Site assessment and decommissioning of a former petroleum refinery including defining contamination of low-level radionuclide concentrations present in a large waste pit. The cost of removing and shipping all the potentially radioactive soil to a low-level off-site storage facility, several states away, approached several millions of dollars. A new approach was developed in an attempt to reduce costs for the excavations using ArcView GIS, global positioning systems, and radiation survey equipment. This new approach allowed for a more accurate estimate of contaminated soil to be calculated, a reduction in hazardous material to be shipped off-site, and reduced overall cost. This paper will review the previous processes utilized and demonstrate how the new process, developed with ArcView GIS, Avenue, GPS, and radiation equipment, has allowed for a better, more accurate decommissioning effort. The site assessment portion of the decommissioning has been more fully automated through ArcView GIS and Avenue scripts. This user-friendly application allowed health physics technicians (inexperienced GIS users) to focus on interpreting data and not learning GIS.