diff --git a/R/importWaterML1.r b/R/importWaterML1.r
index 99ae24044d4172fd54289decbf797c3cb603cbf7..db842fc3706f4b04076b083b74f8172bf22435b1 100644
--- a/R/importWaterML1.r
+++ b/R/importWaterML1.r
@@ -5,6 +5,10 @@
 #'
 #' @param obs_url string containing the url for the retrieval
 #' @param asDateTime logical, if TRUE returns date and time as POSIXct, if FALSE, Date
+#' @param tz string to set timezone attribute of datetime. Default is an empty quote, which converts the 
+#' datetimes to UTC (properly accounting for daylight savings times based on the data's provided tz_cd column).
+#' Possible values to provide are "America/New_York","America/Chicago", "America/Denver","America/Los_Angeles",
+#' "America/Anchorage","America/Honolulu","America/Jamaica","America/Managua","America/Phoenix", and "America/Metlakatla"
 #' @return mergedDF a data frame containing columns agency, site, dateTime, values, and remark codes for all requested combinations
 #' @export
 #' @import XML
@@ -33,7 +37,7 @@
 #' fileName <- "WaterML1Example.xml"
 #' fullPath <- file.path(filePath, fileName)
 #' importUserWM1 <- importWaterML1(fullPath)
-importWaterML1 <- function(obs_url,asDateTime=FALSE){
+importWaterML1 <- function(obs_url,asDateTime=FALSE, tz=""){
   
   if(url.exists(obs_url)){
     doc = tryCatch({
@@ -59,6 +63,13 @@ importWaterML1 <- function(obs_url,asDateTime=FALSE){
     doc <- xmlTreeParse(obs_url, getDTD = FALSE, useInternalNodes = TRUE)
   }
   
+  if(tz != ""){
+    tz <- match.arg(tz, c("America/New_York","America/Chicago",
+                          "America/Denver","America/Los_Angeles",
+                          "America/Anchorage","America/Honolulu",
+                          "America/Jamaica","America/Managua",
+                          "America/Phoenix","America/Metlakatla"))
+  }
   
   doc <- xmlRoot(doc)
   ns <- xmlNamespaceDefinitions(doc, simplify = TRUE)  
@@ -105,6 +116,11 @@ importWaterML1 <- function(obs_url,asDateTime=FALSE){
         tzAbbriev <- as.character(zoneAbbrievs[tzHoursOff])
   
         datetime <- datetime - tzHours*60*60
+        
+        if(tz != ""){
+          attr(datetime, "tzone") <- tz
+        }
+        
       } else {
         datetime <- as.Date(strptime(xpathSApply(subChunk, "ns1:value/@dateTime",namespaces = chunkNS),"%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S"))
       }
diff --git a/R/importWaterML2.r b/R/importWaterML2.r
index 9d414ab32b7db8e649d28de157bdc7753c0e617c..d572e04ce6a2ead384f841dafc8a8ddc016410b5 100644
--- a/R/importWaterML2.r
+++ b/R/importWaterML2.r
@@ -4,6 +4,10 @@
 #'
 #' @param obs_url string containing the url for the retrieval
 #' @param asDateTime logical, if TRUE returns date and time as POSIXct, if FALSE, Date
+#' @param tz string to set timezone attribute of datetime. Default is an empty quote, which converts the 
+#' datetimes to UTC (properly accounting for daylight savings times based on the data's provided tz_cd column).
+#' Possible values to provide are "America/New_York","America/Chicago", "America/Denver","America/Los_Angeles",
+#' "America/Anchorage","America/Honolulu","America/Jamaica","America/Managua","America/Phoenix", and "America/Metlakatla"
 #' @return mergedDF a data frame containing columns agency, site, dateTime, values, and remark codes for all requested combinations
 #' @export
 #' @import XML
@@ -35,7 +39,7 @@
 #' fullPath <- file.path(filePath, fileName)
 #' UserData <- importWaterML2(fullPath)
 #' }
-importWaterML2 <- function(obs_url, asDateTime=FALSE){
+importWaterML2 <- function(obs_url, asDateTime=FALSE, tz=""){
   
   if(url.exists(obs_url)){
     doc = tryCatch({
@@ -62,6 +66,14 @@ importWaterML2 <- function(obs_url, asDateTime=FALSE){
     doc <- xmlTreeParse(obs_url, getDTD = FALSE, useInternalNodes = TRUE)
   }
   
+  if(tz != ""){
+    tz <- match.arg(tz, c("America/New_York","America/Chicago",
+                          "America/Denver","America/Los_Angeles",
+                          "America/Anchorage","America/Honolulu",
+                          "America/Jamaica","America/Managua",
+                          "America/Phoenix","America/Metlakatla"))
+  }
+  
   doc <- xmlRoot(doc)
   
   ns <- xmlNamespaceDefinitions(doc, simplify = TRUE)  
@@ -101,6 +113,11 @@ importWaterML2 <- function(obs_url, asDateTime=FALSE){
                                          as.POSIXct(DF2$time, format="%Y-%m-%dT%H%M%S",tz="UTC"))
       
       DF2$time <- as.POSIXct(DF2$time, origin = "1970-01-01", tz="UTC")
+      
+      if(tz != ""){
+        attr(DF2$time, "tzone") <- tz
+      }
+      
     } else {
       DF2$time <- as.Date(DF2$time)
     }
diff --git a/man/importWaterML1.Rd b/man/importWaterML1.Rd
index 89affbe2b90d764d94ae39d43a20a6e3c86d65fa..f2602018d474303b013e55b2322e47a35b7cc1f8 100644
--- a/man/importWaterML1.Rd
+++ b/man/importWaterML1.Rd
@@ -3,12 +3,17 @@
 \alias{importWaterML1}
 \title{Function to return data from the NWISWeb WaterML1.1 service}
 \usage{
-importWaterML1(obs_url, asDateTime = FALSE)
+importWaterML1(obs_url, asDateTime = FALSE, tz = "")
 }
 \arguments{
 \item{obs_url}{string containing the url for the retrieval}
 
 \item{asDateTime}{logical, if TRUE returns date and time as POSIXct, if FALSE, Date}
+
+\item{tz}{string to set timezone attribute of datetime. Default is an empty quote, which converts the
+datetimes to UTC (properly accounting for daylight savings times based on the data's provided tz_cd column).
+Possible values to provide are "America/New_York","America/Chicago", "America/Denver","America/Los_Angeles",
+"America/Anchorage","America/Honolulu","America/Jamaica","America/Managua","America/Phoenix", and "America/Metlakatla"}
 }
 \value{
 mergedDF a data frame containing columns agency, site, dateTime, values, and remark codes for all requested combinations
diff --git a/man/importWaterML2.Rd b/man/importWaterML2.Rd
index 17f04c3fdf48c255e4e61c105a9966d740b62350..bf77757ed241a1f019eaf57dbd8682fd44e7c321 100644
--- a/man/importWaterML2.Rd
+++ b/man/importWaterML2.Rd
@@ -3,12 +3,17 @@
 \alias{importWaterML2}
 \title{Function to return data from the WaterML2 data}
 \usage{
-importWaterML2(obs_url, asDateTime = FALSE)
+importWaterML2(obs_url, asDateTime = FALSE, tz = "")
 }
 \arguments{
 \item{obs_url}{string containing the url for the retrieval}
 
 \item{asDateTime}{logical, if TRUE returns date and time as POSIXct, if FALSE, Date}
+
+\item{tz}{string to set timezone attribute of datetime. Default is an empty quote, which converts the
+datetimes to UTC (properly accounting for daylight savings times based on the data's provided tz_cd column).
+Possible values to provide are "America/New_York","America/Chicago", "America/Denver","America/Los_Angeles",
+"America/Anchorage","America/Honolulu","America/Jamaica","America/Managua","America/Phoenix", and "America/Metlakatla"}
 }
 \value{
 mergedDF a data frame containing columns agency, site, dateTime, values, and remark codes for all requested combinations