2012 a Busy Year for GIS Staff
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2012 was a busy time for WRC and its GIS staff. We started in the throes of mapping work in response to Tropical Storm Irene recovery efforts, and ended with a snowstorm that brought to close our culvert field mapping season.
The biggest change for GIS at WRC was the hiring of Sarah Linn as a full-time GIS assistant. With an additional GIS staff person, and the purchase of a new GPS unit, WRC is now helping towns with culvert and road sign inventories. We completed field work for culvert inventories in Windham, Townshend, Grafton, Brookline, and Marlboro, and sign inventories in Windham and Grafton. Assisting towns with transportation-based mapping continues to be a large part of our work. Including help with Dummerston’s sign inventory, Wilmington’s culvert data, and Brattleboro’s streetlight inventory. Bicycle suitability maps were updated for the eastern half of the Windham Region. WRC received some great publicity in our local papers and on WCAX television.
In response to Tropical Storm Irene, WRC and ANR River Management staff met with officials from 11 towns and assisted in inventorying and mapping storm debris locations, bridge and culvert issues, and erosion/landslide concerns.
Water resources are another major area of work. In response to Tropical Storm Irene, WRC and ANR River Management staff met with officials from 11 towns and assisted in inventorying and mapping storm debris locations, bridge and culvert issues, and erosion/landslide concerns. Federal Clean Water Act Section 604b funding was used to produce a beautiful West River Watershed map and information sheet that was distributed to all schools and towns in the watershed, and another project identified and characterized undeveloped river and stream sections, and lake and pond shorelines, in roughly two-thirds of the region.
On the emergency planning front, we updated E911 address maps for the villages of Bellows Falls and Saxtons River, and created a new E911 address map for the town of Windham. Support of towns’ planning efforts included a new Brattleboro Town Plan map series, Marlboro’s wildlife habitat overlay zone map, Dummerston’s zoning map update, and placing all towns’ plans and zoning bylaws, along with their accompanying maps, on the WRC’s website.
It’s often the impromptu assistance that most defines the WRC as an important resource to the towns and the people of southeastern Vermont; the small projects too numerous to mention—the quick maps, the responses to queries by phone and email—that we do for town officials, residents, and area professionals. Let us know how we can help you!
