Facility/Site
Identification System

Overview
of
Functions, Standards,
Business Rules, and
Data Merging

Publication No. 97-700

Revised January 2000

The Department of Ecology is an equal opportunity agency and does not discriminate on the basis of race, creed, color, disability, age, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, disabled veteran's status, Vietnam Era veteran's status or sexual orientation.

CONTENTS

This "Overview" document has been compiled for two reasons. First, we wanted to have all of the important information about the current system in one location. Users can consult the document when clarification is needed.

The second purpose is to help others understand what Ecology has done to: develop and maintain the Facility/Site (F/S) Identification System; implement data cleaning/migration practices; and implement system/business rules. The latter purpose is one of importance to many others. Collectively, we can take advantage of lessons and improvements as we individually make progress in information management.

The F/S System as you see it here is a snap shot. Modifications occur over time and are planned. Ecology will be bringing the current system into compliance with the ECOS/EPA Data Management Workgroup Facility Standard in the near future, and into compliance with the revised Facility Identification Template for States (FITS2-FITS is currently under revision).

It should be noted that Ecology is presently looking for partners to help to convert the existing F/S System to run on a WEB Browser with any current database. This conversion along with the addition of a few enhancements will allow partners to respond to future commerce/electronic reporting opportunities in a more timely, efficient, and cost effective way.

We hope this document is useful. More information about the F/S System can be obtained from:

Comments on this document are welcome.

The Facility/Site Identification System provides a central repository of key information for each facility/site of interest to Ecology. The system includes data about physical location, the individual(s) and/or organization(s) who own the facility/site or who are key contacts, type(s) of business or activity conducted, reason(s) for the Department of Ecology's interest, relationship (i.e. parent or child) with another facility/site, and feature(s) of interest.

Ecology has defined a facility/site as an operation at a fixed location that is of interest to the agency because it has an active or potential impact upon the environment.

Ecology recognizes that this definition is broad and generic; but the agency has found that such a definition is required in order to encompass all the facilities and sites in Washington that are within the purview of its programs. These programs cover a wide variety of environmental aspects and conditions including air quality, water quality, shorelands, water resources, toxics cleanup, hazardous waste, toxics reduction, and nuclear waste. The definitions of a facility and/or a site vary significantly across these programs, both in practice and law.

Examples of facilities/sites include:

The Facility/Site Identification System (commonly referred to as the F/S System) is the first of a series of integrated systems planned to be implemented in the next several years. These systems will be developed and incrementally implemented based on an Information Strategy Plan that Ecology developed during January through June, 1995 in conjunction with consultants from Claremont Technology Group and Ross & Associates. The process was initiated to streamline and integrate Ecology's information management activities.

The new integrated systems support the agency's long-term information technology goal to provide agency management, agency staff, and interested stakeholders with timely and direct access to the information they need to answer the questions they face daily. The systems help Ecology manage its information with an agency-wide perspective rather than its historical program by program perspective; and, they are supporting the challenges of geographic-based work, environmental multi-media (air, soil, water) targeting, and pollution prevention.

With the development and implementation of the Facility/Site Identification System and other information management efforts the agency had already taken, Ecology established much of the infrastructure needed to implement the other systems in the future. This infrastructure included establishing common platforms, desktop standards, agency standards for certain tabular and spatial data, a framework for a standardized GIS approach within the agency, and a more stable LAN/WAN.

On the next page, Figure 1. presents Ecology's Information Access Vision. It includes examples of the kinds of questions the agency will be able to answer as its information base becomes more fully integrated and includes more geographic-based analysis capabilities.

Figure 1. depicts an Ecology analyst developing an environmental management strategy for a specific watershed, i.e. a Water Resource Inventory Area (WRIA). The information system is first accessed by the geographic boundaries of the WRIA (information needs: geographic locator and definition of a WRIA). The analyst then examines the ambient environmental conditions (information needs: ambient water and air quality data) and identifies any sensitive resources (such as wetlands or endangered species) in the area.

The pollutant Y is of special concern in this watershed, especially its effect on sensitive resources. Therefore, the analyst may opt to investigate local sources of the pollutant (information need: list of entities generating or storing Y within the WRIA) as well as the release profile for the pollutant at each of those facilities (information need: multi-media release profile of pollutant Y at specific facilities within the WRIA). Having established the major sources of the pollutant, the analyst may then assess opportunities to minimize further releases of pollutant Y by investigating the following records: technical assistance, inspections, or enforcement actions taken at those facilities using or disposing of pollutant Y.

Figure 1. Planning an Environmental Management Strategy for a WRIA i.e., Watershed.

Ecology’s vision for information access relies on having all of the agency’s information readily available to agency staff at their desktops. It has five critical requirements:

• Multi-media information, e.g., across all programs

• Geographically based, e.g., all data are geo-referenced

• Functional linkages are present, e.g., enforcement and release data may be evaluated with environmental data

• Expenditures and general business practices need to be linked to environmental conditions and results

• Data must be of known quality and standards must be followed

The data which the Facility/Site Identification System contains is a subset of data common to more than 25 Ecology systems developed in the past. Each system was developed was/is maintained independently within a program of the agency. These systems were developed on multiple software and hardware platforms. These factors resulted in 'information islands' within Ecology without bridges to link them, even though multiple programs often are interested in the same facility/site. In addition, there was no common identifier for a particular facility/site among the several databases in which information about it were stored.

As Ecology integrates its legacy systems into the Facility/Site Identification System, data are cleaned, extracted and migrated to the new System. Ecology developed scripts to assist programs ensure their data meet the data standards of the new system. It also developed a Data Migration Engine to help ensure that duplicate facilities/sites are not entered into the new system.

Having key information readily available about the facilities/sites in which Ecology has an interest will enable management and staff to:

• Conduct day-to-day activities with an integrated, cross-program view of its relationship to pollution sources, their polluting activities or use of natural resources, and the resulting environmental consequences;

• Efficiently respond to questions from the Legislature and the public; and

• Effectively portray the contributions Ecology's activities make to environmental improvement.

The first release of the Facility/Site Identification System was developed in Windows for Workgroups 3.11 and was operational in mid-1996. Soon thereafter, data cleaning, migration, and duplicate resolution began.

Presently, the Facility/Site Identification System contains 23,000 facilities in the following areas:

This next year will see Underground Storage Tanks (16,000) and EPCRA facilities (5000) moved into the Facility/Site Identification System.

Data cleaning is an ongoing process. As data from other legacy systems are migrated to the Facility/Site Identification System, more accurate information may become available about a facility/site. Update determinations are made on a case by case basis.

As the Facility/Site Identification System and its use expands and matures, it is enhanced and kept current as it relates to platforms, business needs, and operating systems. For example, on-line help was added, a user training program and manual were developed, and the system was migrated from Windows for Workgroups 3.11 to Windows 95/NT to support the agency's stated direction for a desktop operating system.

Ecology makes a subset of the Facility/Site System's data available on the Internet. Initially, the system provides query capabilities on tabular data (e.g. query on County or City Name, SIC, Name of the facility/site) and displays results via a Geographic Information System. With facility data available on the Internet, affected agencies (state, local, and federal), businesses, the Legislature, and interested members of the public may have ready access.

Current plans are to convert the Facility/Site Identification System to a WEB platform to allow greater access via the WEB, reduce overhead costs, and better position the agency for e-commerce.

The Facility/Site Identification System is a central repository for key identification and location information about facilities/sites in Washington of interest to Ecology because of their effects upon the environment. There are six facility/site components:

Facility/Site: Provides the name, physical, and geographic location of the site.

Through a menuing system and command pushbuttons, the user may readily access each of these components. The user may view a selected component's DETAILs, UPDATE or DELETE it, or INSERT (create) a new one. The user may enter search criteria for a component. The system performs a SEARCH on those criteria and presents a list of "matches" from which the user may make a selection. The user may preview and/or print a report for one or more selected facility/sites.

The menuing system and command pushbuttons also provide direct links for authorized users to ArcView (a Geographic Information System) and to other Ecology systems that contain more detailed information about a facility/site.

An integral part of the Facility/Site Identification System is a program named Facility/Site Maintenance, more commonly known as "Skipper". It is critical that agency staff be able to physically locate a facility/site. Therefore, it is imperative that the system's location information be of known quality and accuracy. "Skipper" helps to ensure this accuracy. Early each morning following a workday, "Skipper" accesses the GIS to perform a verification function on the geographic location information entered into the Facility/Site Identification System the previous day. For each entry, "Skipper" determines whether the entered coordinates can or cannot be GIS-verified (fall within certain boundaries). If it verifies the coordinates, "Skipper" identifies the record as "GIS-Verified" and populates certain attributes with data including County, Congressional District, Legislative District, WRIA ID, and Region, and, if appropriate, Indian Land. At the completion of its coordinate verification processes, "Skipper" sends each data entry person a list detailing the successes, failures, and warnings.

A knowledgeable program staff person is expected to review the location details of each GIS-verified facility/site and provide a final Quality Assurance determination of the location's accuracy. If revision is appropriate, that staff person may change the location entries made either by the user or by "Skipper".

Facility/Site Identification was the highest priority for development of the 24 Ecology Business Areas identified in the agency’s 1995 Information Strategic Plan. Two other Business Areas are being addressed, Natural Resources and Environmental Monitoring.

Natural Resources: This Business Area of Ecology is defined as the identification and location of natural resources that the agency needs to be aware of or which the agency regulates or influences. Examples of these natural resources include:

• Water bodies such as reservoirs, rivers and groundwater;
• Population centers;
• Vegetable and animal species;
• Air quality; and
• Sensitive land masses such as arable land, wetlands and shorelands

Environmental Monitoring: This Business Area of Ecology is defined as the collection and analysis of analytical data which help determine the environmental condition of air, land, and water throughout the State. These activities include ambient monitoring of background levels of specific chemicals and regulatory sampling of pollutants released in the vicinity.

Ecology has linked these two Business Areas in another new system, Environmental Information Management (EIM), which the agency implemented in late October, 1997.

There is a linkage between the Environmental Management System and the Facility/Site Identification System; however, it is not as developed as it will be in the future.

New work on the Permit-related Business Areas is currently under discussion. As part of Ecology’s integrated systems need, we have also developed a WEB-based employee system and have a revenue-related system in development.

Ecology has made significant strides since January, 1995 to integrate its information management activities. It has put in place two agencywide systems that provide an agency rather than program by program view of the facilities/sites in which it has an interest and the environmental conditions and threatened natural resources of Washington which fall within the agency's realm of management. Further, it has an implementation plan and tested processes that provide for the incremental addition of systems that will support the agency's information needs and future challenges regarding its other high priority Business Areas.