The BRAC Environmental Office is tasked with the mission of evaluation and (where needed) restoration of contaminated sites on Fort Devens and with accelerating the process of transition and reuse. Regulatory agencies (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) and Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MA DEP)) have established GIS. Fort Devens' implementation of GIS (ArcInfo 7.0.3 and ArcView 2.1 on a Sun SPARC 20 under Solaris 2.4) started in 1994 and built on data sets based on the US Army Environmental Center's (USAEC) Installation Restoration Defense Management Information System (IRDMIS) system, Army contractor .dxfs, and geospatial data sets of the MADEP, EPA, and MassGIS. Sample GIS uses include: -query and analysis of the 324 SA and AREE sites on the basis of over 65 fields (including USTs, contaminants, related documents, and accomplished remedial actions), re-use planning, including Army Reserve Enclave and other federal uses, siting issues, natural resource mapping, and re-use parcelization using COGO. The goal of the BRAC Environmental GIS is to give the BRAC Environmental Coordinator and the Base Commander on-demand, real-time, tactical display of the current environmental status of the restoration and re-use of Fort Devens. Data collected on this system forms the basis for planning decisions during restoration and management by the reuse authority after transfer.
PRIMARY HEADING Fort Devens was the primary Army facility for New England for 79 years. This location trained and supported as many as 65000 troops at one time. Fort Devens trained and supported troops for WW I, WW II, Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Grenada, and Kuwait operations. This post was one of the operation bases for 10th Group Special Forces and the US Army Intelligence School was a major tenant Three separate infrastructures have occupied the base's 10000 acres in the military history of the base: WW I structures were largely replaced by W.W.II structures which were partly replaced by modern structures. As an example of what this means: what was a hospital in W.W.I became motor pools and barracks in W.W.II and became an Intelligence, Nuclear Biological and Chemical Warfare training (NBC) school, and open fields by 1991. Environmental concerns resulting from many years of military uses range from ordnance, to Underground Storage Tanks (USTs) to organic and inorganic contaminants in soil, surface water, ground water, and sediments. 76 sites were identified as Superfund clean-up sites in 1991. BRAC environmental evaluations and newly discovered sites added an additional 248 sites. Ordnance archive searches identified 26 additional areas for investigation. In 1993 the Department of Defense (DoD) initiated the BRAC Cleanup Plan implementing President Clinton's decision to promote early reuse of closing bases by expediting environmental restoration. As more environmental evaluation and restoration sites were added and classified by different operational scheme, it became apparent that, in order to implement efficient data management, all the information needed to be geospatially related. The fast track to re- use mandates better, faster decisions and therefore quicker access to all the data needed to make those decisions. The BRAC Environmental Coordinator needs real time analysis of alternatives to implement faster, more appropriate and cost-effective environmental restoration solutions. GIS is the tool that can keep track of all of the elements of the clean-up and closure process and deliver rapid geospatial analysis. Analysis In January of 1994 the BRAC Environmental Coordinator (BEC) position was established at Fort Devens. The BEC started with office space, desks, Everex, NCR and Zenith x286 and x386 computers, an environmental specialist, rolls of maps and boxes of reports and loose hardcopy data. Working through a General Services Administration the BEC struck a Task Order to procure personnel and resources to build the BRAC Environmental Data Base. The contract scoped performance of systems and application requirements definition, implementation, and maintenance. Milestones included: 1. Review of Existing Documentation 2. Software/Hardware specification. 3. Testing. 4. Evaluation 5. Data Gathering and Implementation. 6. Quarterly Reporting. Fort Devens was responsible for furnishing all equipment in the project. The contract provided a Senior Programmer/Analyst and a Technical Writer. The task was initiated on 2 June 1994. By 1 July the existing documentation was in order, networked x386 and x486 computers working with Access v.2 for the initiation of data gathering, and the Hardware/Software specification was written for the GIS. The Hardware/Software specified was a Sun SPARC 20 with 32 MB RAM, 2GB HD (later expanded to 12GB total capacity), CD ROM, 8MM Tape Drive, and a HP 650C plotter. The UNIX operating system was initially Solaris 2.1 (later 2.4) running ArcInfo 6.1.1 (later upgraded to 7.0.3). Major Hardware and Software were obtained through the NAVFAC CAD-2 contract through Team Cordant. The Plotter was obtained through a local contract. Hardware and Software arrived between October and December 1994 and the GIS was up and running for Christmas. Basic geospatial Data on Fort Devens was obtained from several sources: MassGIS provided data through the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, Central Region. The MADEP Central Region also provided basic coverages it had developed including roads, buildings, Site Assessment locations, Underground Storage Tanks, Spill Sites, digital ortho photos, and .amls. US EPA, Region I provided other coverages, annotation and help with initial set-up and troubleshooting. IRDMIS data was provided by USAEC Aberdeen. E-size Scanning and technical assistance came from ACE NED. Army contractors including E&E, ADL, HFA, ENSR, VHB and ABB provided .e00, .dxf and .dbf files. All provided layers have been scrutinized, compared, ground-truthed, and updated with the latest information to provide the most current and accurate information available on Fort Devens. Application of GIS at Fort Devens Two initial exercises with the GIS proved the worth of the system. The first involved layering proposed reuse parcels on areas of environmental concern which helped decision makers to visualize and rapidly prioritize clean-up scheduling to facilitate reuse. In the second application the BRAC EO exported .dxfs of roads, buildings, wetlands, and topography to Human Factors Applications (an Army contractor) HFA to expedite ordnance survey and clearance work critical to early reuse. The BEC then worked with the military police to develop operations area buffer zones, road block locations, and evacuation zones allowing for rapid identification, notification, assessment and clearance as well as minimization of disruptions to normal daily activities. Maps provided hard copy to Military Police, material for briefings, and press release material. This second application proved the worth of the system to the command structure and spread awareness of GIS suitability for non-environmental operations on post. Some of the most important uses of the GIS at Fort Devens have included the following: 1. Allowing sharing of coverages between agencies (ARMY, EPA, DEP) so that the Army and the regulators can share a common visualization of the data. 2. Sharing of coverage information with Army Contractors so that all parties use the same base layer information. 3. Cooperatively providing digital and hard copy information to the Mass. Development Finance Agency (MFDA)/Mass. Govt. Land Bank (MGLB) to allow them to proceed with planning and implementation of reuse. 4. Using TIN to develop models and visualization tools to explain complex issues for command briefings and the public. 5. Using COGO to develop a map and property descriptions of leasable and transferable parcels to implement the EBS FOST FOSL process. Lessons Learned: Put planning tools in place before planning begins. GIS was implemented at Fort Devens 5 years after the base was put on the NPL. This put the Army at a significant disadvantage for data access and analysis relative to the regulators who implemented GIS much earlier. Report/process nomenclature and data standards need to be agreed to and mechanisms for data exchange need to be worked out before the process is in full swing. Institutional knowledge. Early implementation of the GIS allows the system to capture as much institutional knowledge, files and other data as possible. This problem is especially acute at base closures where personnel and informtion tend to rapidly dissipate after closure notification. Implement high accuracy digital orthophotos and base mappping up front. The initial cost of high resolution coverages is high but the accuracy will be needed eventually. Ft. Devens has now gone through 3 versions of digital base map. The original was digitized from line drawings and has random +/- 150' errors. The second digital basemap (digitized by MADEP's contractor AGI) has general +/- 2 meter accuracy with no measured error greater than 47 feet. The latest base map has been developed for MFDA/MGLB by Sewall, this map has +/- 1 foot accuracy and is the basemap standard for the future. All parties should use the same system. At Fort Devens all the baseline information for the Fort and surrounding communities was available in MassGIS ArcInfo coverages. The pre-existing data files from MADEP and EPA made the choice of workstation ArcInfo mandatory. Tri-Service Standard is great to insure compatibility but it is not nearly as nice as just cutting a tape that can be dropped in a complimentary system. This applies to the Army, regulators, contractors, and the reuse authority. Reuse planners need to start with GIS not add it on. In the transfer process, planners need to take the data developed by the base environmental specialists and regulators and temper their plans with all the known facts about the site. This is best taken on in-house by an on-site full time GIS. Planning without geospatial analysis results in wasted effort, shifting priorities, and last minute changes. The uses for the tools will rapidly grow to exceed the capacity of the system. As more people in the process realize that 80% of their data has a geographic component, they will want to integrate it into the GIS. A good plan for this is workstation ArcINFO coupled with networked ArcView machines. Our approach was to implement a user friendly Mac 8500 workstation with AV. We have already proved the worth of GIS to non- environmental operations. As the Devens Reserve Forces Training Area mission grows the Fort Devens environmental restoration concerns will go away. The GIS can effectively be utilized to support the mission of the DRFTA in environmental compliance and other areas. Successful implementation rests on decision maker understanding of data visualization. Education about thinking of layers of information and geospatial information linking is critical. Demonstrations of capabilities is important. Putting the project in perspective and in terms that your audience can relate to is important (calling in GIS is like calling in artillery, scope it out, fire for effect, call in corrections). Sell your project as an answer to needs and a solution to problems. Your GIS is about linkage it links information, location, people, ideas, platforms, software, perspectives. Plan for as many links as possible and be prepared to add new ones. Successful implementation depends on a team approach. A GIS team (in-house or contract) should be familiar with the base, the information, and the clients needs for information. The system needs to be reality checked on a regular basis. Prepare for future uses as you go. There are plenty of environmental compliance areas that GIS is the perfect tool for. Environmental Compliance AR 200-1, Environmental Restoration DERP, Natural and Cultural Resources Management AR 420-784 AR 420-40 AR420-76, Environmental Consideration and Documentation AR 200-2 and NEPA. Remember that GIS is a strategic and tactical planning tool. The Environmental Office GIS can be the base Commander's tactical display of the current Environmental Management Situation on the base and any satellite properties. Data sharing with Major Commands provides MACOM with information needed at that level. CONCLUSION This is a cookbook approach to how ArcInfo GIS was applied to Superfund and BRAC Environmental Evaluation and Restoration at Fort Devens, Massachusetts. Implementation of GIS can happen and is needed to manage the massive amount of information generated by the Superfund and BRAC process. The GIS can and should grow to become enterprise wide so it can act as a one-stop tactical situation display tool for command decisions. REFERENCES OR ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thanks for information and support to: Mark Applebee NED, Jim Byrne USEPA Matt Davis Esri, Ron DeFilippo BRAC EO, Darrell Deleppo NED, Beth Flynn AGI MADEP, Charlie George USAEC, Jenith Murphy Signal Corp., Nat Norton VHB, CAPT Gary Pease (formerly USAEC), Lynne Welsh MADEP. Esri, Enterprise GIS, Using GIS in the Corporate Environment. Esri White Paper Series, May 1993. Esri, System design Strategies, A Methodology for designing ArcInfo and ArcView Enterprise Environments. Esri White Paper Series, April 1995.