New Draft Geospatial Council Legislation Circulating
By Brady M. Stroh, January 20, 2010
One of the highlights of the first Pennsylvania GIS Congress held on January 14 was the unveiling of a new piece of draft legislation for the creation of a geospatial advisory council within the Governor's office. Garth Shipman, staff director for the Republicans on the House Intergovernmental Affairs Committee and senior staffer for Representative Fairchild, gave an overview of the draft. He emphasized that this draft has not yet been introduced to the committee. He does welcome review and comment by the community. (View draft pdf...)
Pennsylvania GIS Congress Holds First Meeting
By John M. Palatiello, January 17, 2010
More than 60 individuals participated in a GIS “congress” on January 14, 2010 to discuss a strategy for establishing a GIS Coordination Council in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Approximately 50 persons attended a session at the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors (PSATS) in Enola, PA and 15 participated via conference call and WebEx. The meeting was facilitated by John and Nick Palatiello of the firm of John M. Palatiello & Associates, Inc., Reston, VA (Read summary pdf...)
Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling creates need for wastewater treatment facilities
By FORD TURNER, The Patriot-News, November 22, 2009, 7:12PM
The boom in drilling for natural gas across northern Pennsylvania has created a potential flood of business for wastewater treatment plants. The state Department of Environmental Protection has received permit applications associated with at least 12 proposed treatment plants that would accept water tainted in the well-preparation process. (Read more...)
Pittsburgh to Host 2010 World Environment Day
By Joyce Gannon, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Staff members of the Rachel Carson Homestead Association in Springdale showed up for a briefing at the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh on the North Side yesterday morning knowing only that there was going to an announcement that had something to do with the environment.
But they came away ecstatic: Not only was Ms. Carson's legacy invoked several times but they learned that Pittsburgh next year will be the North American host city for the United Nations Environment Programme's World Environment Day 2010. (Read more...)
Google Maps Now Uses Their Own Map Data
From the James Fee GIS Blog
It looks like the new update to Google Maps gives us more than we thought. Sure the parks looks nice in a blog post, but if I’m reading the tea leaves right, Google is now using their own data in at least parts of the world. (Read more...)
How to Fix the GIS Data Mess
By Jonathan Feldman of Information Week. October 8, 2009
Used to be that only local governments and shipping companies cared about geographic information systems. But now, the market is telling us that GIS is a "can't live without" feature of not only place-based applications like Google Maps, but a mainstay of federal economic stimulus programs. (More...)
Changes at Google Maps
By Chris Markel, GeographIT. October 8, 2009
If you have not seen or heard the news about data changes within Google Maps, check out this website:
http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2009/10/your-world-your-map.html
This has become a popular topic in the geo-blog-tweet-osphere. Google has dropped TeleAtlas as a data provider, and now uses all of their own data within the "Map" view. Note the sole Google copyright when in "Map" view. The website discusses some of their data sources, including NHD. Note that the Google copyright applies to the ‘map’ they create from the data, not the data itself. Of perhaps most interest is that Google has now added parcels to the "Map" view in some locations. There is quite a bit of discussion about the possible sources of the parcel data. Note that "Map" view just shows the parcel outline; there is no text and no ability to query parcel information, at least not in Google Maps. The API may allow for query in programmed apps. (Read more...)
What can be done with wastewater: Rapid expansion of gas drilling has led to problems with disposal, contamination
By Joaquin Sapien of ProPublica in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Sunday, October 04, 2009
Workers at a steel mill and a power plant were the first to notice something strange about the Monongahela River last summer. The water that U.S. Steel in Clairton and Allegheny Energy in Greene County used to power their plants contained so much salty sediment that it was corroding their machinery. (Read more...)