Project Specifics

Geosyntec designed and developed a custom mobile app called SitkiNet for a four-year multi-million-dollar remedial investigation (RI) for the former WWII Sand Bay Naval Station Formerly Used Defense Site (FUDS) on the remote and uninhabited Great Sitkin Island in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands.

Because the FUDS had limited prior investigation, the RI called for extensive reconnaissance and infrastructure updates, as well as monitoring and surveying of archaeological features. SitkiNet informs and standardizes data collection across a field team of more than 30 people, streamlines data workflows from field collection to reporting for 50+ sites into a standardized USACE data structure, and allows for off-site managers to track progress.

Geosyntec Scope of Services

The Great Sitkin FUDS spans 2,000+ acres and encompasses 1,500+ former military features involving possible contaminant releases. Because the RI is phased, beginning with the greatest potential releases, it was important to USACE to establish a standard data structure to allow for updates over the long life of the multistage RI, potentially across several future contractors.

For the initial phase, work involved a large field team with specialized skills whose work needed to be aligned to the complex work plan with 14 defined data-quality objectives (DQOs). In addition to supporting this team, the app is used by archaeologists and civil works crews as they collect data for work including installation of new bridges and culverts and identification of historical objects.

SitkiNet was designed using Javascript and geoJSON and deployed on nine Android tablets paired with Bluetooth-connected sub-meter accuracy EOS Arrow global navigation satellite system (GNSS) units. For ease of future reporting, it contains nine workflows that interface with the USACE standard data structure, plus an interactive map that updates when locations and data are collected.

The app supports personnel with the following tasks and workflows:

• Percent complete by DQO: Field managers track field progress.
• Survey quality control: Teams check in and check out survey equipment on a known control point.
• Calibration: Teams enter calibration details for field instruments.
• Archaeological survey and monitoring: Archaeologists document and locate features relevant to historic preservation.
• Avian and water surveys: Biologists and environmental scientists document bird entrapment and sheen or NAPL observed in water bodies.
• Civil works: Construction crews document removed infrastructure and newly installed infrastructure.
• Pipeline Investigation: Geophysics teams conduct testing and locate buried and aboveground piping.
• Preliminary Assessment: Environmental scientists capture access and location details for formal military features that will be including in future phases of the RI.
• RI: Geologists, environmental scientists, and engineers complete digital field forms for each former military feature to be investigated, linking the forms the location of the feature, and standardizing data entry across a dozen professionals.

Specifically, during the RI, SitkiNet includes supporting data collection by replacing conventional field forms as follows:

• Boring logs (ilithology, core recovery, PID, moisture, NAPL, etc.)
• LIF: UVOST/TarGOST/Dart
• Monitoring-well construction
• Monitoring-well development
• Monitoring-well purging parameters
• Soil, sediment, surface-water, and groundwater sampling (including field QC samples)

In addition, SitkiNet forms allow for photographs to be taken and geotagged and metadata to be collected (including orientation, caption, date, time, and user initials).

After field work each evening, data from off-line tablets are synchronized with other tablets and uploaded to a local server. When possible, satellite internet in the camp pushes data to a database in the cloud to update an interactive web map for review by off-site managers and the client. The local server pushes data to a local database to conduct daily quality control review of the field work and generates chain-of-custody forms for shipping samples to the laboratory.

Notable Accomplishments

SitkiNet is a comprehensive, central system for field-data collection that organizes, manages, and reports data across many field teams, data objectives, sites, and workflows. The app links into existing reporting tools, an interactive web map, and the USACE data structure for future RI work. In addition, it presents a huge volume of existing-feature data to field teams so that they can conduct step outs using results from real-time LIF data, understand the potential-source information from the preliminary assessment and historical photographs, and evaluate possible nearby sources.

What is a Quick Qual?