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

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-

[email protected]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]

BILLING CODE 4310-31-M