are created from visits to wells discovered during field work by various projects at the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology. For well records created from site visits, there will be no paper well log at the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology and the database will only contain information discovered during the field visit. The database is corrected when errors are discovered through use of data or by outside data users.
  Process date: 01/09/2003
  Process step:
    Coordinates are assigned to GWIC records using a variety of methods as described by the GEOMETHOD flag in the data retrieval. See the description of common GEOMETHOD flags used in GWIC in the Horizontal_Positional_Accuracy_Report section of this document.
    TRS-TWN and TRS-SEC based coordinates are calculated automatically at the time a record is first filed or the location is modified. MAP, NAV-GPS, and SUR-GPS coordinates are posted to the database and remained unchanged until an error may be discovered. At that time corrected coordinates for the point would be entered into the database and the township, range, section and tract modified to match the digitized or GPS coordinates.
  Process date: 01/09/2003

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Spatial Data Organization Information:

Point and vector object information:
  SDTS object type: Entity point
    SDTS object count: 226536

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Spatial Reference Information:

Horizontal coordinate system definition:
  Grid coordinate system name: State Plane Coordinate System 1983
  SPCS zone identifier: 2500
  Lambert conformal conic:
  Standard parallel: 45.000000
  Standard parallel: 49.000000
  Longitude of central meridian: -109.500000
  Latitude of projection origin: 44.250000
  False easting: 600000.000000
  False northing: 0.000000
  Planar distance units: meters
  Geodetic model:
    Horizontal datum name: North American Datum of 1983
    Ellipsoid name: Geodetic Reference System 80
    Semi-major axis: 6378137.000000
    Denominator of flattening ratio: 298.257222

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Entity and Attribute Information:

Entity type label: gwic
Entity count: 207010
Entity type definition: Point feature class
  Attribute label: FID
    Attribute definition: Internal feature number.
    Attribute domain:
      Sequential unique whole numbers that are automatically generated.
  Attribute label: Shape
    Attribute definition: Feature geometry.
    Attribute domain: Coordinates defining the features.
  Attribute label: MNUMBER
    Attribute definition: Unique number that links all GWIC records together.
    Range domain minimum: 1
    Range domain maximum: 999999
  Attribute label: DNRC_NO
    Attribute definition:
      Water right number assigned to well/site by the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation.
    Attribute domain: Character Field
  Attribute label: SITE_NAME
    Attribute definition:
      Name of the well/site. Most often the name under which the well was originally drilled.
    Attribute domain: Character Field
  Attribute label: LATITUDE
    Attribute definition: Latitude of well/site
    Range domain minimum: 44
    Range domain maximum: 50
    Attribute units of measure: Decimal Degrees
  Attribute label: LONGITUDE
    Attribute definition: Longitude of well/site
    Range domain minimum: -116.5
    Range domain maximum: -104
    Attribute units of measure: Decimal Degrees
  Attribute label: GEOMETHOD
    Attribute definition: Method used to determine the latitude and longitude

    Attribute Value | Definition of Attribute Value
    TRS-TWN | generated from township, range, section, and tract using township corners digitized by the U.S. Geological Survey in the 1970s from 1:250,000 scale maps
    TRS-SEC | generated from township, range, section, and tract using section corners digitized from 1:24,000 maps
    NAV-GPS | uncorrected Global Positioning System locations
    SUR-GPS | corrected Global Positioning System locations
    MAP | digitized from 1:24,000 USGS Topographic maps

  Attribute label: DATUM
    Attribute definition: Geodetic datum for the latitude and longitude

    Attribute Value | Definition of Attribute Value
    1927 | North American Datum of 1927
    1983 | North American Datum of 1983

  Attribute label: TOWNSHIP
    Attribute definition: The township in which the well/site is located
    Attribute domain: Character Field
  Attribute label: RANGE
    Attribute definition: The range in which the well/site is located
    Attribute domain: Character Field
  Attribute label: ISP_SECT
    Attribute definition:
      The section within the township/range in which the well is located
    Range domain minimum: 1
    Range domain maximum: 36
  Attribute label: TRACT
    Attribute definition:
      The tracts (from largest to smallest) that describe the location of the well/site within the section

    Attribute Value | Definition of Attribute Value
    A | Northeast
    B | Northwest
    C | Southwest
    D | Southeast

  Attribute label: COUNTY
    Attribute definition: County in Montana where the well/site is located
    Attribute domain: Character Field
  Attribute label: TYPE
    Attribute definition:
      Whether the site is a water well, petroleum well, borehole, spring, or other site type
    Attribute domain: Character Field
  Attribute label: TOT_DEPT
    Attribute definition: Total depth of the well
    Range domain minimum: 0
    Range domain maximum: 13144
    Attribute units of measure: Feet
  Attribute label: PWL
    Attribute definition:
      The distance below land surface the water is found during pumping
    Range domain minimum: 0
    Range domain maximum: 4671
    Attribute units of measure: Feet
  Attribute label: SWL
    Attribute definition:
      The distance below land surface the water is found when the well is not pumping
    Range domain minimum: 0
    Range domain maximum: 3730
    Attribute units of measure: Feet
  Attribute label: RECOV_WL
    Attribute definition:
      The water level (below casing top) measured by the driller after a production test has been completed
    Range domain minimum: 0
    Range domain maximum: 2250
    Attribute units of measure: Feet
  Attribute label: YIELD
    Attribute definition: The reported yield of the well
    Range domain minimum: 0
    Range domain maximum: 18000
    Attribute units of measure: Gallons per Minute (gpm)
  Attribute label: TEST_TYPE
    Attribute definition: The method by which the yield was determined
    Attribute domain: Character Field
  Attribute label: TEST_DUR
    Attribute definition: The length of the performance test
    Range domain minimum: 0
    Range domain maximum: 96
    Attribute units of measure: Hours
  Attribute label: RECOV_TM
    Attribute definition:
      The length of time after production stopped that the recovery water level was measured
    Range domain minimum: 0
    Range domain maximum: 1033
    Attribute units of measure: Hours
  Attribute label: DRILLSET
    Attribute definition:
      The distance below ground surface that the drill stem was placed during a production test using air to lift the water from the well
    Range domain minimum: 0
    Range domain maximum: 2100
    Attribute units of measure: Feet
  Attribute label: WHO_DRILL
    Attribute definition: The name of the well driller or contractor
    Attribute domain: Character Field
  Attribute label: LIC_NO
    Attribute definition:
      The water well driller or water well contractor license number
    Attribute domain: Character Field
  Attribute label: COMP_DATE
    Attribute definition: The date that the well was completed
    Attribute domain: Date field
  Attribute label: PWS_ID
    Attribute definition:
      A number consisting of the Department of Environmental Quality's identifier for a public water supply (5 digits) concatenated with the source number for the well/site in the public water supply (3 digits)
    Attribute domain: Character String
  Attribute label: GWSI_ID
    Attribute definition:
      A 15 digit number that is the U.S. Geological Survey's National Water Information System identifier for the well/site
    Attribute domain: Character String
  Attribute label: DATA_SOUR
    Attribute definition: The source of data for the GWIC record

    Attribute Value | Definition of Attribute Value
    GW4 | Declaration of Vested Groundwater Rights
    LOG | Drillers log
    INV | Visit to the well/site by personnel from the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology, the U.S. Geological Survey, or other agency
    QW | Visit to well/site by personnel from the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology, U.S. Geological Survey, or other agency to collect a water sample

  Attribute label: WQDATA
    Attribute definition:
      Flag indicating whether GWIC has water quality data available for the well

    Attribute Value | Definition of Attribute Value
    Y | Water quality data is available
    N | Water quality data is not available

  Attribute label: HYDROGRAPH
    Attribute definition:
      Flag indicating whether GWIC has hydrograph data available for the well

    Attribute Value | Definition of Attribute Value
    Y | Hydrograph data is available
    N | Hydrograph data is not available

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Distribution Information:

Distributor:
  Gerry Daumiller
  Senior GIS Programmer
  Montana State Library
  1515 East 6th Avenue
  Helena, Montana 59620-1800
  Telephone: (406) 444-5358
  Fax: (406) 444-0581
  E-Mail: gdaumiller@mt.gov
Resource description: Downloadable Data
Distribution liability:
  The user of this data set agrees to release The Montana Natural Resource Information System and the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology, its officers, directors, agents, employees, and those acting on its behalf from all debts, claims, and liability of any kind arising out of or in connection with the use of the data.
Standard order process:
  Digital form:
    Format name: ESRI Shapefile
    Online option:
    http://nris.mt.gov/nsdi/nris/shape/gwicwells.zip
  Fees:
    For-profit organizations must pay our costs to reproduce the data. Fees can be waived if doing Government work

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Metadata Reference Information:

Metadata date: 07/13/2011
Metadata review date: 06/29/2010
Metadata review date: 07/07/2009
Metadata review date: 08/22/2001
Metadata review date: 10/03/2005
Metadata review date: 01/04/2007
Metadata review date: 07/16/2007
Metadata contact:
  Thomas Patton
  Program Leader, Montana Ground-Water Assessment Program
  Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology
  1300 West Park Street
  Butte, MT 59701
  Telephone: (406) 496-4153
  E-Mail: tpatton@mtech.edu

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