Meeting Minutes, February
12, 2002
Draft Minutes
The Federal Geographic Data Committee's (FGDC) Marine Boundary Working
Group (MBWG) met at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on February
12, 2002. An agenda is included at the end of the minutes, as is a list
of items that were distributed at the meeting. Individuals who wish to
request copies of these items should contact David Stein at Dave.Stein@noaa.gov.
Highlights
Donald Campbell, FCC, welcomed everyone to the facility and gave a short
presentation about the FCC and their role in marine boundaries. Cindy
Fowler, co-chair of the working group, called the meeting to order and
participant introductions were made. This was the fourth meeting of the
MBWG. The objectives of the meeting were to highlight some of the recent
activities underway by members of the working group and to form subgroups
to further implement them. Tim Goodspeed, NOAA Special Projects Office,
was on hand to facilitate the meeting.
Agenda Items
- Meeting Minutes and updates from working group members.
David Stein reviewed the meeting minutes from November 6, 2001. David
indicated that the Web site is now publicly available at /mbwg/.
Also, a marine boundaries poster was displayed in the conference room.
The poster was developed by the NOAA Coastal Services Center (CSC) and
has a NOAA National Ocean Service focus. It was suggested that the poster
could be modified to have more of a collaborative, or working group
feel if the working group so desires. Individuals who have comment or
wish to request copies of the poster should contact David Stein.
Bob Smith, Department of State, gave an update on the Baseline Committee
and distributed a handout on the Alaska v. United States Supreme Court
case. The state of Alaska has brought an original action in the United
States Supreme Court to determine the juridical status of the waters
of the Alexander Archipelago, or Inside Passage, of southeast Alaska.
- Offshore/onshore cadastre coordination.
Lee Thormahlen, Minerals Management Service (MMS), gave a presentation
on a meeting held between MMS, Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and
the State of Oregon on developing an offshore cadastre in Oregon. The
question was whether to project the offshore cadastre onshore or visa
versa. Also, what type of offshore cadastre system should be used in
Oregon, or any other state? Lee is planning to summarize his discussion
and possibly form a small subgroup to further explore these issues.
Anyone who is interested in participating with MMS and BLM in this activity
should contact Lee Thormahlen.
- Overview of the Cadastral Subcommittee and the cadastral data content
standard.
Jason Racette, BLM, gave an overview of the FGDC Cadastral Subcommittee
and distributed a letter from Don Buhler, Chair of the Cadastral Subcommittee,
welcoming the opportunity to work with the MBWG in developing a marine-based
cadastral data content standard. Additionally, Don invited members of
the MBWG to the next Cadastral Subcommittee meeting in Grand Junction,
Colorado, on March 12-14, 2002. Jason also introduced Nancy Von Meyer
to the group. Nancy works for Fairview Industries and has worked closely
with the Cadastral Subcommittee and BLM on the development of data standards.
Nancy gave a presentation on data content standards. Nancy and Jason
informed the group that BLM is extremely interested in the marine cadastral
standard and is eager to participate in its development. Her presentation
will be posted on the Web site in the next couple of weeks. It will
be accessible at /mbwg/htm/meetings.htm.
- Training and outreach discussion.
Andrew Hulin, NOAA CSC, led a discussion on developing a training and
outreach strategy. The discussion began with a review of the accomplishments
of the group concerning the training and outreach strategy. A draft
one-pager about the MBWG had been completed as specified within the
strategy, and was distributed to the group for comment. In addition,
a MBWG poster was displayed and discussed. Again, the group was encouraged
to comment. The MBWG Web site was also discussed briefly, and the group
was informed that all comments had been addressed, and the site was
now live. There was limited discussion concerning this subject, as Ole
Varmer, NOAA General Counsel, was scheduled to discuss the site at length
in a later agenda item. It was also presented to the group that the
training and outreach strategy had been split into two new strategies;
one for training and one for outreach. Doing so will present more manageable
and differentiated tasks for each of these components.
The remainder of the discussion focused on the development of the MBWG
training strategy. The need for a Marine Boundaries Developers Handbook
was presented to the group. The necessity for the development of such
a handbook stems mainly from a number of ambiguities inherent in the
legal, textual, and geographic descriptions of many marine boundaries
today. It was discussed that by providing a reference guide to those
involved in the development of these boundaries, a number of these issues
could be avoided. The audience for the handbook was debated throughout
the discussion. It was initially decided that the primary audience should
be the makers and developers of marine boundaries, while a secondary
audience might be academia. Potential sources for this project were
discussed as well. The two primary references that were identified were
Shore and Sea Boundaries by Shalowitz, and Shore and Sea Boundaries
by Reed. Also, NOAA's Tide and Current Glossary by Hicks was suggested
as possible reference.
The discussion then focused on potential audiences for the handbook.
While there were a number of suggestions, it was generally agreed that
the handbook should be rather accessible and responsive to the needs
of a less technical audience such as congressional staffers, and others
in positions where there might be high turnover and insufficient time
to acquire an in-depth understanding of the issues pertaining to the
development of marine boundaries. The MBWG members also generally agreed
that such a handbook should describe "best practices" for
the development of marine boundaries. This would include such components
as 'how to draw boundaries", various options for developing boundaries,
and a discussion of unambiguous boundary descriptions.
In addition, it was suggested that a discussion of 'who has what responsibility'
be included within the handbook. This might include an outline of the
various approval processes for marine boundaries at the federal, state,
and local level. Finally, there was a discussion on examining ramifications
of marine boundaries within the handbook. This might include aspects
such as experiences and case studies. A sub-working group was formed
to deal with the above issues.
- Legal update.
Ole Varmer, NOAA General Counsel, presented the modifications his office
made to the U.S. Marine Cadastre portion of the Web page. His changes
can be found at /mbwg/htm/cadastre.htm. Before
the Web page is publicized, the working group is being given two weeks
to review this section.
- Next meeting.
The next working group meeting was discussed. Donald Campbell offered
to host the next meeting at the FCC sometime in early summer. A joint
meeting with the Cadastral Subcommittee was also discussed. We would
like to shoot for sometime in the Fall of 2002 for the joint meeting.
Charleston, SC was proposed as a meeting location. The group asked to
not schedule a meeting to close to the end or beginning of the fiscal
year change.
Action Items
- Solidify subgroup participation.
- Begin working with the Cadastral Subcommittee on a data content standard
for marine boundaries (offshore cadastre).
- Identify someone from the Department of Justice to serve on the MBWG
(standing item).
- Respond to letter from Don Buhler, BLM.
Items Distributed at Meeting
- Agenda
- Marine boundaries poster
- One pager on the Geospatial One-Stop Initiative
- Draft one-pager on the MBWG
- Cadastral Data Content Standard
- Work plan
- Boundary database
Attendees
Agenda
8:00 Continental breakfast
- Federal Communications Commission Opening Remarks
- Presentation - FCC Issues relative to Marine Boundaries - Donald Campbell
8:45 Welcome and introductions
- Welcome from co-chairs and short introductions from working group
- Review of Meeting Minutes and action items from November 6, 2001
- Updates from working group members
- Update from Baseline Committee - Curt Loy and Bob Smith
9:15 Offshore/onshore cadastre coordination: discussion of the
Oregon effort - Lee Thormahlen
9:45 Proposal to establish a working group within the MBWG to
develop a process and procedure for coordination of the offshore/onshore
cadastres - Lee Thormahlen
10:15 Snack break
10:30 Overview of the Cadastral Subcommittee and the cadastral
data content standard - Jason Racette and Nancy VonMeyer
- Proposal to develop a joint working group with the Cadastral Subcommittee
to proceed with the offshore component
11:45 Lunch
1:00 Training and outreach discussion - Andrew Hulin, all
- Audience, curriculum, etc.
- Proposal to establish a working group within the MBWG to draft wording
and contact/resource list for congressional staffers to use when developing
marine and/or land based boundary legislation
2:00 Marine boundary legal update - Ole Varmer
3:00 Break
3:15 Work plan action items - David Stein
4:00 Next meeting
- Joint meeting with the FGDC Cadastral Subcommittee, date, place
Minutes Submitted by:
David Stein, NOAA Coastal Services Center
Executive Secretary/Working Group Coordinator
FGDC Marine Boundary Working Group
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