Monthly Report for the Month of June, 1999
Title: Contamination of sediments in street sweepings and stormwater systems: pollutant composition and sediment reuse options.
Completion date: March 31, 2000
FORM900, the Quality Assurance Project Plan (QAPP) for the DEP was downloaded from a DEP website and filled out. The downloaded file behaved erratically, even after various downloads and after using various wordprocessors. The problem is probably in the original DEP file and the form had to be retyped at UWF.
The Department of Health requested another copy of the CompQAP submitted last month. A file of the document was sent by Email. The CompQAP approval number was received on June 28, 1999. The number is #990107 and was assigned on June 15, 1999 by the Florida Department of Health. The number was included in the QAPP and FORM900 was submitted to the Florida Department of Health via The Center.
EPA document EPA SW-846 and federal document 40 CFR 261 were ordered through the EPA website. These documents pertain to testing/analysis methods for soils and sediments. The methods listed in the CompQAP and the pending QAPP are based on the EPA SW-846 document.
A map of street sweeping routes was obtained from the City of Pensacola. City street sweepers do not follow a set schedule but the city is divided into numbered sections that are swept in chronological order. The only consistency in the sweeping operation is that the sweepers perform the sweepings consecutively according to the numbered sections. The sections will be related to land use/cover by the project and appropriate sections will be selected for study. The City of Pensacola will coordinate with us the future sweepings of those sections we select.
Pond and swale data (hardcopy and disk) were obtained from the DEP office in Pensacola. The data contained the following fields: GMS number, county, permit number, site name, site address, Lat/Long coordinates, date permitted, pond/swale type, area, maintenance, telephone number.
The DEP data were prepared for import into a GIS and were subsequently brought into ArcView 3.1. After visually inspecting the locations of the ponds significant errors in the coordinates (Lat/Long) of the ponds were suspected. To establish the quality of the Lat/Long coordinates in the database, geocoding was used on the portion of the data that had a specific street address. As suspected, there were considerable discrepancies between the locations based on the Lat/Long and the locations based on the street address. The Lat/Long coordinates are not useable for the project and only a small portion of the data are associated with a street address. The data from Escambia County (Engineering Department and Roads and Bridges Department) will have to be used for pond location.
After reviewing database files that had been obtained from Escambia County it was determined that some information was missing or the wrong information had been given. The Department of Roads and Bridges of Escambia County was contacted regarding the correct maintenance schedule for ponds and street sweeping. This information will be made available to the project in July. Files with corrected pond/street sweeping data were obtained from the Engineering Department. Files from both departments are not closely linked and relationships between the two databases will have to be established by the project.
The time dedicated to the project by the lead PI during June is estimated at 6%.
During the month of July we will compile the GIS database.