"Proceedings, Federal Interagency Workshop,
"Sediment Technology for the
21'st Century,"
St. Petersburg, FL, February 17-19,
1998"
Coordination of Sedimentation Activities Among Federal Agencies
and the Private Sector
By John R. Gray and G.
Douglas Glysson
Abstract
In August 1964, the Bureau of the Budget issued Circular A-67 to
set forth guidelines for the coordination of water-data acquisition
activities throughout the Federal government. The U.S. Department of the
Interior was assigned the task of implementing Circular A-67, which in turn
redelegated this responsibility to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
Redelegation of this responsibility took place because of the USGS's
historical role as the primary agency for water-data acquisition in the
United States.
On December 10, 1991, the Office of Management and Budget issued OMB
Number Memorandum M-92-01, which expanded the USGS's coordination role to
encompass all water information. This includes water-resources data in the
following categories:
- surface- and ground-water quality and quantity,
- sediment,
- constituent transport,
- erosion,
- water chemistry, and
- precipitation information critical to water resources
management.
The USGS's water-information responsibilities primarily include
information from freshwater bodies and includes such activities as
"development and distribution of consensus standards, field-data collection
and laboratory analytical methods, data processing and interpretation,
data-base management, quality control and quality assurance, and
water-resources appraisals, assessments, and investigations." Research
activities are excluded from M-92-01's provisions.
In 1997, the the Advisory Committee on Water Information (ACWI) was
formed. The ACWI consists of about 33 members, of which seven are U.S.
Departments or major independent Federal agencies and 26 are non-Federal
organizations with a broad spectrum of water-information interests. The
ACWI is chaired by the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Water and Science,
U.S. Department of the Interior.
The ACWI superseded two committees formed by the USGS in 1964: The
Interagency Committee on Water Data (IACWD), which consisted of about 30
Federal agencies; and the Advisory Committee on Water Data for Public Use
(ACWDPU), which consisted of non-Federal national organizations with
interests in water information .
The Subcommittee on Sedimentation, which was formed in 1938 based on
common interests of several Federal agencies, was placed under the IACWD in
1978. This subcommittee provides a vehicle for Federal agencies to:
- share information on sediment- and selected water-quality-related
technical issues, and
- collaborate through jointly conducted projects, or coordinate
development and standardization of technical procedures and data bases
through work groups.
As of March 1998, the Subcommittee on Sedimentation is comprised of
representatives from the USGS, Bureau of Reclamation (BOR), Bureau of Land
Management (BLM), National Park Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Office
of Surface Mining, Federal Highway Administration, U.S. International
Boundary and Water Commission, National Park Service, National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Army Corp of Engineers (USACE), U.S.
Forest Service (USFS), U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural
Research Service (ARS) and Natural Resources Conservation Service,
Tennessee Valley Authority, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Federal Energy
Regulatory Committee. The Subcommittee on Sedimentation has been invited
to join the ACWI as a subcommittee.
The Subcommittee on Sedimentation's Technical Committee consists of the
USGS, USACE, USFS, BLM, BOR, and ARS. Currently chaired by the Bureau of
Land Management, the Technical Committee is responsible for identifying and
prioritizing Federal technical sedimentation issues and for direct
oversight of the Federal Interagency Sedimentation Project.
Those sediment and water-quality issues that are deemed tractable and of
sufficiently high priority by the Technical Committee are placed on the
priority list of the FISP. The FISP, which is staffed by USGS and USACE
employees and located at the USACE Waterways Experiment Station in
Vicksburg, Mississippi, seeks solutions to sedimentation and selected
water-quality problems that involve:
- development, modification, and testing of sediment- and water-quality
sampling equipment,
- procurement and calibration of sediment- and water-quality
samplers,
- documentation of sediment and water-quality sampling methods, and
- development of methods for automated sediment measurements in streams
and instruments for laboratory analysis of sediment.
The FISP supplies standardized, calibrated sediment and water-quality
samplers, and other instruments to the Federal agencies and to foreign
governments. Authority for marketing these instruments to State and local
governments and to the private sector is being sought.
Workshop Contributions
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