Brief History of DNR Waste & Materials Management Environmental Monitoring Program
The environmental monitoring data for older licensed landfills can be very extensive. In some cases, data has been collected since the late 1970's from groundwater monitoring wells (water table observation wells and piezometers), leachate head wells, gas probes, sedimentation ponds, and surface water drainage sampling points.
The Department's method for storing environmental data has evolved over the years. The records for groundwater quality were originally maintained on paper in the individual files for each site, but all these documents required large amounts of storage space in offices across the State and were difficult to use. While these old records are still retained, access to this information is cumbersome and reviewing the data is time consuming. An electronic database, the precursor to GEMS, was developed in the mid-1980s to manage the data and make it more accessible to Department staff for analysis and decision making. As information technology and the experience and responsibilities of the Department evolved, GEMS development was initiated in the early 1990s to provide a more robust and capable data management system. GEMS was designed by a team of technical experts in computer programming, hydrogeology, chemistry and data processing.
If you are not familiar with some of the terms on any of these web pages, you may click the "Help" button at the top of a page to get the glossary of available terms, acronyms, and abbreviations used in the GEMS Database.
The records contained in GEMS cover analytical data for groundwater samples from monitoring wells at solid waste facilities, private drinking water supply wells around landfills, and a few hazardous waste facilities that have monitoring wells. In addition, the database contains some records for gas, leachate and surface water monitoring from landfills.
Using the directions on the next linked page, you can start your search for monitoring data for a facility.
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