Tech Focus: Streamlining Environmental Compliance through Centralized Regulatory Data
Navigating a project through the ever-changing world of environmental compliance can be an overwhelming task. Between evolving regulatory requirements and agency-specific standards, it is easy to feel discombobulated when determining how certain regulations will impact a site. To maintain a project’s schedule and budget—while remaining environmentally responsible and minimizing risk—it’s vital to engage a regulatory expert to guide you through the complicated process.
Langan advocates for clients by providing quality, up-to-date data in a centralized database. By storing regulatory screening levels within the database, users can compare required levels with the laboratory analytical results for their project sites. This streamlined process helps the project team reference the correct regulatory screening levels when evaluating sample results, while also reducing risk by eliminating the potential for data manipulation via manual reporting. The database can also help teams locate current screening levels for their sites when dealing with emerging contaminants, as regulatory agencies are releasing updated PFAS standards on a regular basis.
Leveraging a central repository that maintains regulatory action levels also allows project teams to quickly identify how new regulations will impact a site. For example, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection is set to release a draft proposal in December 2023, updating 70 values in its Groundwater Quality Standards. To help clients maintain compliance, Langan can employ its database to quickly query laboratory analytical data from over 200 sites and identify any locations that may be affected by the new guidance. This allows clients to be proactive and make necessary adjustments to their sites and remediation plans before the guidance goes into effect.
To date, Langan’s centralized database has provided information related to screening levels for 34 states and federal agencies on over 1,300 projects nationwide—and these numbers will continue to grow as regulatory standards continue to evolve.
Heather Nunn, GISP, leads the data management and analytics team at Langan. With 13 years of experience, Nunn brings her diverse skill set and proficiency in cutting-edge software to each project, helping clients collect, validate, manage, analyze, visualize, and report data. Her expertise includes working with EarthSoft EQuIS, ESRI ArcGIS, Microsoft Power BI, and Microsoft Excel. Through her utilization of these tools, Nunn optimizes data workflows, improves efficiency, enhances data integrity, and transforms complex information into meaningful reports and visualizations that enable informed decision-making.