Township Meeting :
The meeting was scheduled for 7 PM on 3June 2009. The meeting times will be reset to the old start time of 7:30 PM beginning in July.
The stone crushing operation was a success with a large amount of stone crushed in 6 days. The resulting modified and 3A tonnage was obtained at considerable savings and is being used for the annual road maintenance. Personnel changes were made to improve the road crews.
Flags have been placed at veterans' graves by a volunteer.
A citizen expressed concern about gas companies doing seismic surveys and laying pipelines along township road rights of way. Supervisors stated that no permits have been requested or granted. They do not plan to permit any pipelines along roads; but expect to consider pipelines that cross roads from one leased tract to another. They stated that companies do not ask them about seismic surveys; they just do them.
The next township meeting will be Wednesday,1 July, at 7:30 PM.
NTC Meeting :
Jessup hosted the first (and perhaps last) quarterly NTC meeting on Thursday, 18June, at 7 PM. The meeting was brief ending with an agreement to meet again in two months.
Bill Stewart introduced 3 agenda items.
First was a discussion of DCED's request for an audit of the three year planning and zoning grant funds, covering July 1, 2004 through June 30, 2007. The requested audit is a "Yellow Book" audit which requires special credentials, not possessed by most auditors. Mr. Brian Kelly was retained to do the audit at an estimated $2500. Mr. Kelly will also arrange for an extension of the audit deadline from 30 June to end July 2009. A vote was passed to do so. Interestingly, the treasurer's report showed a recent bill paid against that account for services by Mr Helfrich.
Second was a discussion of a MOA with Montrose Boro and their bill for the use of land under the NTC metal equipment building on their land. The building houses composting equipment, used by some of the NTC towns. It was agreed to have a separate meeting of the "composters" to decide on the MOA and bill ( about $350 for usage and legal fees). That meeting will also address the allocation of charges for compost equipment maintenance.
Third was a mention of the PSATS award given to the NTC for their efforts to do multi-municipal planning and zoning. Silver Lake agreed to hold and display the award.
With the formal business over, a citizen asked about the status of zoning. Bill Stewart said some were still considering it. Township representatives confirmed that Apolacon, Franklin, Jessup, Liberty, Middletown, and Silver Lake were not going to zone. No township, of the remaining six, stated that they intended to zone. It was noted at the March meeting that the original multi-municipal inter-governmental cooperation agreement, was never signed by all and, hence, the resulting draft ordinance could only be used as the basis for individual zoning ordinances , presumably, after review and adoption by the individual township planning commissions.
At Bill Stewart's request, it was agreed to have the next meeting at Middletown on 20 August at 7 PM to allow for discussion of the DCED audit. It was stated that meetings might be held or not held in future on the planned schedule and that interested people could find out by viewing the NTC website or asking their township office. Alternatively, the County Planning Office could be called to find the time and place of future meetings.
County Gas Task Force Meeting :
The meeting was scheduled for 9:30 AM, Thursday 25 June, prior to the Economic Development committee meeting at 10AM. It began late and continued into the subsequent meeting. The meeting did not add much more information than presented last month. The Bradford Progress Authority is trying to induce companies to come here for a company-to-company "Expo" to get better exchange of gas company needs and local company capabilities. This may occur by the Fall. Another "Expo" may be held next year to address workforce needs.
Joann Kowalski noted that a PSU study indicates that a single well generates the equivalent of about 11.5 jobs for one year. The required job skills are about 25% College level and 75% High School level. Reference information can be found at www.pct.edu.msetc/.
I asked in anyone would be interested in having gas well and pipeline locations easily available on a map. Many seemed interested. I suggested to the group and to Commissioner Allen that the county could provide that capability at no cost to viewers and at no cost or low cost to the county.
At no cost, simply publish on the county website an Internet reference to existing websites; and at low cost, extend a current Google Map Application, which shows permitted and production wells and major pipelines, to provide more information such as access roads and gathering pipelines. The extensions can be added by getting GPS locations from the gas companies. A full discussion of the County Gas Map Proposal is available in my 23 June blog post.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
County Gas Map Proposal
My June 1 post, "Mapping County Gas Data", asked a simple question : why can't we use Google Maps to create an adequate county gas data GIS capability quickly and inexpensively?
The question remains unanswered; but, maybe I wasn't very clear about what constitutes quick, doable and adequate.
So, I'll explain more and demonstrate some features of a proposed capability that can be obtained at No Cost to Low Cost to the county. It also will allow citizens and county agencies to access accurate map based information on permitted and producing gas wells, pipelines, and other data at no cost.
Really - "No Cost" ?? "Low Cost" ?? Well, Yes, really !
But it does depend on what we demand in terms of accuracy, currency and completeness, and ownership of the data. I'll discuss these items later; first, here is the No-Low Cost proposal.
No cost is simple. Use what already exists and is widely available on the Internet. Low cost means augmenting an existing capability with more data. Both capability levels are based on use of a Google Map Application with all the built-in features of Google maps provided free by Google, including tutorials on how to add features to one's own map application.
There is an existing application developed by a self-proclaimed technology geek who enjoys real-time mapping applications. You can visit his website at Susquehanna County - Gas Exploration Maps to examine different features and map scales. His maps cover Susquehanna County and several adjacent counties in PA and NY. They provide data on permitted and producing wells, major pipelines and compression stations. He updates them monthly or semi-monthly. They are reasonably complete and accurate.
Simply using this application is the No Cost option. The county should publicise it on a county website so people would know where to find it.
For the Low Cost option, the county could deal with this individual to get more information in his data base or to be allowed to maintain a comparable version of his application which the county would update and extend. An obvious extension would be to add small well gathering pipelines and well access roads based on data from the gas companies. If this data were provided in simple GPS coordinates, it would be easy to include in the Google map application.
There you have it - a basic Gas Data Map capability at No to Low Cost with easy Internet access.
Let's demonstrate the "No Cost" option by some Google Map screen shots, starting with this one, County Gas Map 1, that show the county and gas industry information. The Blue east-west line is the Tennessee Gas Pipeline; red balloons are the locations of permitted gas wells; green balloons locate producing well locations; newly permitted pipelines are shown as blue flags; other icons locate other gas activities.
The second screen shot, County Gas Map 2, zooms to a smaller scale map to show the wells in relation to local roads. We can reduce the scale more and get closer by sliding the Google map scale indicator in the + direction. At this scale we can see a red triangle that depicts the location of a gas compression station.
Clicking the mouse on any symbol, e.g.. a green balloon, causes an info bubble to pop-up with descriptive information on well ID, production or other data.The pop-up for the green balloon directly above the red triangle states it is the Teel 5 well by Cabot, facility ID 700047, the first production well in NE PA. The pop-up bubble for the balloon to the right of it identifies it as Black 2H well by Cabot, Facility ID 706268, which produced 8.3Mmcf/d with a 4 stage frac on 3-3-09.
The information inside an information bubble is whatever the map developer wants to put there. In addition, each bubble has a Google feature that allows you to enter your current location and get a route map and driving directions from your location to the well (bubble)location. Since this is a Google Map application, all the Google map features are available. We could shift from the standard map format, shown above, to one that overlays the data on a terrain map or on satellite imagery. Of course, the satellite imagery would only show features present when the image was taken, such as trees, fields, ponds, and buildings.
So, now lets discuss those mapping performance terms and what they imply for costs to enhance the existing gas data map application.
Accuracy means how precisely the gas location data is measured and plotted on the map. If we demand survey level accuracy, the map capability will be costly and take a while to create. If we can live with accuracy equal to a standard GPS - based automobile or handheld navigation system, we can have a capability fast and at no cost to low cost. I believe that level of accuracy is adequate.
Currency means how timely the plotted data is; for example, if a new well permit is issued, do we want it to be plotted and the map updated within a day? or a week? or would a month be timely enough? Completeness means how much new data is captured and plotted on a timely basis; must it be 100% or is 80-90% enough? Since we have nothing now, I suggest that getting "most" data updated on the map one or twice a month is adequate.
Going from "most" to all or almost all takes us from No to Low Cost or more; going from once or twice a month to daily has the same effect.
Ownership of the data means who has control of the data base and the mapping application. If we demand that the county own it all, it will cost money and employee time. If we are willing to use a product owned and maintained by a third party, then our cost is none to low, depending on what we require of the third party in terms of currency, completeness and assured accessibility to the map application.
Bottom Line - I propose that the county use the above existing application "as is" for an immediate no cost capability. Publicize this on a county website for citizen access.
To gain more capability, define what additional information is needed and conduct two negotiations. First, negotiate with the application developer to add more information in a timely fashion either by him or by a partnering arrangement with the county, possibly by maintaining a county version. Second, negotiate with the gas companies to get timely access road and pipeline data in a format for easy entry into the map application.
Update - I should also reference this other primary source of information on Gas Wells in Susquehanna County PA. The main website is at RLSTORE.COM . It has considerable data on current well activity and maps of well sites. Although the maps lack the scaling and manipulation features of a Google Map application, the data is updated frequently and is available for an $18 annual subscription.
The question remains unanswered; but, maybe I wasn't very clear about what constitutes quick, doable and adequate.
So, I'll explain more and demonstrate some features of a proposed capability that can be obtained at No Cost to Low Cost to the county. It also will allow citizens and county agencies to access accurate map based information on permitted and producing gas wells, pipelines, and other data at no cost.
Really - "No Cost" ?? "Low Cost" ?? Well, Yes, really !
But it does depend on what we demand in terms of accuracy, currency and completeness, and ownership of the data. I'll discuss these items later; first, here is the No-Low Cost proposal.
No cost is simple. Use what already exists and is widely available on the Internet. Low cost means augmenting an existing capability with more data. Both capability levels are based on use of a Google Map Application with all the built-in features of Google maps provided free by Google, including tutorials on how to add features to one's own map application.
There is an existing application developed by a self-proclaimed technology geek who enjoys real-time mapping applications. You can visit his website at Susquehanna County - Gas Exploration Maps to examine different features and map scales. His maps cover Susquehanna County and several adjacent counties in PA and NY. They provide data on permitted and producing wells, major pipelines and compression stations. He updates them monthly or semi-monthly. They are reasonably complete and accurate.
Simply using this application is the No Cost option. The county should publicise it on a county website so people would know where to find it.
For the Low Cost option, the county could deal with this individual to get more information in his data base or to be allowed to maintain a comparable version of his application which the county would update and extend. An obvious extension would be to add small well gathering pipelines and well access roads based on data from the gas companies. If this data were provided in simple GPS coordinates, it would be easy to include in the Google map application.
There you have it - a basic Gas Data Map capability at No to Low Cost with easy Internet access.
Let's demonstrate the "No Cost" option by some Google Map screen shots, starting with this one, County Gas Map 1, that show the county and gas industry information. The Blue east-west line is the Tennessee Gas Pipeline; red balloons are the locations of permitted gas wells; green balloons locate producing well locations; newly permitted pipelines are shown as blue flags; other icons locate other gas activities.
The second screen shot, County Gas Map 2, zooms to a smaller scale map to show the wells in relation to local roads. We can reduce the scale more and get closer by sliding the Google map scale indicator in the + direction. At this scale we can see a red triangle that depicts the location of a gas compression station.
Clicking the mouse on any symbol, e.g.. a green balloon, causes an info bubble to pop-up with descriptive information on well ID, production or other data.The pop-up for the green balloon directly above the red triangle states it is the Teel 5 well by Cabot, facility ID 700047, the first production well in NE PA. The pop-up bubble for the balloon to the right of it identifies it as Black 2H well by Cabot, Facility ID 706268, which produced 8.3Mmcf/d with a 4 stage frac on 3-3-09.
The information inside an information bubble is whatever the map developer wants to put there. In addition, each bubble has a Google feature that allows you to enter your current location and get a route map and driving directions from your location to the well (bubble)location. Since this is a Google Map application, all the Google map features are available. We could shift from the standard map format, shown above, to one that overlays the data on a terrain map or on satellite imagery. Of course, the satellite imagery would only show features present when the image was taken, such as trees, fields, ponds, and buildings.
So, now lets discuss those mapping performance terms and what they imply for costs to enhance the existing gas data map application.
Accuracy means how precisely the gas location data is measured and plotted on the map. If we demand survey level accuracy, the map capability will be costly and take a while to create. If we can live with accuracy equal to a standard GPS - based automobile or handheld navigation system, we can have a capability fast and at no cost to low cost. I believe that level of accuracy is adequate.
Currency means how timely the plotted data is; for example, if a new well permit is issued, do we want it to be plotted and the map updated within a day? or a week? or would a month be timely enough? Completeness means how much new data is captured and plotted on a timely basis; must it be 100% or is 80-90% enough? Since we have nothing now, I suggest that getting "most" data updated on the map one or twice a month is adequate.
Going from "most" to all or almost all takes us from No to Low Cost or more; going from once or twice a month to daily has the same effect.
Ownership of the data means who has control of the data base and the mapping application. If we demand that the county own it all, it will cost money and employee time. If we are willing to use a product owned and maintained by a third party, then our cost is none to low, depending on what we require of the third party in terms of currency, completeness and assured accessibility to the map application.
Bottom Line - I propose that the county use the above existing application "as is" for an immediate no cost capability. Publicize this on a county website for citizen access.
To gain more capability, define what additional information is needed and conduct two negotiations. First, negotiate with the application developer to add more information in a timely fashion either by him or by a partnering arrangement with the county, possibly by maintaining a county version. Second, negotiate with the gas companies to get timely access road and pipeline data in a format for easy entry into the map application.
Update - I should also reference this other primary source of information on Gas Wells in Susquehanna County PA. The main website is at RLSTORE.COM . It has considerable data on current well activity and maps of well sites. Although the maps lack the scaling and manipulation features of a Google Map application, the data is updated frequently and is available for an $18 annual subscription.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Mapping County Gas Data
My last post discussed the May 28 Gas Force meeting and noted that the county no longer has a GIS capability and could not map gas pipelines, access roads and well locations. I found that surprising since the Penn State Land Analysis Lab had trained the county on a GIS system many years ago and much of the county was mapped by an intern. Way back then, the Penn State Lab was working on a consumer friendly interface to GIS information.
A user friendly Geographic Information System (GIS) would be useful now to keep track of the new gas exploration data. So why can't we get one? Maybe the Penn State lab has some new tools to help.
Then again, maybe we already have a free GIS available . Maybe the real question is : why can't we use Google Map Applications to do the job?
Google Maps is a very user friendly, very large GIS, available free to anyone who wants to design and maintain a Google Map Application.
Some folks have already done so, mapping gas well permits, producing gas wells, major pipelines, and other data on Google Maps. To see a local product, link to Susquehanna County - Gas Exploration Maps . This site, and several other online maps, was developed by "Railroad - RR", a self-described Techno Geek, who is very into maps and real-time data sharing. He maintains it with new data every month or so. There are other interested smart people who do this sort of thing for fun or profit. They gather data from county or state offices where permits are filed.
This information is accessible by anyone with a laptop and internet connection. If the county wants a comparable simple GIS for gas information, this seems like a place to start. If we can define what we want represented, we should be able to find someone to create a new, or modify an existing, map application.
As for populating the data base with new information, define a suitable format for data entry and ask gas companies to provide the data. They may be willing to do so and to use the resulting maps. Or the county could require road access and pipeline data as a public safety measure if we do not already have it.
So, back to my basic question, why can't we use Google Maps to create a county gas data GIS capability? And do it fast and inexpensively ?
A user friendly Geographic Information System (GIS) would be useful now to keep track of the new gas exploration data. So why can't we get one? Maybe the Penn State lab has some new tools to help.
Then again, maybe we already have a free GIS available . Maybe the real question is : why can't we use Google Map Applications to do the job?
Google Maps is a very user friendly, very large GIS, available free to anyone who wants to design and maintain a Google Map Application.
Some folks have already done so, mapping gas well permits, producing gas wells, major pipelines, and other data on Google Maps. To see a local product, link to Susquehanna County - Gas Exploration Maps . This site, and several other online maps, was developed by "Railroad - RR", a self-described Techno Geek, who is very into maps and real-time data sharing. He maintains it with new data every month or so. There are other interested smart people who do this sort of thing for fun or profit. They gather data from county or state offices where permits are filed.
This information is accessible by anyone with a laptop and internet connection. If the county wants a comparable simple GIS for gas information, this seems like a place to start. If we can define what we want represented, we should be able to find someone to create a new, or modify an existing, map application.
As for populating the data base with new information, define a suitable format for data entry and ask gas companies to provide the data. They may be willing to do so and to use the resulting maps. Or the county could require road access and pipeline data as a public safety measure if we do not already have it.
So, back to my basic question, why can't we use Google Maps to create a county gas data GIS capability? And do it fast and inexpensively ?
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