| Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality
Casper, WY
|
In the late 1990’s
the environmental closure of the Amoco Refinery in
Casper, Wyoming had stalled in federal court. In
1998 British Petroleum merged with Amoco and came
to a Reuse Agreement with the community. That same
year the court issued a consent decree assigning
Wyoming DEQ as the lead regulatory agency and
establishing a streamlined regulatory process.
This brought the community, environmental
regulators, and the property owner together in a
Collaborative Process. There were strong
incentives for all parties if Remedy Agreements
could be reached by the fall of 2001. In August
2000 Tom Liebert proposed a Geographic Information
System to the Collaborative Process to streamline
decision making during the accelerated schedule
RCRA Facility Investigation (RFI) process.
Site investigation data from the hazardous
waste investigations were integrated into the
desktop GIS. Requirements of the GIS were defined
in four technical work groups, with representation
from each of the major stakeholders: the
regulatory agency, the community, and the property
owner.
The GIS was used to define data usability,
assess data adequacy, formulate sampling work
plans and investigate remedial alternatives based
on risk-based action levels. Additionally, it was
used in public information meetings to convey the
scope and goals of the project, display the data,
and demonstrate data adequacy and uncertainty. By
collaboratively designing the GIS, data analysis
were more readily accepted by all of the
stakeholders throughout the accelerated schedule
site investigation and remedy agreement
negotiations. |
