April 15, 1998 at 9:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Fairchild Building, Room 709 (EPA)
499 South Capitol Street, S.W.
Washington, D.C.

MINUTES

WELCOME, INTRODUCTIONS AND OPENING REMARKS: Eighteen representatives of four agencies attended the meeting to discuss Federal activities involving spatial water data. The agenda is attached at the end of this text. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) /Water Information Coordination Program (WICP) sponsored the meeting in consultation with representatives of the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC). Nancy Lopez, Chief of the Office of Water Information Coordination, chaired the meeting. A list of attendees is below:

Andy Battin, EPA
Frank Beck, USGS. FGDC
Ken Brooker, USACE
Wendy Coleman, EPA/OW
Tom Connolly, USGS/NMD
George Cross, NRCS
Tod Dabolt, EPA
Tommy DeWald, EPA
Beth Duff, USGS/NMD
Sue Greeenlee, USGS/EROS
Betsy Henry, EPA/OW
Tom Livan, NRCS
Ken Jones, NRCS
Nancy Lopez, USGS/WRD
Glenn Patterson, USGS/WRD
Bob Pierce, USGS/WRD/GA
Allen Rea, USGS/WRD/OK
Keven Roth, USGS/NMD

NEW ACTION ITEMS:

1. The group will address the following topics at the May meeting: Multi-Resolution Land Characterization, Digital Soils Datasets, and Open Access. The group will also begin talking about interagency collaboration to achieve common objectives.

2. At the June meeting the group will discuss watershed modeling including the EPA Basins Model, the USGS Sparrow Model, and the work underway at the NRCS to address watershed issues.

3. At a future meeting, the group will invite the NWS to discuss hourly precipitation products that integrate NEXRAD and in situ monitoring within watersheds.

4. The NRCS and FWS will be invited to a future meeting to discuss information about new White House policies related to wetland mapping and plans to track/map gains and losses in wetlands on an annual basis.

STATUS OF OLD ACTION ITEMS:

1. USGS/WICP-Hold a meeting in less than a month on spatial data for watershed assessment. Include a briefing on digital elevation data at that meeting. DONE

2. USGS/WICP-Distribute the guidelines for delineating and digitizing higher resolution watershed boundaries for review and approval by Federal agencies within 30 days. PENDING

3. USGS/WICP-Once the Watershed Boundary Dataset guidelines are distributed, hold a briefing seminar for Federal agencies. The purpose of the meeting would be to review the guidelines and explain the rationale for the approaches recommended in the guidelines. PENDING

4. All Attendees-Before the next meeting review and comment on the preliminary discussion draft for Terms of Reference (Terms) for the Subcommittee on Spatial Water Data. PENDING

5. USGS/WICP and FGDC-Once agencies have an opportunity to comment, then the revised Terms will be distributed to the Advisory Committee on Water Information and the Federal Geographic Data Committee for review and approval. PENDING

6. All Attendees-Identify additional people and organizations that need to participate in future meetings. For example, a representative from the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be invited to attend the next meeting to discuss Digital Flood Insurance Rate Maps. As soon as possible, the Subcommittee needs to convene and begin operating as a national forum with meetings open to the public. FEMA HAS BEEN CONTACTED. NATIONAL FORUM PENDING.

SPATIAL DATA NEEDS FOR WATERSHED ASSESSMENT AND RESTORATION. Agencies attending the meeting discussed their activities and requirements related to spatial data for watershed applications. To begin the discussion, Nancy Lopez distributed an appendix from a draft publication prepared by the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. Keith McLaughin provided the draft information for distribution to the group, but was unable to attend the meeting. The appendix is entitled "Core Hydro-Meteorological Data and Information Protocols, " and it is part of a draft report that FS is currently printing entitled Interagency Protocols for Hydrologic Condition Assessment. The report is intended to be interim guidance for field offices; it will be open for comment for a year or more before the guidance is considered final.

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY. Andy Battin indicated that original work on Multi-Resolution Landscape Characterization (MRLC) is not complete and needs to be wrapped up. Future efforts related to MRLC need to focus on ways to accelerate the availability and distribution of updated land cover information. Also, Andy noted that the EPA Basins Model will require hourly precipitation data spatially distributed over the watershed. He indicated that EPA does not have a national file of water bodies/reaches with the uses that are designated by States.

Tod Dabolt/Monitoring Branch stated that EPA needs the National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) to be completed at the 1:100,000 scale ASAP to support the President's Clean Water Action Plan, Clean Water Act Section 303(d), Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDL), work related to litigation and myriads of other applications that need reach locations and identifiers. Also, Tod discussed the need for higher resolution information about the locations of riparian-wetland areas.

Betsy Henry/Ground Water Protection discussed their work to obtain latitude and longitude (lat/long) data for water supply intakes nationwide. These data have not been required in the past, and data about the locations of water supply systems that are currently available at the State level generally lack quality control. The EPA is working with the Ground Water Protection Council, a national level association of State ground water managers, to improve these data. Also, EPA has contracted with the USGS/WRD to assist in efforts to improve the location data in the Safe Drinking Water Information System.

Wendy Blake-Coleman/Office of Water discussed the general need to provide lat/long as a location identifier for water -related map features. In addition, she indicated that water quality assessment efforts also need information about atmospheric deposition. Thus, there is a need to define and map "airsheds" that contribute pollutants to impaired waterbodies and and their watersheds. Wendy also discussed a system called EnviroFax that is a data warehouse used by EPA. Other agencies can access the system.

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