Abstract

GIS For Environmental Inspections and Assessments
Track: Petroleum
Authors: Debora Periard, Ken Kaiser, Brian Coolidge, Kelli Nelson, Sarah Ringstaff

On July 26, 2010, approximately 843,444 gallons of crude oil was released from a leak in Line 6B of Enbridge Energy Partners Lakehead System near Marshall, Michigan. The release flowed into Talmadge Creek, and then downstream into the Kalamazoo River to where it was contained approximately 40 miles downstream from the leak site.
ArcGIS was actively used in order to respond, assess, and evaluate the condition of the river and the subsequent cleanup efforts. In the Spring of 2011, Enbridge deployed Trimble Yuma tablets, along with customized Arcpad forms for a re-assessment of the entire 40 mile length of river that had been affected. This re-assessment, otherwise known as a Surface and Overbank Reassessment Technique (SORT), utilized the detailed custom Arcpad forms, to collect standardized pre-defined data across teams, for easy integration into the main geodatabase nightly, with a set of river maps ready for review the next morning