Following are discussions of the five field-instrumentation issues to be addressed under this 5-year plan. These five issues do not include many of the ongoing responsibilities of ICOM, such as project selection, prioritizing, funding and monitoring, nor do they include unforeseen issues that will undoubtedly arise. They do, however, identify the major field-instrumentation issues and an approach for developing plans to address these issues.

The ICOM is concerned that a significant and increasing number of WRD field instruments are receiving little or no USGS testing before they are deployed. It is imperative that WRD strengthen its Quality Assurance and Quality Control (QA/QC) practices for field instruments. It has never been the tradition of good scientific institutions, including USGS, to collect data with instruments of undocumented and unknown accuracy and precision. The recent proliferation of untested field instrumentation in WRD district operations is a digression from USGS tradition and from good science. The ICOM members feel strongly that WRD can no longer delay the implementation of proper QA/QC of field instrumentation.

A major concern, and a difficult trap to avoid, is the legal chain-of-custody, chain-of-signature approach. This very expensive approach is probably necessary for scientific endeavors where 100 percent certainty is the goal, such as at Yucca Mountain and Nevada Test Site. It is not necessary, and is a terrible burden, where 95-percent confidence is acceptable for normal scientific endeavors. The goal is for WRD to use standards of QA/QC recognized by highly credible scientific agencies outside the nuclear regulatory circle, or other circles (such as DODEC) that mandate a chain-of-custody.

Based on the Goodwin, 1996 report recommendations accepted by the Senior Staff, ICOM commissioned a work group to develop the report, "Proposed Framework for Quality Assurance and Quality Control of Hydrologic Field Instrumentation in the Water Resources Division" (the Hindall, 1998 report). This report was presented to a meeting of the Discipline Office Chiefs and the Assistant Chief Hydrologist for Operations on June 9, 1998. Following that meeting, ICOM commissioned another work group to develop a divisionwide implementation plan for QA/QC of field instrumentation, to design and execute a QA/QC Pilot Project, to refine the details presented in the framework, and to better determine the cost and time needed for implementing the divisionwide plan. The Hindall, 1998 report was presented to the Senior Staff on October 20, 1998. The Senior Staff requested that the Pilot Project be shortened if possible, and expanded to include instruments from all disciplines. The Senior Staff also recommended that the charge to the QA/QC Work Group be revised to reflect the involvement of the discipline offices and the HIF in developing instrument-specific QA/QC plans; the need for districts to document their decisions relative to where the acceptance testing will be done; and to emphasize the collection of cost data.

After the Pilot Project is completed, it is ICOM’s intent to present to the Senior Staff a complete divisionwide field instrumentation and equipment QA/QC plan for acceptance and implementation. ICOM will work with the Discipline Offices and Senior Staff until the plan is acceptable.

Evaluation of alternatives to improve the efficiency of the CIF’s involves evaluating the services, physical collocation, and consolidation/coordination of warehouse activities. Considerable evaluation has already been done. The Goodwin, 1996 report recommended that no changes be made regarding physical collocation, contracting out, or consolidation of warehouse activities. The one exception was the implementation of a consolidated computerized warehouse ordering system (One-Stop Shopping System) using a common Web page.

Because of tightening budgets, human resource constraints, increased efforts to apply new technology, recent reorganizations within WRD, and changing personnel and priorities, it is appropriate to review the continuing validity of the non-management-related findings and recommendations of the Goodwin, 1996 report on a periodic basis. It is also appropriate to seek other opportunities to improve the efficiencies and services of the CIF’s. A brief description of the three CIF’s is given below.

The HIF provides two separate types of services. The first is closely linked to district operations and includes instrument and equipment sales, rental, calibration, maintenance, repair, and information to answer specific field problems. Because warehouse operations are by far the largest of these activities, it is convenient to think of these as warehouse services that directly support districts; in economic terms, "District Goods."

The second type of service is directly related to WRD's mission and is critical to the efficient and effective collection and dissemination of accurate hydrologic data. It is the engineering and testing activities that assure instrument vendors are aware of and respond appropriately to WRD instrument needs and specifications. This service also supports in-house design of new or upgraded custom equipment (when necessary) and thorough testing of commercial instruments to make sure they operate as advertised. These services are strongly supportive of WRD as a whole and are termed "Division Goods."

The HIF sales program consists of over 700 different pieces of hydrologic equipment. This inventory includes a preponderance of items for making basic streamflow and stage measurements. Examples of such items include current meters, tape gages, staff gages, reels, cables, wading rods, taglines, bridge equipment, cable cars, sounding weights, and electrical cables. The HIF also sells many types of instruments and equipment for ground-water and quality of water sample collection and data recording. Examples include steel tapes, GW Equipment Repair Kit, electric tape gage, submersible pressure sensors, multi-parameter field water-quality meters, minimonitors, sensors and probes, cables and accessories, NAWQA GW Clean Sampling Kits, and thermometers. Approximately $1.2 million in sales is generated each year.

The HIF rental program consists of over 175 different items, which include data loggers, data collection platforms, velocity meters, shaft encoders, pressure sensors, water-quality systems, and other support items. The rental program offers customers many benefits including the ability to acquire instruments without high capital investment, very low monthly rates, flexibility to try out/test new equipment, and an equipment insurance policy against theft, vandalism, or loss due to natural disasters. The rental program generates over $4 million in income each year.

A complete funding analysis of the HIF was done by Shapiro, 1996. Warehouse operations (that is, the rentals and sales activities) have traditionally been self-supporting and have also partly supported the engineering and testing activities. With recent reduction of Federal funds to the HIF, there has been a trimming of some activities and staff. Since the reduction in Federal funds in fiscal years 1995 and 1998, warehouse funds have had to provide more of the engineering and testing support (Division Goods). When this support of Division Goods with District Goods has occurred, it has resulted in the HIF's inability to keep the warehouse fully stocked, and it eroded their base capital for purchase of new equipment and instrumentation for rentals and sales. Reliance on warehouse funding to compensate for lack of Division Goods funding raises costs and makes the HIF's sales and rental programs less appealing to districts.

An analysis of the income reduction in the HIF rental activities was completed by Harkness, 1998. This report identifies several steps that should be taken to ensure the long-term continuation of the HIF rental and sales program. The "Headquarters Review Team Report, 1998," authored by Cynthia Barton and others (hereafter, the Barton, 1998 report) supported the recommendations of the Shapiro, 1996 and Harkness, 1998 reports, and ICOM supports them as well.

There are seven interagency members of the Federal Interagency Sediment Project (FISP), which financially contribute to the project and help set priorities: USGS, Corps of Engineers, Agricultural Research Service, Bureau of Reclamation, Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and Tennessee Valley Authority. Each has representatives on a technical committee, under the Subcommittee on Sedimentation of the Interagency Committee on Water Data. The FISP staff is comprised of three USGS employees, including the on-site manager, and two Corps of Engineers employees, as provided in a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the two agencies. The USGS on-site manager reports to the Chief, Office of Surface Water.

The FISP designs, manufactures or procures, calibrates, and sells the majority of sediment-sampling devices used by the USGS, other governmental agencies, and the worldwide scientific community. They also test, adapt, and design isokinetic sampling equipment for surface-water-quality sampling. There is no other source of its kind for standardized, calibrated sediment-sampling equipment.

The FISP generates products and services for identifiable individual customers (District Goods) as well as for support of the hydrologic missions of the USGS and other worldwide scientific agencies (Division Goods). The District Goods are primarily sampling equipment that is for sale. This equipment is priced such that procurement, modification, calibration, warehousing, and sales are self-supporting. The FISP sells equipment to Federal, State, local, and foreign government customers; it does not sell to the private sector. The FISP maintains a warehouse at the Waterways Experiment Station with an inventory valued at roughly $125,000. Reimbursements have ranged between $168,000 and $232,000 for the past 3 years. The inventory contains 184 items, 26 of which are sediment samplers.

An economic analysis of the FISP was completed by Shapiro, 1997. Highlights of the analysis are:

• The FISP is an interagency organization with 80 percent of its sales revenue received from the USGS (1996).
• The FISP should establish a goal of fully recovering costs associated with its sales and repairs, and should work with other parts of OSW or the HIF to take advantage of economies of scale for issues related to inventory and sales management.

The Office of Surface Water Hydraulics Laboratory (hereafter, called the Hydraulics Lab) is used to test and calibrate hydrologic instruments and to obtain experimental data for research studies. Facilities include a tow tank, a submerged jet tank, a tilting flume, and a 30-acre flood plain. The Hydraulics Lab generates income from use of the facilities for calibration, by renting its facilities to customers in government and in the private sector. The customers use the facilities to test or calibrate instruments or to conduct experiments. The Hydraulics Lab charges WRD customers $500 a day in rent; non-WRD customers pay $1,000. The Hydraulics Lab calibrates flow measuring devices and small portable flumes. Flow measuring devices are calibrated in the tow tank and the jet tank. Portable flumes are calibrated by measuring the height of the water in the flume, capturing the water, and then weighing it.

The Hydraulics Lab charges WRD customers $250 for each Price AA current meter calibrated. Customers outside of WRD are charged $500. The Hydraulics Lab does not calibrate instruments for the private sector; rather, it rents the facilities to the private sector for them to calibrate meters. The HIF is by far the biggest customer of the Hydraulics Lab for calibration services. The Hydraulics Lab calibrates Price AA and pygmy current meters before the HIF sells them to the districts. In fiscal year 1995, the Hydraulics Lab received $74,800 (almost all from the HIF) for calibrating Price AA current meters, or 63 percent of total reimbursements (non-base funding) for this year. (It should be noted, however, that for fiscal years 1996-98 most of the reimbursable funding came from NRP [now OHR] for rental of the tilting flume.)

An economic analysis of the Hydraulics Lab was completed by Shapiro, 1997. The analysis:

• Introduced the concept of Capacity Goods in addition to Division and District Goods. Capacity Goods are District Goods that are characterized by large fixed costs (maintaining the Hydraulics Lab facility) and relatively small incremental costs (added service has little impact on the total costs);
• Recognized the need for tests to determine whether the need for calibration of current meters approaches a threshold at a certain age;

• Recommended the Hydraulics Lab attempt to maximize use of their capacity (full cost recovery) by marketing more of their services to users outside of the USGS.

ICOM will review the issues related to efficiencies of the CIF’s every second year, beginning in fiscal year 1999. A work group will be charged with:

• Reviewing the findings of the Goodwin, 1996 report and any other reports such as the Barton, 1998 report and ICOM meeting minutes that may impact previous recommendations;
• Determining the benefits and negatives of collocating or further distributing CIF facilities;

• Consolidating or further distributing the HIF and FISP warehouses;
• Identifying other efficiency issues related to instrumentation support and services such as taking advantage of opportunities to increase income through royalties from patent rights, Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADA’s); improving private sector access to CIF facilities and services; and
• Presenting the findings and recommendations for review to ICOM at its August 1999 meeting.

ICOM's charter (Appendix 1) does not authorize it to address management and financial issues of the CIF’s. ICOM's funding analyses (1996-1997) of the CIF’s were done at the request of the Chief Hydrologist. ICOM does not plan to continue these analyses unless requested to do so by the Senior Staff member responsible for the CIF. Close coordination between the Senior Staff members responsible for the CIF’s (to include their financial management) and ICOM is essential if ICOM is to carry out its primary mission.

The Assistant Chief Hydrologist for Operations, who manages the HIF, has asked the ICOM to continue its annual financial evaluations of the HIF, and the ICOM has agreed to do so. Hence, Issue 3 is restricted to the long-term viability of the HIF.

ICOM will follow up on the recommendations by Shapiro, 1996, Harkness, 1998, and Barton, 1998 with financial reviews of the HIF every year. The reviews will, at a minimum, take the following actions:

• Review efforts to reduce overhead on the HIF procurements and services by some combination of reduced district overhead (recommend reduction to 10 percent) and/or division-subsidized the HIF overhead (possibly make 5 percent of the overhead a Division Good).

• Evaluate the compliance with and the effect of WRD's policy on the Application of Special Assessment Rates (WRD Memorandum No. 98.30). This new WRD policy addresses the primary concern of the Harkness, 1998 report by requiring users to apply the same assessment rates for purchases or rentals of instruments and equipment from the HIF and from other sources.

• Review the benefits of expanding the HIF’s lease-to-purchase program, following completion of the current pilot lease-to-purchase study.

• Evaluate the cost effectiveness of the HIF’s ability to provide repairs under district-owned equipment services maintenance agreements, after vendor warranties expire.

• Review to determine if the HIF costs associated with Division Goods are being paid from technical support or other Headquarters-controlled funds. The funds should be allocated early in the year to allow the HIF to adjust Division Goods to available dollars.

• Review the HIF process to accumulate orders from districts in order to get volume discounts for instrument purchases.

• Review the HIF rental rates to ensure that the rental program becomes self-sustaining.

ICOM has been concerned with the adequacy of its process for identifying the division’s instrumentation needs. The urgency of this issue is that if ICOM is not properly identifying the division’s needs, our scarce resources are not being optimized. There have been recurring complaints from different groups within the division that their field instrumentation and equipment needs are not adequately represented by the current Instrumentation Technical Advisory Subcommittee (ITAS) or ICOM membership. Some of these complaints are accompanied by requests to include one of their group representatives on ITAS or ICOM. ICOM has accommodated these membership requests whenever they agreed upon a group’s unique needs or, in cases where it is possible, for an existing ITAS or ICOM member to adequately represent the group. However, ICOM has resisted increasing its membership.

Confounding the under-representation concern, whenever ITAS members contact their assigned groups in the division soliciting their input on current field instrumentation and equipment needs, the response rate has been phenomenally low. The reason for the low response rate may have been the method used, including the informal manner in which the queries were made. ICOM, therefore, searched for a better way to elicit thoughtful responses from all groups in the division. In June 1998, ICOM prepared a set of questionnaires to be sent to all district technical specialists, all regional technical specialists, the headquarters technical offices, and OHR seeking their input on the division’s short term and long term field instrumentation and equipment needs. The Assistant Chief Hydrologist for Operations sent out the questionnaires in July 1998. The response rate was a gratifying 95 percent. Not only was the response rate very high, the list of needs not heard before was large and very thoughtful. This list provided to ICOM and ITAS important insight as to the direction(s) the district programs are taking, and their associated field instrumentation and equipment needs. The questionnaires definitely made the division’s technical specialists think about their needs and to express them clearly and forcefully.

It is the intent of ICOM to redo this same type of divisionwide questionnaire every second year, through the Assistant Chief Hydrologist for Operations. The resulting "Summary of Field Instrumentation and Equipment Needs" will be passed on to the Senior Staff, Hydro 21, and to each technical specialist in the division for the purpose of making clear the needs and their relative priority.

ITAS will also receive the Summary, and will evaluate the needs therein against:

• The maturity of the technology (Can we solve the need using available or emerging technology?);
• The availability of instrumentation developers with the needed specialty expertise in and outside the CIF’s, the division, and other agencies;
• The availability of funds; and
• The priority of the need.

They will produce a WRD Field Instrumentation and Equipment Development Priority List that will be passed on to ICOM for modification and (or) approval.

To continue at the forefront of collecting hydrologic information, the division must stay abreast of rapidly emerging technology. Internal and external networking needs to be improved and expanded to accomplish this task. The purpose of ICOM (Appendix 1) indicates a broad coordination role for hydrologic field instrumentation across the division. This expanded role resulted from the approval and release of the 1994-98 Instrument Plan.

In order to expand networking, ICOM will develop and implement an Instrumentation Coordination Plan. The purpose of the plan will be to improve communication, coordination, and collaboration with:

• WRD organizational units in general (outreach)
• WRD Safety Committee
• Hydro 21
• Environment Canada
• Sister Divisions
• OFA’s
• Private sector

August 1997

OBJECTIVES:

Sets priorities and recommends Water Resources Division's (WRD) policies for support of hydrologic field instrumentation.

ORGANIZATION:

Committee recommendations will be reported to the WRD Senior Staff through the Assistant Chief Hydrologist for Operations (ACH/O). The Instrumentation Committee (ICOM) is administered by the Branch of Operational Support (BOS).

PURPOSE:

MEMBERS:

Members include representatives selected by each Region (District Chiefs), the Offices of Surface Water, Ground Water, and Water Quality, Yucca Mountain Project, the Chair of ITAS, and a representative from the BOS and the HIF. Representatives from organizations other than the BOS and the HIF will be rotated every 4 years and/or at the discretion of the appropriate Regional Hydrologist, Assistant Chief Hydrologist, or Technical Office Chief. Only those members representing the user community to include the Regional Hydrologists, Technical Offices, Yucca Mountain, and ITAS Chair are authorized to offer and second motions, and to vote on those motions. The BOS and the HIF are considered members of the support community whose primary role on the Committee is to provide information and advice, and, when feasible, to carry out recommendations and requests of the ICOM.

OFFICERS:

The Committee will be chaired by the District Chief with seniority based on time on the Committee. The Chair's term is limited to a maximum of 2 years, at which time the District Chief next in seniority (vice-chair) will assume the duties as Chair. The Chief of BOS will act as Executive Secretary. A District Chief who has served a 4-year term and returns to the Committee, returns as a junior member.

SUBCOMMITTEES:

The Committee will serve as parent to two standing Subcommittees: ITAS and the ICOM Steering Group. The Committee will identify tasks for the ITAS, and will review and forward approved recommendations from the ITAS as appropriate.

The Steering Group will meet at the call of the ICOM Chair to review and prepare recommendations for the entire ICOM. The Steering Group is made up of five ICOM members with three assigned positions (ICOM Chair, Vice Chair, and the Executive Secretary) and two rotating positions. The order for the two rotating positions are: third most senior District Chief (based on time served on the ICOM), Office of Ground Water, Yucca Mountain Project, Office of Surface Water, junior District Chief, Office of Water Quality, and the ITAS Chair.

The Committee will appoint special Ad Hoc Groups to investigate specific topics. The reports of these groups will be forwarded as directed by the ICOM for approval and liaison with the Senior Staff.

MEETINGS:

Four times per year or on-call by the ACH/O or ICOM Chair in accordance with the attached Instrumentation Support Process Annual Cycle.

Louis Ducret Jim Barks

Yucca Mtn. CR

Denver, Colorado Rolla, Missouri

(303) 236-0516 x284 (573) 308-3667

gducret jbarks

Stephen Sorenson Bill Shope

OWQ BOS

Reston, Virginia Radford, Virginia

(703) 648-6864 (540) 639-5474

sorenson wgshope@i-plus.net

Dennis Lynch Patrick Tucci

WR OGW

Portland, Oregon Denver, Colorado

(503) 251-3265 (303)236-5050 x230

ddlynch ptucci

Wayne Sonntag Kevin Oberg

NR OSW

Marlborough, Massachusetts Urbana, Illinois

(508) 490-5002 (217)334-0037 x3004

wsonntag kaoberg

John Harsh - Chair Eugene Hayes

SR HIF

Tampa, Florida Stennis Space Center, Mississippi

(813) 243-5800 (228) 688-3631

jfharsh ehayes

Pat McCurry Peter Hughes

Env. Canada ITAS Chair

Ottawa, Canada Middleton, Wisconsin

(613)992-9337 (608) 821-3833

Pat.McCurry pehughes

Michael Dorsey George Arroyo

Austin Tx Guaynabo Pr

512/873-3040 787/749-4346

medorsey gwarroyo

Lee Watson David Graham

Indianapolis In Tucson Az

317/290-3333 520/670-6671 X272

lrwatson ddgraham

Paul Tippett Roy Taogoshi

Stennis Space Center Ms Lihue Hi

601/688-1565 808/245-3252

ptippett ritaogos

Leroy Pearman Peter Hughes - Chair

Montgomery Al Madison Wi

334/213-2332 x22 608/276-3833

jpearman pehughes

William Wiggins Jim Putnam

Tacoma Wa Lawrence Ks

601/965-5589 785-832-3573

wwiggins jputnam