Common Filing Errors

The submission of groundwater and leachate monitoring data electronically has been very successful with 100% of all data submitted in an electronic format. As the system has evolved a few common mistakes keep turning up, some of which prevent the proper loading of the data. In order to further streamline the process and to help avoid creating errors that require a second submission or compliance issues, below is a list of the common errors encountered to assist you in preparing complete, error free files.

• Complete and correct facility ID Number. Records still come in with incomplete or incorrect facility ID numbers. When this occurs the data cannot be loaded and in some cases identification of the facility is not possible. The data from many facilities are combined into upload files making it difficult to back track to try and determine the proper facility to contact regarding the error.
• Proper spacing of both the 01 (header) and 02 (detail) records. It is imperative that the record spacing requirements are followed. When the spacing requirements are not met characters are shifted, often into locations resulting in an error. In those cases where an error is not detected, the improper spacing may result in an erroneous result in the value field. In addition, improper characters have appeared resulting in errors and rejection of the record in some cases.
• Missing Time of Collection and Monitoring Point Sampled By data. These fields need to contain data to avoid an error.
• Improper characters in the Background, Unable to Collect, Inorganic and Organic Field Filtering fields. When reporting a sample as a background sample or when the sample was field filtered for either the inorganic or organic parameters the proper character is an “X”. Any other character will result in an error. The Unable to Collect field, when appropriate, has a list of codes, depending on the circumstances, which are to be used. Any other character will result in an error.
• Results (02 record) submitted without a Header Record (01 record). All detail records must have a corresponding header record. The header record must have the same facility ID number, monitoring point designation and date of collection. Many detail records (02 records) have been received without a corresponding header record. When this occurs the results (detail records) are rejected when the system is unable to match the result to the corresponding header record. In some cases the date of collection in the header differs from the date of collection in the detail record. Also detail records have been received where some of the detail records have one date of collection and others have a differing date of collection.
• Use of the Lab Field and Missing Header Records. When a sample is split and sent to two or more labs the lab field is used to differentiate one lab from the other(s). No problems have been found with the use of the lab field other than a missing header record error. When reporting results for the second, and subsequent labs, a header record is required for the second or subsequent lab. Without a header record indicating Lab 2, for example, the detail records reported with a “2” in the lab field will be rejected. Refer to the item above for further discussion of the header record requirements.