Your DEQ Online houses a wide variety information such as size, location, features, contaminant profile, and degree of cleanup. What all projects have in common is documented, suspected, or remediated hazardous substance contamination in groundwater, surface water, soil, or sediments. Some projects have minimal information available and need an initial evaluation, while others have completed investigative and remedial actions, and 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 either industrial or commercial, but the Cleanup Program sometimes adds highly contaminated residential properties.
Your DEQ Online information also includes study areas which are groups of individual projects 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 projects 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.