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The Washington State Conservation Commission has initiated the Watershed Data Pilot Project, as directed by the Legislature in the 2005-2007 biennium Capital Budget, Section 405.
As directed by the Legislature in the 2005 – 2007 Biennium Capital Budget, Section 405, the Washington the Washington State Conservation Commission (WSCC) has initiated the Watershed Data Pilot Project (WDPP). The WDPP is a partnership with the Department of Information Services (DIS), the Departments of Ecology, Fish and Wildlife, and Natural Resources (the natural resource agencies), the Interagency Committee, and the Governor’s Salmon Recovery Office (GSRO) to conduct a pilot project to test the effectiveness of web and handheld technologies in support of state conservation district watershed and habitat health restoration projects and monitoring.
The legislature has tasked the project with piloting:
- A single repository to track, manage, and report at local, regional, and statewide bases all habitat projects developed by the conservation districts.
- A single repository for habitat data collected in a selected watershed through the use of hand-held data collection devices by the Departments of Ecology, Natural Resources, and Fish and Wildlife.
Funding for this pilot project was provided by the legislature through the Office of the Interagency Committee (IAC). WSCC is under contract with IAC to complete the project. The project was clearly designated a pilot project by the Legislature with no provision to implement permanent capabilities.
To complete the pilot, the Legislature directed the WSCC to contract with and compensate a qualified commercial systems and services vendor through an open competitive bid process. The pilot system will be used by a single conservation district in Western Washington and the partnering state natural resource agencies. WSCC anticipates that the vendor will provide systems, all necessary hardware and software, operations support, training, programming, database management, and other services needed to complete a pilot and help the state collect the information needed to meet project objectives. The results of the pilot will be documented in a joint report with recommendations to the Legislature and the Office of Financial Management (OFM) by December 1, 2006.
The implementation of the Watershed Data Pilot project (WDP) will be of interest to and influenced by many parties. As it is primarily a state information technology project, it is governed by Washington State Information Services Board (ISB) policies and standards. It is also a project that will interact with the ongoing efforts of many state and local natural resource agencies to understand opportunities to better manage habitat project and watershed health data in support of watershed conservation and salmon recovery by the conservation districts. These efforts are guided by evolving plans such as the regional and statewide salmon recovery plans, the Washington State Comprehensive Monitoring Strategy and Action Plan for Watershed Health and Salmon Recovery, and the state Geographic Information Technology Enterprise Architecture Initiative.
Key milestones anticipated for the project include:
- Draft Project Charter – November 15, 2005
- Release Request for Information to Vendors – December 2, 2005
- Convene Steering Committee – December 14, 2005
- Receive RFI Responses – December 23, 2005
- Finalize and Receive Approval for the Project Charter (finalize objectives and state/local participants) – January 27, 2006
- Release Request for Proposals to Vendors – February 24, 2006
- Vendor Start Work – May 1, 2006
- Pilot System Ready for Use by Conservation District – July 1, 2006
- Report to the Legislature – December 1, 2006
For further information on this project, please contact Project Manager Glenn Briskin at (360) 561-0897.
Project files can be found in the Library.
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