IRICC Meeting Notes

6/19/01

 

 

Attendees

Kath Collier, REO

Dale Guenther, REO

George Mayfield, F&WS

Carrie Wolf, Washington DNR

Bill Bogue, EPA

Brendon, NWFSC

Mike Golden, USFS

Kim Rivard, USFS

Dan Wickwire, BLM

Nancy Tubbs, USGS

 

Next Meeting

IVMP Presentation, demo dataset (Dale/Dan to invite Jeff Neighbert)

Rains Demo (Bill Bogue, 30 minutes)

IRICC Web page Update Demo and Decision

SDF?  (Note: ANYONE know what this refers to?)

Survey for Landsat data, strategy for managing data sharing.

Strategize an interagency system for tracking ‘take’, or activities tracking system.  FS/BLM to come with info on how they track activities.

EPA/FWS to present info needs for tracking the implementation of BO’s.

NRIS Update – Carl Almquist

 

Future Meeting Dates (Mark those Calendars!)

July 31, September 11, November 1, December 4

 

Pre-Work for Next Meeting

Please come prepared to brief IRICC on 1) whether your agency has Landsat data available as is able to share it, and 2) how your agency is tracking land mgt activities.

 

Web site

Kath Collier has now arrived to REO and been working hard to set up the new REO web site.  This change will take place 6/21.  She and her staff will also be working on several other web sites, Monitoring for example.  Kath has developed a strategic plan for these web sites related to the Forest Plan.

 

Kath has reviewed the IRICC web site and would like to offer to support this site as well.  We have discussed this with Stan Allen at PSMFC, the current care taker for the web site.  There doesn’t seem to be any major issues with this transition.

 

For today’s meeting this will simply be a discussion item, with a decision to be made at the next IRICC meeting as to process for supporting the web site and information needed on the site.  Please review the attached document from Kath regarding this proposal.

 

Vegetation Update - Mike

IVMP Interagency Veg Mapping Project, primarily to support the Monitoring in the NWFP.  4 covers to be developed, Total Veg, Conifer cover, Total Veg cover, and size measured by QMD (Quadratic Mean Diameter).  FIA plots are used as the base information, with photo interpretation of 92 and 93 TM data.

 

Olympics, Or. Coast and W. Cascades have data available today.  Western Cascades of Washington is 90% complete.  Projected completion will take approximately a year.

 

Melinda Moore (USFS) is putting together an LSOG working group, to analyze the use of this product for LSOG classification, and the update (change detection) process.

 

 

 

The web site for further information may be found at www.or.blm.gov/gis/projects/vegetation/ivmp/index.asp

 

 

THE USGS has an ongoing classification effort based on MRLC.  By end of Sept. they hope to finish the accuracy assessment and correct the data to make it available.  They are planning on starting the next version, and looking for partners.

 

End July Landsat 4 and 5 will be decommissioned.  All data will convert to public domain data, just as with 7 data.

 

 

Landsat - Nancy suggested a survey of who has what Landsat data to develop a catalog to minimize repurchasing.  EROS may do this, so Nancy will check into this. Agenda item for next meeting on how to structure this request and sharing process.

 

F&WS – George – Still busy with lawsuits.  Emphasized the need for sharing information and coordination.  One issue is the consultation (BO) and the authorization of ‘take’ acres through BO’s, with the acres actually used by the land management agencies. 

 

Washington State – Carrie.  Bob Wright has been has hired as the new GIS manager.  Hydro data conversion effort is going smoothly.  W. Wash. Has been cleaned and ready for routing.  Moving into Arc8 for the cadastral Framework.  BLM is doing something similar.  Web server is getting a new firewall, starting on ArcIMS development.  October expect delivery for routed roads for DNR.  Transportation Framework will revue a white paper from Ken Dueker on alternatives for Framework structure.

 

BLM – Dan – Field User Group meeting last week discussed priorities and budgets.  Discussed moving to the GeoDatabase.  Looking at restructuring the GIS shop.

 

FS – Kim – Also a GIS field meeting last week, also looked at moving to GeoDatabase.  Just completed survey of forests for status of core data.  Available soon.  Proposal developed for restructuring IT staffs throughout the Region 6, and possibly nationally.  This would include GIS and cadastral.  Kim will send a copy of this proposal.

 

USGS – Nancy – Proposed national map concept piece is out for review.  Comments are due ASAP.  House budget comm. has restored their budget, now on to Senate.  Regional geographer position is out.  Hydrologist will be retiring soon.  NHD expertise will be moving to the Sacramento area soon, Bill Kaiser.  Utah is now back in the Western region. 

 

NWFSC - Brendon – Meeting with OWEB and SERF board to develop a monitoring tracking database.  Developing a strategic direction for their new team.  Talking with BPA and PSMFC on coordination. 

 

EPA – Bill – Working on a trans-boundary analysis for the Puget Sound with Canada.  Combining protected areas, 303D, etc.  Will devote more work on air issues (burning).  Now installing Arc 8.1, tuning SDE.   Rains will go into production internally next month. 

 

REO – Dale – Just completed move back to our permanent office.  Went as well as can be expected.

 

The REO helped to coordinate a series of  6th field workshops, with the goal to establish a complete set of draft 5th and 6th level watersheds for all of Washington, Oregon and N. California.  With the help of over 100 hydrologists we were able to very nearly complete our goal (see picture below).  The remaining areas will be finished by the end of June.  Our next goal is to round up funding so that we may finalize the dataset using contract services.  Our goal is $110,000.  The contractor has been selected and ready to start.  If you can help at all in a contribution for your agency please contact the REO.  For more information on this project please visit: http://www.reo.gov/gis/projects/watersheds/watersheds.htm

 

The Hydrography Framework Clearinghouse has begun beta testing.  The BLM has made some initial tests, and Washington DNR will visit REO late June to train and strategize on the beta test.  A small problem has been found in ftp’ing dataset through the Forest Service firewall.  Several work arounds have been developed, but this points to the need for a wide effort in testing this new technology.  For further information, or to be a beta tester please contact Jim Edmonds at 503-808-2168.

 

The strategy to coordinate and update Land Use Allocations has been put on hold with the recent 9th circuit court ruling for FWS and NMFS regarding consultation.  For REO and the agencies this has become the highest priority for the NW Forest Plan.  We plan on resuming this project in August.

 

(Note: the following are updates to the meeting notes)

In coordination with the NW Interagency Fire Coordination team, the REO has been assigned to develop an ftp site, for the purpose of coordinating all fire information (boundaries, reports, photos, etc) for the PNW.  In support of distributing fire information and boundaries to the public and media, we have developed an ArcIMS web site.  Each day as fire boundary changes are submitted, we will update this site to provide the latest information.  Please visit the web site www.reo.gov/nwfire for further info.

 

The REO has been working with the FS in getting the DOQ’s available online, in addition to the DRG’s and DEM’s we now supply for the PNW.  The FS has been compressing these using Mr Sid (10:1), but this is a very time consuming job.  The REO will bring in personnel to load the compressed images to a server for download.  They will also help in compressing these, but we need a copy of Mr. Sid.  If you have one that we can use for just a month please contact Dale Guenther at 503-808-2188.  Look for these DOQ’s to show up within a month on the REO web site.  This should be a big help to communities and agencies, especially in fire situations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

REGIONAL ECOSYSTEM OFFICE ISSUE PAPER

prepared by: Kath Collier, Supervisory Management Analyst

November 1, 2001

 

ISSUE: Proposal for IRICC Website

 

BACKGROUND: The IRICC website has been voluntarily supported by non-Federal partners for several years.  With REO updating their base website and getting more staff trained to support web information dissemination, there is an opportunity to move some of the maintenance for this site back into REO. 

 

ALTERNATIVES/RECOMMENDATIONS:

 

1. Business As Usual - keeping the site updated is not a primary responsibility and the information can become stale and out of date. Their ability to assign additional resources to this project is extremely limited - particularly since there are no funds to support it.

 

2. Turn it over to another agency - this is a possibility but there is a shortage of web masters at the agency level at this time. These folks would not be familiar with the terminology or the program.

 

3. Contract it out - This is a possibility and would require a significant funding investment, not only in the hardware/system support, but in the routine html conversions required.

 

4. Turn it over to the REO - RECOMMENDED - this makes a lot of sense because the committee chairperson resides in the REO and the capabilities for keeping the site up to date now exist. Duties could be shared between the administrative support staff and the GIS group. Workload impacts would be fairly minimal after the basic conversion/transfer has been completed.

 

IMPLEMENTATION:  

 

Workload:  Currently the workload is fairly minimal and revolve around posting meeting notices and notes. There would be a short term spike in workload to transfer/convert site to our server. The ongoing workload (estimated at no more than 1 hour per month) would be fairly easy to address particularly with our close proximity to the chairperson. More complicated applications could be supported by the existing GIS web technician or myself.

 

System capacity:  The site is fairly small from what I can see (it used to fit on a floppy disk) and would be well within the capabilities of our system. There are some issues regarding the capabilities of our system, this certainly would not be the “straw that broke the camel’s back.”

 

Content processes:  Content must come from the IRICC and I suggested at the last meeting that they develop a method for getting information to the web site on a regular basis. This information could be expanded beyond what is currently on the site to include their work plan, accomplish-ments, opportunities to participate, membership lists, what the members do, etc. Content must have a review process which may include one or more members within the REO.

 

OTHER CONTACTS MADE: Stan Allen, PSMFS; REO: Dale Guenther, Jeanne Keyes, Laurie Ystad