Objective:

The Defense Science Board has estimated that there are 1,400 sites suspected of containing unexploded ordnance (UXO) that comprise approximately 10 million acres. Typical sites encompass thousands of acres, with many exceeding 10,000 acres. A comprehensive wide area assessment program can have an immediate impact on the UXO remediation problem. By some estimates, up to 80% of the 10 million acres are, in fact, free of UXO. A technology that can accurately delineate the areas on each site that are and, more importantly, are not contaminated would lead to an immediate reduction by 80% of the area that must be carefully examined and cleaned. The ESTCP Wide Area Assessment (WAA) Program is designed to demonstrate the effectiveness of various technologies, either alone or in combination, as tools for WAA at Department of Defense sites. The objectives of this project are to (1) provide Information Technology (IT) and Geographic Information System (GIS) tools needed to manage multiple, large complex data sets and (2) demonstrate the central importance of Enterprise GIS in the successful and efficient implementation of WAA.

Technology Description:

This project will provide GIS support to the ESTCP WAA Program sensor technology demonstrators at three wide area assessment demonstration sites, including the Borrego Maneuver Area in California, Pueblo Precision Bombing Range in Colorado, and Kirtland Precision Bombing Ranges in New Mexico. The GIS demonstrators will manage geospatial datasets for the three sites, develop and populate a geodatabase schema that implements the conceptual site model for each site, and facilitate intra-project spatial data communications and analyses. The project will begin by establishing the informational infrastructure needed for each WAA project, including servers, related software, and database schemas to organize all historic and generated information. With the infrastructure in place, the project team then will accumulate, organize, and load all pre-existing relevant spatial data (and non-spatial documents) that contribute to the understanding and interpretation of munitions contamination at each site.

Expected Benefits:

For future production-level WAA on munitions response sites, the integration of sensor technology results with base-mapping and archival information represents a major cost benefit to the overall remediation project. These benefits carry beyond the site remediation project to future uses of the site, both through the establishment of baseline aerial photography and detailed engineering-quality terrain data and the delineation of munitions-related site constraints and future development requirements in a standardized, multiple-use, consolidated data entity. (Anticipated Project Completion - 2007)

Principal Investigator:
Dr. Jack Foley
Sky Research, Inc.
445 Dead Indian Memorial Road
Ashland, OR 97520
Telephone: (978) 458-9807
Fax: (720) 293-9666
E-mail: jack.foley@skyresearch.com

DoD Liaison:
Mr. Scott Millhouse
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Engineering and Support Center
CEHND-ED-CS-D
4820 University Square
Huntsville, AL 35816-1822
Telephone: (256) 895-1607
Fax: (256) 895-1602
E-mail: scott.d.millhouse@hnd01.usace.army.mil