Environmental Agency Use Scenarios

This page represents our understanding and approach to serving a state or federal environmental agency. The orientation of this section is toward use of the data derived from the Cleanup Site Map Service, and is separate from the duty of an agency's Data Manager participating in the transfer data to this Cleanup Site Map Service.

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Defining the Agency User

State and federal agencies are reasonably standardized in their approach to serving their agency's mission. Broadly agency's cleanup duties are defined within departments. The departments offer various programs including those like fuel tank cleanup, voluntary cleanup sites or landfills oversight. Most departments are supported by information services that provide both internal data management and web services to the public.

The CSMS provides an opportunity to support the interest of multiple agencies that have responsibilities that overlap geographically. A federal-state overlap is represented by the federal Superfund data and how it would overlap a state coverage (e.g. California's Envirostor listings). A state-state overlap also is common as different programs have different data sets, exemplified by New Jersey's eight separate data sets captured in this service. Another challenge is capturing the multiple agency oversight that one facility may enjoy, a scenario typical on federal Superfund and RCRA Corrective Action sites, but equally not atypical at the state level.

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Environmental Agency Users by Program

The application of the Cleanup Site Map Service varies by departmental purpose. This outlines several departments and represents their varied objectives.

Cleanup Program:

Brownfield Program:

Overview of CSMS to Federal and State Datasets
(Click to Enlarge)

Information Services Program: Broadly this department serves to capture an agency's cleanup sites data and then allow its use. As the agency seeks to serve complex public needs, at times an agency would wish to consolidate data held by other state and federal agencies where their coverage overlaps that of the other agencies. The CSMS permits selecting datasets and then filtering the content to compliment an agency's own data in order to make a complete service.

Support the FOIA requests made to the agencies in order to streamline its fulfillment.

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Adapting Share Tools to Environmental Agencies

This section represents general application scenarios of the Cleanup Site Map Service. The scenarios capture a department, a technology assumption, and an objective.

Google Map to Display UECA Registry or Environmental Covenants:
Web service to Compliment Agency Map Presentation with Data from Other Agencies.

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Agency Outreach

As the project's design seeks to serve state agencies with a tool to support their own information initiatives, the critique offered by agency associations has benefited the project.

Association of State and Territorial Solid Waste Management Officials (ASTSWMO):This project has enjoyed the attention and counsel of the Long Term Stewardship Focus Group and State Superfund Focus Group. Both Focus Groups are within ASTSWMO's CERCLA and Brownfields Research Center. The mission of the Long Term Stewardship Focus Group is to facilitate and promote State/Territorial implementation of reliable, effective, and protective long term stewardship at contaminated sites, to include identification of the resources necessary to conduct long term stewardship activities, as well as development and communication of State program strategies to promote effective communication among interested parties regarding institutional controls and long term stewardship. The mission of the State Superfund Focus Group is to research issues associated with the remediation of hazardous substances at State and federal Superfund sites and the infrastructure development needs of these State programs. Numerous project presentations have been held with these Focus Groups and the CERCLA and Brownfields Research Center.

Interstate Technology & Regulatory Council (ITRC):This service was reviewed and critiqued within the ITRC's December 2008 document Technology Overview: An Overview of Land Use Control Management Systems.