Use of Customized Relational Database in Management of Groundwater Quality Data, 2002 Environmental Conference Proceedings

V. Wojnar, K. Palecek, E. M. Foose

Paper mills that own and operate landfill disposal facilities are required to collect and evaluate groundwater quality data to demonstrate compliance with regulations. Groundwater monitoring and data evaluation requirements are specific to each state and landfill. Although programs for use in groundwater data evaluation are commercially available, none accommodate the variability in monitoring and reporting requirements. Typically, the process of data entry, evaluation, and reporting is divided into several software-based or manual tasks which can be labor intensive and often prone to errors. To simplify this process, the use of a customized relational database offers a solution. A customized database system allows the direct import of laboratory results in various formats, manual data entry, trapping of errors, validation of data, and checking for completeness with respect to sampling requirements. The system can be programmed to prepare time-concentration graphs and reports and perform statistical calculations. Other computer programs for graphing or statistical analyses can be directly linked to the database system, or specified data sets can be exported in many common formats for further processing. A groundwater quality data management system based on a relational database significantly improves the integrity of stored data, the efficiency of storing and evaluating data, speed of input, access to historical data, and reporting to regulatory agencies. The groundwater database can be linked to or be an integral part of a mill’s environmental management system.