ENV-05-192 Automating Groundwater Compliance Reporting

Description:

Many petrochemical facilities are required to conduct routine groundwater sampling and remedial monitoring activities to maintain compliance with corrective action plans and environmental permits. These routine activities generally require the collection and recording of a large volume of field data, such as, water levels, free product thicknesses, recovered volumes of fluids, sample information, site conditions, and health and safety information. The field data must be recorded accurately to maintain compliance and to ensure proper decision making regarding operation and maintenance of remedial systems. Typically the approach to field data collection involves manual recording of the data in hard copy followed by manual transcription of the data into a computer database where it can finally be accessed by an environmental manager. The use of hard copy tends to be error prone and the input step causes delays in getting the information to decision makers. Recognizing these problems and inefficiencies in the standard approach, Weston developed and has implemented a field portable electronic data management system that eliminates many of the errors and puts the data into the hands of the decision makers in a timely manner. The facilities where this system has been implemented have recognized a significant hard dollar cost savings. In this paper, we describe the field portable electronic data management system.