(Adapted from the Oregon DEQ website at: http://www.deq.state.or.us/wmc/cleanup/ecsiq&a.htm#info

ECSI, an acronym for Environmental Cleanup Site Information, is the electronic database that the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has used since 1989 to track sites with known or suspected hazardous substance contamination. ECSI, which assigns unique identification numbers to individual sites, summarizes information about sites and their investigative/remedial status, as well as Cleanup Program recommendations for further action. Information in ECSI is stored in an Oracle relational database at DEQ’s headquarters office in Portland.

Each ECSI entry contains basic data such as site name and location. For most sites, ECSI also indicates how and when the site became contaminated, qualitative risks the contamination may pose to human health or the environment, investigative and cleanup actions that have occurred, and prioritized further actions, if any, that are required. At many sites, ECSI documents contaminants found in soil, surface water, sediments, and groundwater, with associated concentrations and sampling dates. ECSI categorizes current site status as either: 1) under investigation; 2) on the Confirmed Release List (CRL) or Inventory of Facilities Needing Further Action (Inventory); or 3) cleaned up to DEQ standards (No Further Action, or NFA). ECSI also lists past and present site operations, owners/operators, and site contacts. The amount of data entered for each site varies greatly and depends on the nature of site issues, how long the site has been active in DEQ’s Cleanup Program, and the priority DEQ has assigned to the site.

What kinds of sites are in ECSI?

Sites in ECSI comprise a wide variety of sizes, locations, features, contaminant profiles, and degrees of Cleanup Program information. What all sites have in common is documented or suspected hazardous substance contamination in soil, surface water, groundwater, or sediments. Some ECSI sites have minimal information available and a screening evaluation is needed, while others, after investigative and remedial actions are completed, have earned a NFA decision from DEQ. Sites range from urban industrial complexes to isolated rural facilities contaminated by disposals or spills. Most sites are associated with past or present industrial/commercial activities, but the Cleanup Program occasionally adds highly contaminated residential properties to ECSI.

ECSI also includes study areas, which are groups of individual sites that may be contributing to a larger, area-wide problem. For example, when DEQ discovers regional groundwater contamination where the sources of contamination are not known, it will create a study area for this region. Then, DEQ will add sites within the region’s boundaries to this study area, and these sites may be investigated to determine if they’re potential sources of contamination. DEQ has also created study areas of sites that could threaten Vulnerable Areas such as drinking water sources or streams with endangered fish species.

Generally, the answer is no. DEQ’s UST Section maintains a separate database of sites with reported petroleum releases from UST systems. However, the Cleanup Program sometimes takes the lead at sites with leaking USTs, and adds them to ECSI. Examples are sites with releases from USTs containing solvents or other non-petroleum substances; sites contaminated by both petroleum USTs and non-petroleum sources; and high-priority sites at which DEQ’s UST Section has requested Cleanup Program resources. The Cleanup Program also added some leaking UST sites to ECSI in 1988-89 before DEQ created a separate UST Section (many of these sites have since been referred to the UST Section). ECSI includes petroleum bulk plants and other sites where above-ground releases of gasoline, diesel, or oil have occurred or are suspected.

A site is added to ECSI when DEQ learns that it is contaminated or potentially contaminated with hazardous substances such as solvents, metals, PCBs, or petroleum hydrocarbons. Such site information comes from a number of sources: investigative efforts by DEQ’s Site Assessment Program; referrals from other DEQ programs or from other agencies; reports of chemical spills; citizen reports/complaints; or data submitted voluntarily by site owners/operators. Because ECSI includes potentially contaminated sites as well as sites known to be contaminated, appearance on the ECSI database does not necessarily mean that a site is contaminated.

Once DEQ adds a site to ECSI, the site remains on the database to provide tracking and historical information. The fact that a site is included in ECSI has no regulatory significance per se, because neither Oregon Revised Statutes nor Oregon Administrative Rules refer to ECSI. Two Cleanup Program lists, the CRL and Inventory, do carry regulatory significance and should not be confused with ECSI. Criteria for listing sites on the CRL or Inventory are different from the criteria for adding sites to ECSI. In addition, the CRL/Inventory listing process includes a formal notification and comment period before sites are actually listed. Furthermore, sites can be delisted from the CRL and Inventory following cleanups, but are not removed from ECSI. (When remediated sites no longer pose risks to human health or the environment, ECSI shows their No Further Action status; retaining such sites in ECSI benefits those seeking historical or "case-study" information on sites that have been through the cleanup process.) More detailed information about the CRL and the Inventory are provided in a section below.

For tracking contaminated sites, DEQ’s ECSI database can be considered roughly equivalent to the EPA database called "CERCLIS." However, there are important differences between the two:

In contrast to ECSI, CERCLIS is a formal, statutory list that sets in motion certain required activities and timelines. EPA generally adds sites with confirmed contamination to CERCLIS, while DEQ adds to ECSI sites with suspected contamination as well as those known to be contaminated. Unlike ECSI, CERCLIS specifically excludes sites with petroleum-only contamination.

All CERCLIS (or former CERCLIS) sites in Oregon are added to ECSI, but most ECSI sites are not added to CERCLIS. EPA’s cleanup process uses an "all or nothing" approach – following EPA evaluation, sites in CERCLIS are either proposed for the Superfund list or given federal No Further Action designations and dropped from CERCLIS. In contrast, Oregon recognizes a continuum of site cleanup needs and priorities, and will often determine that sites dropped from CERCLIS require further state action.

All data in ECSI is public information. There are many ways to access this data, at different levels of detail.

The easiest and quickest way to obtain data from ECSI is to use the ECSI query. This query allows you to conduct a search for ECSI sites, as well as for sites on the CRL and Inventory, by criteria you specify, including: ECSI #; site name; street name or number; zip code; city; county; latitude/longitude ranges; or recorded contaminants. Queries return a one-line listing of sites meeting the search criteria entered and provide links to detailed reports for each individual site. You can also download comma-delimited record sets of data generated from your queries.

Alternatively, you may obtain site-specific ECSI printouts, as well as floppy disks containing the entire ECSI data set, via the Oregon Public Environmental System (OPENS). OPENS terminals and the floppy disk sets are located in DEQ offices throughout the state. The complete ECSI data set can also be downloaded electronically from DEQ's file-transfer protocol site:

ftp://waterquality.deq.state.or.us/ecsi.

The ECSI database contains only summaries of site information. Therefore, if you need more details on site history or activities, DEQ recommends that you contact the appropriate regional office and schedule a file review. For more information on obtaining data from ECSI or regional Cleanup Program files, contact Mark Nelson at (503) 229-6832.

One of DEQ's most basic tasks is keeping track of information about individual hazardous substance release sites. To help meet this need, ECSI was created. ECSI, an electronic database, is available to the public and can be searched for a wide range of information concerning sites with suspected or known releases of hazardous substances (except information about petroleum releases from underground storage tanks, which is available in other DEQ-maintained databases). ECSI contains information on more than 2000 sites in Oregon.

The CRL is a subset of ECSI and includes sites where a release of hazardous substances has been documented. Sites may be added to the CRL at any time after a confirmed release has been documented. There are formal processes, described in more detail below, by which sites are added to and removed from the CRL.

About half of the sites on the CRL are also on the Inventory, a list of sites with confirmed releases that DEQ has determined also require further investigation and/or cleanup. Sites may only be added to the Inventory after a preliminary assessment (PA) or preliminary assessment equivalent (PAE) has been completed. The same formal processes for listing and de-listing sites on the CRL apply to the Inventory as well. The characteristic that distinguishes the Inventory from the CRL is that DEQ has determined, based on the PA or PAE, that further action is required to address contamination at the sites on the Inventory.

DEQ adds sites to the CRL and Inventory when it determines they meet the criteria for listing:

To be added to the CRL, a site must have had a release of a hazardous substance that is confirmed by meeting both of the following criteria:

1. The release has been documented by qualified observation, report or laboratory data; and
2. The release is not excluded from listing by virtue of being insignificant in quantity or hazard, regulated by another program, having been adequately cleaned up or otherwise requiring no further action.

Once listed on the CRL, a site typically has a PA or PAE completed. A PA or PAE provides an in-depth review of a site’s operating history and potential extent of contamination, and describes ways in which site contamination could affect human health and the environment.

DEQ adds sites to the Inventory where further investigation is required and where removal, remedial action, or engineering or institutional controls are needed to protect public health, safety or welfare or the environment. Sites are added to the Inventory based on a PA or PAE approved or conducted by DEQ and other available information.

Prior to adding a site to either the CRL or the Inventory, DEQ notifies site owners and operators and allows them to comment on the proposed listing or provide additional information they think might be relevant to the listing decision. Owners and operators are given a 45 day period, which can be extended by an additional 45 days upon request, to comment on the proposed listing. DEQ responds to substantive comments and new information in writing. Comments or new information sometimes indicate that the site does not meet the listing criteria. In any case, after reviewing comments, DEQ makes its decision about listing and sends a letter responding to comments and notifying the owners and operators of that decision. Sometimes, a meeting will be held to further discuss issues bearing on the listing decision. The actual listing usually happens within 90 days of receiving the comments.

DEQ removes sites from the CRL and Inventory when all necessary investigation or other remedial action has been completed and after a public comment period. In addition, an owner, operator or other person may petition the Director to remove a facility from the list(s). DEQ will consider the same criteria under which the site was listed in reaching a decision about de-listing a site. The period for public comment on a proposal to de-list a site is at least 30 days and may be extended under certain circumstances.

In some cases, site cleanups will consist of, or will include, engineering or institutional controls. For example, after removing some of the contaminated soil from a site, other measures such as an engineering cap and a deed restriction may be implemented to protect public health and the environment. If selected or approved by DEQ as part of a cleanup remedy, institutional and engineering controls are considered to be ongoing remedial actions, and such sites must remain on the CRL and Inventory.

DEQ updates the CRL and Inventory quarterly and provides summaries of these updated lists to interested persons. These summaries identify the listed sites and include key information about each site. In addition, a more extensive facility report is available upon request for each site listed on the CRL and/or Inventory.

DEQ is pleased to make the ECSI database available online as a searchable web database. You can also access ECSI through a searchable database, called OPENS, which is available at most DEQ offices. Opens features most of the information contained in the ECSI database.