Tag Archive for: Water Quality Data

WM Symposia 2018 provided an excellent showcase for Locus GIS+ in LANL’s Intellus website

At the annual WM Symposia, representatives from many different DOE sites and contractors gather once a year and discuss cross-cutting technologies and approaches for managing the legacy waste from the DOE complex.  This year, Locus’ customer Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) was the featured laboratory.  During their presentation, they discussed Locus GIS+, which powers Intellus, their public-facing environmental monitoring database website.

If you haven’t been to LANL’s Intellus website recently, you are in for a surprise!  It was recently updated to better support casual users, and it features some of the best new tools Locus has to offer.  Locus reimagined the basic query engine and created a new “Quick search” to streamline data retrieval for casual users.  The guided “Quick search” simplifies data queries by stepping you through the filter selections for data sources, locations, dates, and parameters, providing context support at each step along the way.

Intellus - quick searchWhile a knowledgeable environmental scientist may be able to easily navigate a highly technical system, that same operation is bound to be far more difficult for a layperson interested in what chemicals are in their water.  Constructing the right query is not as simple as looking for a chemical in water—it really matters what type of water you want to look within.  On the Intellus website (showing the environmental data from the LANL site), there are 16 different types of water (not including “water levels”).  Using the latest web technologies and our domain expertise, Locus created a much easier way to get to the data of interest.

Just querying data is not necessarily the most intuitive activity to gain insights.  Locus integrated our new GIS+ visualization engine to allow users to instantly see all the data they just queried in detailed, context-rich maps.

Intellus GIS+ Map

Intellus GIS+ map showing “Quick search” query results for chromium levels in the LANL area

Instead of a dense data grid, GIS+ gives users an instant visual representation of the issue, enabling them to quickly spot the source of the chemicals and review the data in the context of the environmental locations and site activities.  Most importantly for Intellus users, this type of detailed map requires no GIS expertise and is automatically created based on your query.  This directly supports Intellus’ mission to provide transparency into LANL’s environmental monitoring and sampling activities.

GIS+ also allows users (albeit with a bit more experience in GIS mapping) to integrate maps from a wide range of online sources to provide even more insight to the available data.  In the example below, we overlaid the publicly-available US Fish and Wildlife critical habitat maps with data from the LANL site to show the relationship of the site to critical habitats.  This type of sophisticated analysis is the future of online GIS.  Locus takes full advantage of these opportunities to visualize and integrate data from varying sources with our GIS+ tools, made simple for users and integrated with ArcGIS Online by Esri.

Intellus GIS+ Map

Intellus GIS+ map showing imported layers of US Fish and Wildlife critical habitats in relation to LANL environmental sampling data

WM 2018 - Sean and Nita

Overall, Locus is very proud of our cross-cutting environmental information management tools.  We were one of many WM18 attendees enjoying LANL’s presentation and getting even more ideas from the audience on the next steps for better environmental visualization.

View a copy of the presentation.

Making water quality data more transparent: Lessons from an annual water quality report

 

A few weeks ago, I received my water bill in the mail, right on schedule. But this time, it came with a glossy pamphlet containing the annual water quality report. Normally I just toss it into the trash unread. It’s full of small print and lots of numbers, and I was never that concerned about our water quality.

I live in the NC mountains, where the water comes from “pristine mountain springs and streams”. And having grown up in New Orleans— spending 21 years drinking water from the polluted tail end of the Mississippi River— I figured any damage was already done. (But that New Orleans water sure was tasty!)

This time, though, I actually read the entire report. I’d heard about recent water issues in Flint, MI, and other cities, and I do have children who drink the water here. So I looked at this City of Asheville water quality report in detail, and here’s what I discovered.

The report contains a lot of rather informative text about how the City of Asheville treats its water and what possible risks could be present from various contaminants. The centerpiece of the report is a table that lists detected substances in the water. In 2015, 13 substances were detected out of 150 substances sampled for, and those 13 were “well within safe levels”. That sounded good.  But then I started looking at the report and wondering about certain things…

Let’s start with lead. The report has this:

City of Asheville water quality report- lead measurements

City of Asheville’s 2015 Water Quality Report: Lead, ppb

The “Highest Level Allowed” (the maximum contaminant level, or MCL) is 15 parts per billion (ppb). I did some searching and found a good article explaining lead sampling in water. If over 10% of tests come back over that level of 15 ppb, then the water utility must warn residents.

Asheville seems to have passed this test (only one sample exceeded the action level). However, the article mentioned above also describes how the tests for Flint, MI had possible problems because the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality threw out two samples.  With those samples included, the number of samples over the limit would have exceeded 10%, and water customers would have received a much earlier warning of possible lead issues.

So, back to Asheville. Were any samples thrown out— and if so, why? That information is not in the report.

Let’s take one more example: hexavalent chromium. Here is the City of Asheville report:

City of Asheville water quality report- hexavalent chromium measurements

City of Asheville’s 2015 Water Quality Report: Hexavalent Chromium, ppb

So, the average hexavalent chromium level in the water is 0.05 ppb. But there is no action level given, and the EPA definition text says nothing about any possible side effects. Through more searching, I learned that although hexavalent chromium is a carcinogen, the US EPA does not have a maximum contaminant level (MCL) for this compound.

California has a public health goal of 0.02 ppb, but North Carolina has a public health goal of 0.07 ppb. So, how would I interpret the Asheville value of 0.05 that falls in the middle of those two numbers? At least the report provides the detected range (ND – 0.08), so the maximum level in any sample was only a bit higher than the 0.07 level.

These two examples are not meant to disparage Asheville’s Annual Water Quality Report— it is a great way to deliver some basic information to water users. But for motivated water users, the report will lead to other questions— to answer these questions would require more context or a deeper dive into the actual data. Also, while I’m personally fairly tech-savvy and scientifically literate, many water users may lack the numerical and verbal literacy skills needed to understand the report.

For some closing thoughts:

  • How can water utilities make their sample data more transparent and available to users who want to take the “deeper dive”? How can users learn about sampling processes and decisions made— for example, “were any lead samples rejected, and why?”
  • How do users evaluate risks from compounds without EPA maximum contaminant levels, especially when states and regulators have conflicting levels?
  • How do water utilities present trend information and changes in water quality procedures over time? The 2015 report only shows data from that year. I dug up some older reports and found that hexavalent chromium was not detected at all in 2014. So what caused the detects in 2015? Also, lead was sampled at 100 sites in 2014, but only 50 sites in 2015.  Why was the number of samples cut in half?
  • How do you balance presenting too much information to the public (causing information overload) with presenting too little (causing users to be uninformed about quality issues)? Is there a way to show key information, but let users drill down into actual sampling data results for further details?
  • As a follow up to that last question— if you allow public access to sampling data, how do you ensure customers can interpret that data correctly, if those customers lack knowledge of sampling processes and any statistical techniques used?
  • Can the power of the internet be harnessed to distribute this data and make it understandable to customers? Are there tools that customers can use to explore the data on their own and see key findings and trends? I could not find anything online for Asheville.
  • Finally, given that a certain level of technical understanding is needed to read the Annual Report and explore any actual data— do we need a neutral party to serve as interpreter and interlocutor for the public when dealing with water utilities? Who would play that role?

Other Locus contributors will explore some of these issues in future posts.  In the meantime, please share your own thoughts and ideas in the comments section below.

 


Locus employee Todd Pierce

About guest blogger— Dr. Todd Pierce, Locus Technologies

Dr. Pierce manages a team of programmers tasked with development and implementation of Locus’ EIM application, which lets users manage their environmental data in the cloud using Software-as-a-Service technology. Dr. Pierce is also directly responsible for research and development of Locus’ GIS (geographic information systems) and visualization tools for mapping analytical and subsurface data.

EPA Issues a Draft Report on Assessment of the Potential Impacts of Hydraulic Fracturing for Oil and Gas on Drinking Water Resources

This assessment provides a review and synthesis of available scientific literature and data to assess the potential for hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas to impact the quality or quantity of drinking water resources, and identifies factors affecting the frequency or severity of any potential impacts. The scope of this assessment is defined by the hydraulic fracturing water cycle which includes five main activities:

  1. Water acquisition – the withdrawal of ground or surface water needed for hydraulic fracturing fluids;
  2. Chemical mixing – the mixing of water, chemicals, and proppant on the well pad to create the hydraulic fracturing fluid;
  3. Well injection – the injection of hydraulic fracturing fluids into the well to fracture the geologic formation;
  4. Flowback and Produced water – the return of injected fluid and water produced from the formation to the surface, and subsequent transport for reuse, treatment, or disposal; and
  5. Wastewater treatment and waste disposal – the reuse, treatment and release, or disposal of wastewater generated at the well pad, including produced water.

This report can be used by federal, tribal, state, and local officials; industry; and the public to better understand and address vulnerabilities of drinking water resources to hydraulic fracturing activities. The report provides a comprehensive analysis of published literature and hints on environmental data management challenges facing hydro fracking industry.  Find out more about our solutions for the oil & gas industry.

For more information and to download report please visit the EPA site: http://cfpub.epa.gov/ncea/hfstudy/recordisplay.cfm?deid=244651

Latest version of proposed regulation changes on hydrofracking expected this week

It’s no secret that hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking, has been a popular topic for debate in recent years. Another occurrence revolving around this that has garnered support from some, and opposition from others, is Texas’ oil and gas regulatory agency, the Railroad Commission, updating its rules to address all aspects of the drilling process.

The latest version of the proposed rule changes is expected this week, and will be the largest revamping of Texas well construction regulations since the 1970s. These rules are important to ensure that toxic, fracking-related fluids do not leak into aquifers due to poor construction of oil and gas wells. These regulations will require examinations of things such as the quality of the protective cement placed between layers of pipe in a well, and a pressure test for the pipes themselves.

Keeping with the controversial theme around hydrofracking, some say the rule changes are too restrictive, and others say they aren’t enough. But most agree that hydrofracking does have the potential to contaminate groundwater if not performed correctly.

The contamination of groundwater can occur from faulty drilling or well completion. For the natural gas industry to ensure this doesn’t happen and to stay in compliance with these new regulations, it must keep up with an ongoing monitoring of site conditions and air emissions, management of production water, and the remediation of adverse environmental impacts: all of which involve the collection and analysis of large quantities of complex data.

Owners of hydrofracking sites and drilling companies need to take advantage of existing software tools to better organize their hydrofracking waste and water quality data. By using SaaS based software like Locus’ EIM to organize, manage, validate, visualize, store, and report this information, they can effectively demonstrate that this drilling can be done safely and transparently.

Tag Archive for: Water Quality Data

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