New Monitors

New Monitors

A shift to management by technology

by Sarah Smith
Sarah Smith About the Author
Sarah Smith is president of Madison Environmental Group, a consulting firm based in Boxford, MA. She specializes in FBO/ airportrelated environmental management and resolution, and has managed projects for aviation, petroleum, and industrial interests. She may be reached at sarah.smith@prodigy.net or (978) 352 5086.

Regulations for noise, air, water, oil storage, waste generation, etc. continue to evolve, and airports and operators continue to climb the uphill battle of what to do and how. A simple yet proven solution is to shift from a state of confusion to one of Management by Technology.

Understanding the applicability of environmental rules and regulations to the aviation industry continues to be a challenge. In general, regulations are not written specifically for airport operations, which can make compliance management difficult and expensive. As a result, the regulations are subject to interpretation by an owner or operator which in the end may not match the interpretation by an inspector. The savvy manager should plan on shifting from the 1990s style of paper management to the most economical, efficient, and accurate style of Management by Technology. This is how it works.

CUSTOMIZED DATABASE
To manage environmental compliance, one must first create an inventory profile — an activity or item which may be subject to a local, state, or federal rule or regulation or in some way is connected to the regulated item. Inventory is entered into an Environmental Management Inventory System (EMIS). Essentially, the EMIS is the dictionary to the facility.
The Geographical Information System (GIS) is used as the platform to "layer" airport features including CAD files, topographic maps, wetlands features, noise contours, aerial photographs, etc. for an imagery relationship to the inventory in the customized EMIS database. The relationship of the database to the image creates a "smart map" of the facility.
An inventory profile may include: the size, use, and tenant data of a leasehold parcel, the facility type (air craft storage hangar, maintenance hangar, Thangar, terminal building, office), environmental data (asbestos, assessment, remediation, storage tank removal, monitoring) or construction projects. For airport owners and operators, inventory data may include property valuations, a tenant database, fuel facility locations and hydrant systems, utility locations, etc.
The information may already exist in one form or another and is combined into one profile to create a customized database and smart map. An example may be an aircraft hangar that is leased to a tenant for aircraft washing, yet the floor drains connect to a storm sewer. Knowledge of the activity (washing) in the hangar (item) would trigger a link to the applicable regulation or a best management practice. Now the issue can be managed before something goes through the floor drain that would violate a rule or regulation.
The inventory of a tenant facility may include oil storage tanks, chemicals and waste generation points, location of potential pollution sources (i.e. deicing, equipment washing stations, fueling operations), hangar use, hangar construction, heating oil tanks, and oil/water separators. Data is entered into the EMIS and depicted in the smart map to visually display the data point. A data point could be a 55 gallon drum of mineral spirits or a 25,000square foot hangar that’s subleased to a flight department.
Environmental projects pending or ongoing at a facility should be included in the inventory. An environmental site may be an area where a fuel spill occurred and the incident was reported to the state agency. The release would have a tracking number associated with the incident that links to the state’s regulatory database. Data collected from an environmental site may include the date the tanks were pulled, soil/groundwater quality data, or the status of the project.