Northwest Indiana, being a geographic priority area for the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM), was used for the initial project. This region has many complicated environmental issues. For example, it is not uncommon to find a contaminated site next to critical habitat containing rare, threatened or endangered species. In this highly concentrated industrial area, GIS proved to be an excellent analytical tool to determine which facilities have the greatest potential of causing harm to sensitive habitat.
On the other hand, this region also supports over 14,000 acres that have been preserved in the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, Indiana Dunes State Park and other protected land holdings. These high quality communities not only serve as shelter and breeding sites for the region's rare, threatened and endangered species but also serve as a sanctuary of incredible biological diversity.
ArcView was used to bring these two extremes together for analysis. Coverages of regulated facilities was created by collecting existing coordinates, geocoding and using global positioning systems (GPS). Coverages for sensitive habitats were created from existing datasets. Using ArcView the sensitive habitats were buffered. Regulated facilities that fell within these buffer zones were identified for further analysis.
First, existing sources for coordinates were researched. EPA databases and paper files were reviewed. This process delivered coordinates primarily for Treatment Storage and Disposal facilities with some Large Quantity Generator coordinates also collected. A majority of the coordinates retrieved did not have accompanying data describing the method, accuracy or description of the points.
Next, all active records in the Hazardous Waste Notifier database were geocoded using ArcView. For facilities with duplicate coordinates after this step, the geocoded coordinate would be used over a coordinate with no metadata. After the geocoding was complete, coordinates for approximately 50% of the hazardous waste handlers were identified.
Currently, results from US EPA's Locational Data Improvement Project are available. This massive geocoding project filled in the gaps for many missing facility coordinates. Also, in an attempt to collect more facility coordinates and increase the accuracy of questionable coordinates, hazardous waste compliance inspectors have been trained with hand held GPS units. With post-processing, the GPS data will yield an accuracy of two to five meters as compared to roughly one hundred meters from IDEM's geocoded data. The use of GPS units will be used for facilities with no coordinates, new notifiers, complaints and other environmental incidents that could have future significance.
The databases in this project were used initially to indicate detections . Once a particular hazardous substance of concern is detected, additional data fields were analyzed regarding how the substance was treated or to what medium it was released. The Hazardous Waste Data Analysis section is responsible for collecting Hazardous Waste Biennial Reports and Hazardous Waste Manifests, therefore; these two datasets played a key role in this project. The facility data that was analyzed in ArcView includes spills, hazardous waste manifest, biennial reports, Toxic Release Inventory (TRI), Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), and the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA).
All databases except Manifest Tracking can all be accessed through US EPA Envirofacts Warehouse http://www.epa.gov. The data is maintained in different program areas, based on the regulation that mandated the data collection. For example, data from the Clean Water Act is managed separate from CERCLA data. This creates many challenges for data integration. The major problem is linking a company's environmental data across program areas. The reason for this difficulty is that all program areas use different identification numbers. The Facility Identification Notification System (FINDS) is a database maintained by EPA that reconciles facility records to issue a single identification number that cross references the program areas. Indiana is fortunate because activities that are regulated by our state and not reported to EPA are also reconciled and stored in FINDS. Although there has been a lapse of inputting the state data, FINDS is still the key to multimedia analysis. IDEM is currently investigating the viability of an integrated computer system at the state level through the Office of Information Technology.
Once data integration was complete, the multimedia facility pictures were overlayed with sensitive habitat data which consists of wetlands, federally and state managed natural areas, and habitat priority sites of acquisition. This sensitive habitat was given a 1/4 mile buffer. Facilities that fell within three or more of these buffer zones were then selected for further analysis. The above mentioned regulatory databases were searched and compared against data from the Office of Water Management fish tissue and sediment toxicity analysis.
In Northwest Indiana, a committee was appointed to work alongside IDEM staff in the remedial action planning process. This committee, called Care (Citizens' Advisory for the Remediation of the Environment) is composed of representatives from environmental organizations, industries and municipalities. Many steps have been taken to facilitate access to IDEM's GIS coverages for the Care Committee. Numerous presentations have been given and GIS training was sponsored by IDEM to enhance the co-participators' ability to analyze data for the remedial action plan.