Management and Statistical Analysis of Groundwater Monitoring Data at Solid Waste Landfills

by William L. Collar, Jones & Henry Engineers, Inc, Toledo, United States,
Kevin K. Wolka, Jones & Henry Engineers, Inc, Toledo, United States,



Document Type: Proceeding Paper

Part of: Water Resources Planning and Management and Urban Water Resources

Abstract:

Solid waste landfills in Ohio and Michigan, as in many states, are required to have monitoring wells. Groundwater samples from these wells are analyzed to determine if leachate from the landfills is suspected of contaminating the groundwater. The wells are periodically sampled, and the results evaluated before being reported to regulatory agencies. Each landfill typically has several monitoring wells and several chemical parameters to be tested for every monitoring well during each sampling event. Over time, the amount of data for a landfill grows quite large. Efficient data management is required due to the large volume of data generated. The Ohio EPA and Michigan Department of Natural Resources also require statistical analysis of the chemical data to determine whether further investigation is warranted. Appropriate statistical methods for monitoring well chemical data from landfills typically require multiple comparisons or other complex techniques such as analysis of variance (ANOVA). This paper describes a process which has been developed, using a computerized data management system and a commercial computer statistical package to efficiently store and evaluate chemical data from monitoring wells at landfills.

Subject Headings: Landfills | Groundwater management | Information management | Statistics | Data analysis | Waste management | Management methods | United States | Ohio | Michigan

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