Roger U. Koelpin, Irvin A. Goldblatt
GIS development in the Hazardous Waste Geology Section, Office of Solid and
Hazardous Waste Management, Indiana Department of Environmental Management
Abstract:
This paper summarizes GIS development in the Hazardous Waste Geology Section, Office of
Solid and Hazardous Waste Management, Indiana Department of Environmental Management.
The project is funded annually by the US EPA to facilitate the clean-up of Northwest Indiana
which is designated as one of 43 Areas Of Concern around the Great Lakes by the International
Joint Commission pursuant to the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement between the US and
Canada. In 1991 technical staff formally began development of data management processes to
quantify the current state of the environment, share this information with various stake holders,
begin measurement of progress and assist in formulation of long term stewardship roles and
objectives. The conceptual model for GIS development began as site-specific efforts for an
integrated steel mill and a closed hazardous waste landfill in the region. The scope of the project
has grown to a regional scale and crosses program boundaries to meet the complexities of the
region. This Area of Concern is drained by both the Grand Calumet River and the Indiana
Harbor Canal, and comprises the southern shore of Lake Michigan. The landscape was formed
by coastal processes associated with Lake Michigan and it's predecessors through glacial time
and over the last century has become heavily industrialized with classic smoke-stack industries.
However, even this heavily industrialized urban setting provides many isolated, relatively
undisturbed areas that remain habitats for several rare, threatened and endangered species. GIS
and global positioning system technologies are used to better document the spatial and physical
relationships between regulated and protected entities. Also, our list of customers for GIS
support has spread beyond our own geology work unit, across the office and agency, into other
state and federal agencies, and into the private sector. The expectations of both the project and
staff are evolving as new insights and partnerships are realized.
Introduction:
This paper summarizes GIS development in the Hazardous Waste Geology Section, Office of
Solid and Hazardous Waste Management, Indiana Department of Environmental Management.
However, the views presented in this paper do not necessarily reflect the views of the agency.
This project is funded annually by the US EPA to facilitate the clean-up of Lake, Porter and
LaPorte counties, Northwest Indiana, which was designated as one of 43 Areas Of Concern
around the Great Lakes by the International Joint Commission pursuant to the Great Lakes Water
Quality Agreement between the US and Canada. Designation as an area of concern facilitates
the interaction between all involved to design long term consensus-based plans to minimize an
area's impact on the Great Lakes. Funding for the project is through the Great Lakes Initiative
Program Element of EPA's annual Resource Conservation and Recovery Act 3011 grant to the
Indiana Department of Environmental Management.
In 1993 technical staff formally began development of data management processes to quantify
the current state of the environment in Northwest Indiana. Geology staff started with putting
together the potential contaminant migration pathways between sources (regulated facilities) and
possible receptors. Subsequent objectives include predicting the outcomes of various remedial
scenarios. Many components of the conceptual environmental model were available from a
variety of sources but most of the data sets were limited in extent to the property boundaries of
the regulated facilities. The first order of business was to combine the site-specific digital data
sets compiled by others.
Early Data Management Efforts:
Data management quickly became a non-trivial task when staff began assembling the
information needed to answer regional questions and when the effort needed to keep the
information current was recognized. For example: Region V had digitized groundwater
monitoring data in an earlier effort. Roughly two years of groundwater quality monitoring data
from 1500 wells, for 58 facilities was entered into EPA's site-specific Groundwater Information
Tracking System (GRITS). Omissions occurred because of funding and timeliness issues.
Omissions included most of the data collected by facilities since the early eighties, on a
semi-annual or quarterly basis; and, results from the over 100 wells in the United States
Geological
Survey monitoring network. Even with the reduced dataset, EPA's data entry took over a year.
When IDEM combined the GRITS groundwater chemistry data for the facilities we wound up
with a 152,000 record table.
It was apparent that another approach, beyond the desktop PC, was needed to manage the large
environmental datasets for the region and the state. Fortunately, IDEM had come to this
conclusion for corporate data management at about the same time, installation of an agency
network was in progress and establishment of a client-server environment was under way. Most
importantly, funding was also available to acquire the agency resources needed to develop and
support the client-server environment. The network allowed us to provide all staff with access to
datasets located on servers, and to get feedback from customers within the agency on needed
applications. Also, the promise of "shared" data and expanded internal customer lists has like
groups working together to design more universal data structures.
Organizational models for the GIS began as site-specific efforts for an integrated steel mill and a
closed hazardous waste landfill in the region. The steel mill occupies seven miles of Lake
Michigan shoreline and is bounded to the south by the Grand Calumet River. Regional mapping
began at this steel mill to keep track of the planning for an EPA action that requires the mill to
characterize and remediate the river. Remediation of the river is being sought because the river
sediments physically and chemically resemble asphalt driveway sealer. The extent of the
characterization and potential extent of the remediation goes westward to the Illinois/Indiana
border, and northward to the river's outlet via the Indiana Harbor Canal, to Lake Michigan.
However, the banks of the river are dotted with other parties that could have contributed to
present state of the river and/or could contribute to the remediation.
At a closed landfill fifteen miles southeast of the steel mill we learned that locational data could
be just as important as analytical data. In 1990 IDEM conducted a complaint investigation to
determine whether domestic water wells near the landfill were unfit for human use. Some wells
tested did exceed the primary drinking water standard for barium. At first, the proximity of the
landfill to the contaminated wells made it a strong candidate as the source of the problems. In
1991 IDEM conducted another investigation to determine the cause of the elevated barium in the
wells. This time a much wider sampling network was tested. The 1990 effort was focused on
the area from which the complaints were coming. The more recent effort sought to surround the
landfill with sampling points and to sample only wells that had reliable x, y, z locations, drilling
logs and completion information.
The ability to accurately associate a variety of attributes to each sampling location proved
invaluable. Analysis of the 1991 sampling showed an association between two geologic units
that produce water and elevated levels of barium; and dismissed the apparent link between
proximity to the landfill and water quality. All wells that were completed in shallow (less than
50 feet deep) glacio-lacustrine sands were untainted. Only some deep wells were producing
objectionable water. Untainted deep wells were completed in the few feet of thick sands on top
of bedrock. The contaminated wells were deep completions in either the bedrock or very thin
sands on top of the bedrock. Tainted waters also exhibited chemical attributes common to
ancient brines believed to be indigenous to the aquifer, trapped in the bedrock since it's genesis
over 300,000,000 years ago. Subsequent tritium dating established that the tainted waters
predate the landfill, making the landfill a very unlikely source.
GIS type displays were central in building the consensus needed to solve the problem. All
stakeholders had to be brought together and educated about the other's concerns before
discussions of possible solutions could begin. Representatives of the prospective municipality
that would become the supplier, residents, the local water conservancy and potential funding
agencies like the Indiana Department of Commerce were brought together to discuss options.
The landfill was also included because they were willing to contribute to obtain sewerage for
their leachate. A consensus was reached after many public meetings that relied on GIS derived
data to display our findings and subsequent "plumbing" scenarios. Ultimately, a plan was
developed and funded with private, state and federal monies to provide public water to most of
the affected residents. For others, it was found that water softeners adequately reduced the levels
of barium. The landfill study and resolution clearly showed the diverse needs and uses for
data.
Complexities in Northwest Indiana:
The scope of the Northwest Indiana project crosses both legislative and physical program
boundaries. Legislatively, IDEM and EPA authorities include the Clean Air Act, Clean Water
Act, Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act and the Toxic Substances Control Act. Further study of the
mapped facilities and potentially impacted areas showed that several other agencies including the
US Fish & Wildlife Service and the US Army Corps of Engineers, have interests in the region
that are defined by their respective enabling legislation. Also, a primary tenet of the remedial
planning process is the inclusion of local government, citizens and local environmental advocacy
groups. None of these programs or groups can afford to unilaterally redevelop the entire dataset,
so again, effective data management becomes a major issue. To this end, all state and federal
units joining the project are standardizing on Esri products to assure transferability of the data
between work units.
The offices and programs also overlap because of the interconnection between air, surface water
and groundwater. The Northwest Indiana Area of Concern is drained by both the Grand Calumet
River and the Indiana Harbor Canal, and comprises the southern shore of Lake Michigan. The
landscape was formed by coastal processes associated with Lake Michigan and it's predecessors
through glacial time. The surficial materials are sandy and very permeable. Over the last
century the area has become heavily industrialized with classic smoke-stack industries. Past and
present practices have complex environmental ramifications. Even clean-ups can become new
sources of contaminants in other media through spills, runoff, volatilization or fugitive dust, or
they can become new generators of wastes that must be either managed, transported, treated,
stored or disposed.
However, this industrialized urban setting does provide many isolated, relatively undisturbed,
sensitive areas that remain habitats for rare, threatened and endangered species. The shoreline
setting provides natural protective barriers and shelters in the dune and swale topography. The
region has a large number of local, state and federal managed areas, including the Dunes
National Lakeshore. The richness of the managed and the many unmanaged sensitive areas is
recorded in the National Heritage Foundation's inventory, which includes habitat locations for
the rare, threatened and endangered species. In short, any area that has not been leveled for
development has remained relatively insulated from historical stresses and now has a high
potential for protection or restoration to a more pristine state.
Global Positioning System Applications:
Global positioning system technology is used in Northwest Indiana to determine spatial
relationships between regulated and protected entities. Staff is using GPS technology to
rehabilitate datasets that do not have locational data so that they may be included in our analyses.
We have used GPS to obtain locations for the 1500 wells in EPA's GRITS dataset for the region.
GPS is used to collect real-world coordinates for paper and digital facility maps so that they can
be rectified. Once the maps are transformed into real-world coordinates, then sampling points
and significant boundaries can be captured from the maps. This has allowed us to bring a
significant amount of groundwater quality data into our consideration of the potential impact that
facilities have on sensitive areas. A comparison between direct surveying of wells through
conventional and GPS methods, and our inferred locations is currently underway. Similar efforts
are beginning in other work units to extend the surveying effort to include regulated entities
across Indiana.
GIS Growth:
Other agencies are including locational information with their core databases, and as part of their
deliverables. For instance, domestic & municipal water well logs are being digitized for the
entire state. The Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Water Division, is roughly halfway
through their statewide effort to bring all of their well files into Paradox. Much of the historical
data and all of the current well logs include reliable locations. The Indiana Geological Survey is
also integrating reliable locational data for their reports, which are now almost all available on
CD ROM, with AUTOCAD or ArcInfo maps. The Indianapolis Office, Water Resources
Division of the United States Geological Survey is also beginning to provide their work products
in to us ArcInfo, for projects in Northwest Indiana.
Our list of customers for GIS support has spread beyond our own geology work unit, across the
office and agency, into other state and federal agencies, and into the private sector. The Great
Lakes Water Quality Agreement has spawned several coordinating committees and
subcommittees, all of which are now using Esri products. A multi-media data coordinating
committee has been established with a mission to develop and then provide GIS access to the
various committees. The various committees are comprised of representatives from pertinent
media Offices like Air Management, Water Management, and Solid and Hazardous Waste
Management. This was the first exposure to GIS for most work units outside of the Hazardous
Waste Geology Section.
GIS is well suited to the tasks for the cross-media work units involved in Northwest Indiana.
Since the inception of the multi-media data coordinating committee (MMDC) in early 1995,
sixteen new GIS users in four offices have come on-line. These users are developing data
pertaining to their individual working units, and making it available to the GIS. In turn, these
users have access to the datasets as they are being developed by peer working groups throughout
the agency. Interest in GIS is growing rapidly across the agency as individuals are able to see the
tools applied to their own worlds. Within the Office of Solid and Hazardous Waste alone, we
have another 25 copies of ARCVIEW currently on order.
New Roles Because of GIS:
The expectations of both the project and staff are evolving as new insights and partnerships are
realized because of GIS growth. In the Hazardous Waste Geology Section, we have observed a
few months lag time between the arrival of the first copy of ARCVIEW within a work unit, and
the spread of GIS through the work unit. The spread of GIS within a work unit is defined here as
conversion of the work unit's own data to GIS datasets in ArcInfo as coverages, or in
ARCVIEW as shapefiles. First staff become familiar with the tool by using ARCVIEW to
peruse coverages and data that already exist for Northwest Indiana. New dialogues begin
between the owners and users of datasets, defining new provider and client associations. Then,
additional tables unique to the work unit are related to existing coverages. Finally, we see the
work unit actually digitizing their own tabular and map data for Northwest Indiana which, in turn
becomes a feasibility test for application of the tool on a statewide scale, which leads to further
dialogue between another set of clients and providers. With each new round of dialogue,
renewed cooperation between working units begins, which includes reexamination of individual
goals for the working units that are involved. We are beginning to realize that with GIS we get
both a flexible tool and a dynamic process.
Summary:
GIS development in the Hazardous Waste Geology Section, for Northwest Indiana is discussed.
Geology staff was experienced with data management and mapping projects dealing with
site-specific concerns, but these projects were growing rapidly. At the same time, resources
became
available for development of regional data management systems to support a broad regional
environmental management initiative for Northwest Indiana. Staff began development of a GIS
to accommodate the regional initiatives, based on the lessons learned in previous site-specific
instances. Once the geology section began implementing the GIS for Northwest Indiana, the GIS
began to spread across the agency and to other agencies. As the GIS community has grown, we
have noticed several unanticipated benefits.
Author Information
Roger U. Koelpin
Indiana Department of Environmental Management
Office of Solid and Hazardous Waste Management
PO Box 6015
Indianapois, IN 46206-6015
Telephone (317)232-8726
Fax (317)232-6403
E-mail ruk@opn.dem.state.in.us
Irvin A. Goldblatt
Indiana Department of Environmental Management
MIS Division
PO Box 6015
Indianapois, IN 46206-6015
Telephone (317)233-3410
Fax (317)233-0778
E-mail igold@gw.dem.state.in.us