February 22 , 2006
Arkansas State Land Information Board
Minutes February 22, 2006
Meeting held at AGIO offices, Little Rock, AR
9:30am – 12:00pm
Board Members Attending
Mr. Bill Bush
Mr. Brian Culpepper (proxy for Dr. Fred Limp)
Mr. Russell Gibson - Chairman (via phone)
Dr. Rob Kissell
Mr. Robert Newell (New member)
Ms. Phyllis Poché
Mr. Yancey Reynolds
Mr. Bob Stanley
Ms. Mary Kay Sullivan
Board Members Absent
Judge David Hudson – Vice Chairman
Ms. Tracy Moy
Mr. Earl Smith
Arkansas Geographic Information Office (AGIO) Staff
Kimberly Bogart
Learon Dalby
Shelby Johnson
Guests
None
Agenda
Meeting called to order by Chairman Gibson at 9:41am
Approval of Minutes from January 18th, 2006 meeting.
Motion: Bill Bush moved approval of the minutes dated 01/18/06.
Second: Rob Kissell seconded the motion. No discussion, the motion passed unanimously.
Approval of Minutes from November 18th, 2005 meeting.
Motion: Bill Bush moved approval of the minutes dated 11/18/05.
Second: Phyllis Poché seconded the motion. No discussion, the motion passed unanimously.
Welcomed to meeting by Russell Gibson.
In consideration of the new board member, the Board and the AGIO introduced themselves to Mr. Newell.
Election of Officers for 2006
Nominations for Chairman: Bill Bush nominated Phyllis Poché
Ms. Poché accepted the nomination
No further nominations were made and nominations were closed.
Motion: Bill Bush made a motion to accept by acclamation Phyllis Poché for the position of Chairman
Second: Mary Kay Sullivan seconded the motion. No discussion, the motion passed unanimously.
Nominations for Vice-Chairman: Phyllis Poché nominated Yancey Reynolds
Mr. Reynolds accepted the nomination
No further nominations were made and nominations were closed.
Motion: Bill Bush made a motion to accept Yancey Reynolds by acclamation of Vice-Chairman
Second: Brian Culpepper (proxy for Dr. Fred Limp) seconded the motion. No discussion, the motion passed unanimously.
AGIO report from State Geographic Information Coordinator (issued by Learon Dalby)
GeoStor Status Update
Challenges
The geographic search is producing false positives for available data. Due to a geographic extent in the metadata search GeoStor will report that data is available when in fact the data is not a continuous statewide dataset. This causes GeoStor to respond with a “no features found” message. We are aware of this issue and we are working to resolve this issue.
AGIO has disabled the raster re-projection option in GeoStor and is delivering rasters in the same projection they were loaded into GeoStor (native projection). Safe software, producer of Spatial Direct & Feature Manipulation Engine – the software used to extract and re-project data in to the format and coordinate system of their choice - is working to resolve this issue. Spatial Direct can perform raster re-projection but the algorithm used is very slow. No large amount of negative feedback has been received. Safe anticipates the issue being resolved by mid summer. AGIO staff will implement the solution as soon as it is provided.
Successes
AGIO has been working toward encouraging data custodians to load and maintain their own data in GeoStor. Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) has made a request to do this with their Non-Point Source Pollution (NPSP) data. They are also interested in building a Web Mapping Application that would run off of the GeoStor System. ADEQ would be responsible for building the application. AGIO staff would only be responsible for ‘prepping’ the system.
The AGIO also has plans to create a web map application to serve up FEMA’s new DFIRMs for use by the states Floodplain Administrators that will run from the GeoStor system.
There has been an increase in interest in Fayetteville shale, gas and oil locations in Arkansas. There have been several requests for the AGIO to revise the current Oil & Gas Commission statewide web application to focus on this and release it to the public.
GeoStor Use Statistics - the Board was shown the use statistics link on the GeoStor website. On February 10th, an article was released in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette newspaper about the ADOP program and the use of the map viewer greatly increased for about 4 days. Due to increased usage and the desire of the public to view Ortho Imagery, small changes were made to the map viewer to make accessing the orthos easier. There is also information about the most popular layers being viewed and downloaded. The AGIO is still working toward encouraging users to make a direct connection to GeoStor through and IMS connection as opposed to downloads. There is currently no ability to track feature service requests, but we are working with a software monitoring company called Latitude Graphics to figure this out.
Arkansas Road Centerline File (ACF) Grant Update
The Governor has released funds for the ACF Grant, and the counties that are receiving the Centerline Grants (Round 1) were presented a notice of award at the County Judges Winter Meeting last week. The Round 2 submissions are due by March 31st. Shelby and Kimberly visited with 10 of the 18 counties eligible for Round 2 at the County Judges Meeting to make them aware of the opportunity. Several counties from Round 1 are already moving forward with their projects. Vince and Kimberly are arranging Kick-off meetings for counties that received grants to discuss the Project expectations and schedule.
ADOP
The Project status graphic was shown to the Board and only approximately 7 flight lines in north east Arkansas and 5 lines over Polk County need re-flying to complete the project. Earth Data is still maintaining two planes in or near the state to complete the project. The deliverable products are 1m Color InfraRed (CIR), 1m True color, 5m Digital Elevation Model (DEM), 5m 1st return elevation data, five areas of 1’ imagery –Garland, Miller, Saline, Sebastian, and Pulaski Counties and all the associated raw data. The AGIO anticipates a public release of data in February or March of 2007.
The AGIO is also working to make the data available through Microsoft Virtual Earth and Google earth with credit source being the State of Arkansas.
NHD Training
The AGIO and the USGS have joined together to provide free National Hydrography Dataset (NHD - a comprehensive set of digital spatial data that contains information about surface water features) training in the State of Arkansas. There have been over 80 applicants for the course and it has been determined that several training sessions will be held in both Central and Northwest Arkansas to accommodate the locations of the applicants. The site for the Central Arkansas sessions will be held at the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality’s (ADEQ) training facilities and the Northwest Arkansas site has yet to be determined as of this meeting.
The classes have begun to be scheduled for the month of March and the attendees are being notified by email of the dates and times of their class.
Discussion and vote to approve loading of new data into GeoStor2.
The Board’s Policy on loading data into GeoStor was passed out to members present for their review. Following the policy the AGIO prepared a recommendation for the following layers to be loaded into GeoStor.
- Ortho imagery from Crawford County, Poinsett County, the City of Hope, and the City of Arkadelphia
- FEMA’s Digital Flood Insurance Rate Maps (DFIRMs) both City and County level
- 8-Digit level High Resolution NHD Hydro Data
Motion: Bill Bush made a motion to approve the loading of the layers listed above.
Second: Brian Culpepper seconded the motion as proxy for Dr. Fred Limp. No discussion, the motion passed unanimously.
Learon Dalby passed out the Policy Statement for GeoStor Data Loading Procedures and the GeoStor Data Loading Guidelines to bring to the Board’s attention the changes recommended to the Procedures and Guidelines.
Recommended changes for the Policy Statement
- The new state guidelines are for data to be created and maintained in NAD83 and not NAD27. The policy has been revised to illustrate this difference.
- On page 5, concerning security concerns, a line item has been added that links to the FGDC security guidelines
- On page 3 section 6.0, where data submitters fill out information about their data, the AGIO feels that would be better if it was a web form that could be filled in online.
Recommended changes for the Data loading guidelines
- Update the Guidelines to reflect the changes to the Policy Statement
- References to Sun and Linux were removed
- Accepting data on outdated media types such as 8mm tapes were removed and added the ability to accept data provided on portable hard drives was added
- Field names that are unique to other systems and therefore cannot be used in data layers are listed
These changes will need a motion and were tabled until the next board meeting. Copies of these two documents will be sent out to absent board members for review.
Discussion about moving the meetings to a quarterly schedule.
In the past, the Board has tried to meet monthly or even every other month with additional meetings during a legislative session. But, as the Board is stabilizing it may make more sense to meet quarterly. If an urgent issue comes up the Board can meet via teleconference. All of the Board members will be polled via email to get their opinions.
This issue was tabled until the April meeting to allow the Board to review the change.
Board Member Travel Reimbursement.
Motion: Bill Bush made a motion to authorize travel expenses to be paid to board members for the calendar year of 2006
Second: Phyllis Poché seconded the motion. No discussion, the motion passed unanimously.
A travel packet was handed out that will allow the AGIO to obtain needed information for reimbursement. These will be mailed to absent Board members.
Future meeting dates
Looking at Mid-April – full day
Held at the Offices of the AGIO
Board member will poll via email to determine the next available date for a meeting.
Comments from guests
None
Motion: Bill Bush made a motion to adjourn the meeting
Second: Bob Stanley seconded the motion. No discussion, the motion passed unanimously.
Meeting concluded at 11:02am
Minutes prepared by Kimberly Bogart
