Floodplain Mapping Update
By Joseph Young Mapping Coordinator
Aroostook County
The USGS Maine Water Science Center is making steady progress in completing the Flood insurance Study and mapping for Fort Kent. Topographic work, field reconnaissance, field surveys and retrieval of background data are 100 % complete and hydrology is nearly complete. The target for completion of preliminary maps is early fall of this year.
Kennebec County
The appeals process for those communities with new base flood elevations started on July 5, 2010 and will close on October 4, 2010. The anticipated date for a Letter of Final Determination is December 16, 2010 which will begin the six month adoption period. Communities should plan on updating their ordinances to include the new mapping panel numbers and any necessary changes in language to reflect current FEMA requirements by June of 2011.
Cumberland and York
Counties
FEMA and its Contractors continue to work through issues raised by communities regarding base flood elevations established in preliminary floodplain maps. The current target for publishing formal notices in the local newspapers is the last week in July and first week in August. The formal appeals process will be restarted on the date of the second notice with an anticipated effective
date for new maps being in mid summer of 2011.
Androscoggin County
Work in the county is progressing well. Base mapping, topographic and hydrological analysis have been completed. The contractor is currently finishing the field surveys, developing hydraulic data and beginning the mapping process. The next few months will be spent performing QA/QC work on the data developed to date, completion of floodplain mapping and QA/QC of that data, development of the DFIRM database and producing preliminary maps. The target date for distribution of preliminary maps is still late fall of this year.
|
LiDAR system in action | LiDAR Update-Free Software
Joseph Young Mapping Coordinator
The Northeast Coastal Lidar project is proceeding on schedule. The Joint Funding Agreement has been signed and flights are scheduled to begin this fall.
As more LiDAR data becomes available GIS geeks will want to see what they can do with it. NOAA has a free program called FUSION. FUSION is a lidar data viewer and processing software package that
helps researchers understand, explore, and analyze lidar data. The
software tools perform basic or advanced tasks, handle very large
data sets and produce products from raw lidar point data, including
digital elevation models (DEMs) and contours. The software also
provides tools to output the products in typical GIS formats. If you are interested you can find the software on the NOAA Digital Coast website.
|
User's Guide to Technical Bulletins |
FEMA Technical Bulletins
Joseph Young Mapping Coordinator
FEMA publishes a guide to technical bulletins. This User's Guide is intended to assist those using the Technical
Bulletins issued by the FEMA Mitigation Directorate. It contains
a Key Word/Subject Index that identifies topics contained in the
Technical Bulletins regarding the National Flood Insurance Program
(NFIP). Reference sources and information about ordering additional NFIP
publications are also provided. Anyone dealing with FEMA regulations from Code Enforcement officers to builders or Architects will find this a handy reference. It can be downloaded from the FEMA website.
|
Maine GeoLibrary Board |
GeoLibrary Board Approves Plan to Save State and Towns $$$
Dan Walters, Board Member Chair Ortho-Imagery SubCommittee Maine GeoLibrary Board The
Maine GeoLibrary has given conceptual approval to a new five year plan for
acquiring updated Ortho Imagery. If the plan is implemented the State would
most likely save hundreds of thousands of dollars in data acquisition costs as
well as leverage hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant funding. Many of
Maine's communities are priced out of the market for acquiring ortho imagery
because of the high costs associated with small area acquisitions. "Given
current economic conditions this is just the sort of creative forward thinking
the state needs to deliver quality service at a lower cost." said GeoLibrary
Board Vice Chair Bill Hanson. By seeking out partners in this data acquisition the
Board will be able to serve the people of Maine in maintaining a critical
geo-spatial data set used by multiple agencies in state, local and federal
governments as well as the private sector. Private sector consumers include a
wide range of users from large web based companies like Google to individual Realtors, developers and homeowners interested in specific properties. An
ongoing program that will refresh this data is an important tool for
maintaining accurate up to date maps for all these constituencies. Ortho
Imagery is one of several data sets that are much more affordable when acquired
for large geographic areas. By coordinating large scale acquisition and seeking
out partners the Board will be able to reduce the cost of acquisition from
prices approaching one dollar per acre to less than 10 cents an acre. The Board
will seek to create a local, federal and private economic partnership to
maintain a low cost high value data set used throughout the state on a daily
basis which will reduced the costs to each partner even further. Click on this link to view a copy of the Boards Ortho Imagery report. |
State Planning Office |
SPO Newsletters
The State Planning Office publishes several newsletters. Generally newsletters are published on a quarterly basis. If you have an interest in other SPO activities you may subscribe to them through the following links. Code EnforcementCommunity ServiceEconomics
|
Quote of the Day
"Technology... is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other."
Carrie P. Snow
.
|
Newsletter Funding
This newsletter is funded with a grant provided by the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA)
EMB-2007-CA-0874
|