Mark Olsen of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency demonstrated an ArcView mock-up of the National Hydrography Dataset. The dataset is not a ‘true’ NHD dataset as yet, but it does demonstrate how the dataset would look and how it would work.

Olsen noted that there will be some changes in the implementation from the original NHD data model, specifically collapsing the number of data tables containing attributes. This is in response to public comments that the data file structure was too complicated. The result is that there will be fewer attribute tables containing more data fields each, but the overall workings of the system will be the same.

In the demonstration dataset, associated data such as monitoring site points had been "incorporated" indirectly, by buffering the linework, intersecting the monitoring site point file with the buffered river reaches, and assigning Reach Codes to each monitoring site. This enabled the user to identify monitoring points in terms of reaches, and determine which monitoring sites were upstream or downstream of a given reach, but it is not a true linear referencing implementation which would allow the user to determine upstreamness based on the location of an individual point feature with respect to the river trace.

Review of Surface Water Subcommittee June, 1998, Year-end Report:

Committee members reviewed the June, 1998 Year-End report, which is seen as an interim report to a final document to be produced at the end of this year’s work. Maeder will incorporate comments, track down answers to a few questions, and finalize this document before the next meeting.

Agency Reports/Committee Activities Followup:

Basins98 Status (DNR Major/Minor Watershed File, 1998 Updated Version):

All watershed linework corrections have now been made, and the CAD 100K files are being recompiled from CAD to Arc/INFO. DNR is planning on adding Mankato State lakeshed lines and United States Geological Survey sub-watershed lines to the file before it is completed and released. Projected release date is late December or early January.

Lakeshed Project (DNR):

DNR is waiting for the arrival of the hardware and software to support the project. A GIS staffperson (Sean Vaughan) has been hired to assist on the project. DNR will hold an in-house business object modeling session in late October to help define the needs for the agency with regards to lakesheds.

Lakes Initiative (multi-agency):

The Governor’s press conference scheduled for mid-October to announce a new interagency Lakes Initiative was cancelled. No new date has been set.

Watershed Update Procedure Write-up (LMIC):

The Watershed Update Procedure Guidelines written last year by this subcommittee have yet to be turned into a final product. LMIC staff will try to complete this and to produce a document suitable for being published as a brochure, and as a WEB document, by the next meeting. The group discussed the potential target group for the write-up, which might include Soil and Water Conservation Districts, Watershed Management Organizations, County Engineers, and County Water Planners, among others. DNR suggested that they will be contacting the same target audience with regard to the Lakeshed projects, and we might want to combine the two notifications.

River Numbering:

Maeder expressed the need to resolve the river numbering issue, where several agencies or divisions use different conventions. She was interested in putting it on the agenda for the next meeting and coming to a resolution of the issue. Other members felt that, if we accepted the National Hydrology Dataset’s Reach Numbering System as a convention, other numbering systems could be maintained as a simple conversion table, and that "competing" numbering systems are no longer a big issue. (Other numbering conventions are used within DNR sections of Fisheries and Waters, and have been used by LMIC). Maeder countered that periodic feedback from people not on this committee indicate that people are still worried about it. The group decided that it would be worthwhile to bring users of non-Reach numbering systems to the table, find out to what extent they use them, whether they need those systems built in to a GIS file, how willing they might be to change, etc. The users of these systems are not generally represented at the Hydrography Committee meetings and would need to be invited to deal with this particular topic.

DNR Budget Initiative on Surface Water Layer:

The proposal to develop a 1:24,000, NHD-compatible surface water layer using the MnDOT Basemap Hydrography and National Wetlands Inventory as a basis for the rivers and lakes, respectively, is still included in the DNR’s Budget Initiative.

Status of DNR enhanced 1:24,000 hydrography layer development:

DNR Fisheries has put $10,000 toward this project this fiscal year, and will try to obtain additional funds to keep going. The northeastern and southeastern portions of the state are basically done; DNR is now working in Central Minnesota with the contract assistance of St. Cloud State. Contract work under the current contract will be done by the end of the year. DNR processing of the linework needs to be done after that. At the end of the current contract, about 660 of the state’s 1400+ 7.5-minute quadrangle maps will have been completed.

Status of National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) verification at MPCA:

MPCA has completed the 7.5-minute quad-by-quad processing of the 1:100,000-level NHD dataset for Minnesota. MPCA is currently appending the quads into cataloguing units (equivalent to DNR major watersheds). This will take through December or into early January. Then the basin files will be returned to USGS, which will run the programs to turn the files into fully-NHD-attributed data sets.

Minnesota is one of 5 or 6 states seriously talking about creating 1:24,000-based NHD data. Grant money may be available from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to help do this.

Mankato State University/Water Resources Center:

Water Resources Center staff were unable to attend this meeting, but will attend in the future. The Minnesota River Basin hydro layer (based on the MnDOT Basemap layers) is not yet complete. One of the issues not yet resolved is creating "flow-through rules" to connect rivers through lakes and wetlands, and also to decide how to deal with streams which disappear into underground drainage networks. MSU would like to meet with DNR and other interested parties, so that they can use the same methodology in connecting the rivers that is used by the DNR 1:24,000 enhancement effort. (DNR is currently connecting rivers through lakes, but not through wetlands if the flow path is not obvious). DNR-MIS had previously asked for a clarification from hydrology staff on how to do this. A special work group of interested committee members was recruited specifically to discuss connectivity issues and report back to the larger group.

To-Do List (before next meeting):

Ann Banitt, U. S. Army Corps of Engineers
Robert Bixby, Spatial Analysis Research Center, St. Cloud State University
Bobbi Chapman, Department of Natural Resources, Fisheries Section
Mark Ebbers, Department of Natural Resources, Fisheries Section
Bruce Gerbig, Department of Natural Resources - Waters
Joe Gibson, Department of Natural Resources – Waters
Leigh Harrod, Metropolitan Council
Susanne Maeder, Land Management Information Center, Minnesota Planning
Robert Maki, Department of Natural Resources – Management Information Systems
Mark Olsen, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency
Victoria Poage, Department of Natural Resources, Fisheries Section
Lisa Sayler, Mn Department of Transportation
Jim Solstad, Department of Natural Resources - Waters
Sean Vaughan, Department of Natural Resources – Waters
Mark Wald, OSM and Associates

Notes prepared by: Susanne Maeder, LMIC