Other ISGS Preliminary Environmental Site Assessments Projects

Since 2001, the Environmental Site Assessments Section has been creating GIS coverages of existing tabular databases. The resulting coverages will greatly improve the accuracy and productivity of the data users by improving data confidence and ease of use. These efforts are ongoing and will be for some time. Ultimately, we hope to be able to share the resulting coverages with other agencies (federal, state, or municipal) as well as the general public. These coverages include:

• US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) CERCLIS database (Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Information System (Superfund)) - creating an ESA Section polygon coverage
• Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) Landfill database creating an ESA Section polygon coverage (see example discussed below)
• Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) Bureau of Land LUST database (Leaking Underground Storage Tank program) - creating an ESA Section point coverage
• IEPA Bureau of Land FMGP database (Former Manufactured Gas Plant list) - creating an ESA Section polygon coverage

Each coverage has documented the procedures taken to verify the locations of the database entries. As each of these databases was created for a different purpose, the process necessary to verify the locations also differed. Consequently, each of these mapping efforts is quite separate from one another.

An example is shown in the image to the left. In the original IDNR database a landfill location was mapped as the northwest quadrant of a certain section in a given township and range. In the diagram, the green lines depict the section boundaries and the red dot depicts the landfill location plotted by a default process in the center of the quarter-section. A review of state and local records, a visit to the site, and interpretations of aerial photographs resulted in a mapped definitive location of the landfill, the purple quadrangle in the southeast quadrant of the section. In this example, not only we were able to determine a more precise location but we also improved data confidence by adding and documenting corrections. Comparable mapping results are occurring in each of the mapping efforts.

ESA Section contacts:
      CERCLIS database: Mark Yacucci
      IDNR Landfill database: Mark Collier
      IEPA-LUST database: Scott Ellis
      IEPA-FMGP-list mapping efforts: Jim Geiger

Updated 04/21/2010 SLD