[Federal Register Volume 62, Number 174 (Tuesday, September 9, 1997)]
[Notices]
[Pages 47513-47514]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 97-23748]
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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Geological Survey
Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC); Public Comment on the
Proposal To Develop the ``Environmental Hazards Geospatial Data Content
Standard'' as a Federal Geographic Data Committee Standard
ACTION: Notice; request for comments.
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SUMMARY: The FGDC is soliciting public comments on the proposal to
develop a ``Environmental Hazards Geospatial Data Content Standard.''
If the proposal is approved, the standard will be developed following
the FGDC standards development and approval process. If the standard is
adopted by the FGDC, it must be followed by all Federal agencies
collecting environmental hazards geospatial data directly or
indirectly, through grants, partnerships, or contracts.
In its assigned Federal leadership in the development of the
National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI), the FGDC recognizes that
FGDC standards must also meet the needs and recognize the views of
State and local governments, academia, industry, and the public. The
purpose of this notice is to solicit such views. The FGDC invites the
community to review the proposal and comment on the objectives, scope,
approach, usability of the proposed standard; identify existing related
standards; and indicate their participating in the development of the
standard.
DATES: Comments must be received on or before October 3, 1997.
CONTACT and ADDRESSES: The complete proposal is included in this
notice. It is also posted at Internet address: http://www.fgdc.gov/pub/
standards/Hazards/envhzpro.txt
Comments may be submitted via Internet mail or by submitting an
electronic copy on diskette. Send comments via Internet to: www.fgdc.gov">gdc-
hazards@www.fgdc.gov. Comments e-mailed as attachments must be in ASCII
format.
A soft copy version may be submitted on a 3.5 x 3.5 diskette in
WordPerfect 5.0 or 6.0/6.1 format, along with one hardcopy version of
the comments, to the FGDC Secretariat (attn: Jennifer Fox) at U.S.
Geological Survey, 590 National Center, 12201 Sunrise Valley Drive,
Reston, Virginia, 20192.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Following is the complete proposal for the
Environmental Hazards Geospatial Data Content Standard.
Date of Proposal: May 1997.
Submitting Organization: FGDC Facilities Working Group (FWG).
Point of Contact: Nancy Blyler (202) 761-8893.
Objectives: To develop a nationally focused Environmental Hazards
Geospatial Data Content Standard (hereafter called Environmental
Hazards Standard) that will establish a consistent approach to sharing
information about natural and manmade substances, materials, and
conditions that are, or have the potential to be, detrimental to
ecosystems on the earth.
Goals: 1. To compile common definitions for environmental hazard
data that will facilitate the effective, use, understanding, and
automation of geospatial information.
2. To standardize entities, attributes, and domain values that will
improve the creation, management and data sharing of environmental
hazard data.
3. To resolve discrepancies related to the use of similar terms,
thereby minimizing duplication within and among systems.
Scope: The environmental hazards standard will address data
concerning the evaluation and investigation of the existence of
environmental hazards, monitoring the presence of hazards, preparedness
and protection from hazards, and remediation of their effects. This
standard will include the management of information about chemical and
biological substances, hazardous materials, and physical conditions
that affect the earth's ecosystems, including air, soil, and water
systems (both surface water and ground water). This standard will not
address natural disasters (e.g., volcanoes, earthquakes).
Justification/Benefits: There is no national geospatial data
content standard for environmental hazards. A comprehensive data
content standard supporting the study, management, and remediation of
environmental hazards
[[Page 47514]]
would be beneficial to hazardous materials managers, solid waste
engineers, and public works officers. Benefits would also be realized
in emergency situations, when efficient management and data sharing
between Federal and local agencies is imperative to containing
hazardous materials and protecting the environment.
Development of Environmental Hazard Standards through the FGDC will
provide an opportunity for broad participation from national, state,
and local governments, municipalities, professional societies, and
private industry. Environmental Hazard Standards will also support the
FGDC's integrated standard database project and will provide new data
sharing opportunities for the National Spatial Data Infrastructure
(NSDI) (i.e., Federal, state, and local governments, as well as the
private sector.)
Approach: The FWG will establish an Environmental Hazards project
team to develop this Environmental Hazards Standard. The project team
will begin development of this Environment Hazards Standard using the
Environmental Hazards information contained in the Tri Service Spatial
Data Standard (TSSDS). However, the project team or the resulting
standard will not be constrained to the content extracted from the
TSSDS. The entity classes, entity types, etc. may be enhanced and
modified to create a comprehensive Environmental Hazard Data Content
standard that meets the diverse requirements of Federal, state, and
community environmental data users. The project team will solicit input
from a broad range of agencies and environmental groups for development
of the standard.
The FWG will also maintain an Environmental Hazards database
containing the entity/attribute/domain information that can be used to
support the Standards Working Group (SWG) integrated feature registry
project.
Related Standards: As mentioned in the approach paragraph, the
TSSDS is a related standard that includes Environmental Hazards
information. Additional content added to the Environmental Hazard
standard (beyond what is available from the TSSDS) will be closely
coordinated with the Tri-Service CADD/GIS Technology Center so that
later versions of the TSSDS may potentially incorporate this additional
information. This project will also be coordinated with the Facilities
Identification project.
Other related standards (relevant to domain values) are: EPA Order
2180.1, June 26, 1987 standard for Chemical Abstracts Service Registry
Number Data Standard for using CAS Registry Number for identification
of chemical substances.
ANSI X3.50-1986, American National Standard for information
systems--represnetations for U.S. customary, SI, and other units to be
used in systems with limited character sets. NIST Special Publication
811, 1995 Edition, Guide for the Use of the International System of
Units (SI) for standardizing units of measure.
Schedule: The FWG has formed an Environmental Hazards project team
to begin work on the development of this standard. The development of a
working draft Environmental Hazards Standard is expected to take 9-12
months. Once the FWG is satisfied with the content of this
Environmental Hazards Standard it will be forwarded to the SWG for
consideration to go out for public review. The FWG expects to have a
completed, approved Environmental Hazard standard in 24 months.
Resources: The FWG has adequate resources to accomplish the initial
development of this Environmental Hazards Standard. If after review and
comment from other Federal Agencies and the non-Federal sector there is
considerable additional content need, then additional resources may be
required.
Potential Participants: The primary participants will be the
members of the FWG which includes representatives from Federal
agencies, municipalities, professional associations, and private
industry.
Target Authorization Body: The FWG proposes pursing the development
of this Environmental Hazards Standard as an FGDC standard. The FWG may
consider pursuing (at a later date) the development of the
Environmental Hazards Standard as an ANSI (American National Standards
Institute) Standard within ANSI's technical committee for GIS, NCITS
L1. FGDC would serve as the Target Authorization Body until this
Environmental Hazards Standard becomes an ANSI Standard.
Dated: September 2, 1997.
John Fischer,
Acting Chief, National Mapping Division.
[FR Doc. 97-23748 Filed 9-8-97; 8:45 am]
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