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NOAA and EPA Collaboration in the Great Lakes
March 29, 2021 — On March 22, Lieutenant Rachel Pryor facilitated a meeting between OR&R’s Spatial Data Branch and the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 5 Superfund Program to discuss establishing an inter-agency digital highway to share data between the two agencys' mapping programs.
The EPA’s Inland Sensitivity Atlas (ISA) is a geographic information system (GIS) application used to create response plans, display staging and resource areas, and is regularly used by On-Scene Coordinators during an incident. NOAA’s Environmental Response Management Application (ERMA) is an online mapping tool that hosts and displays information relevant to response planning (e.g. Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) data, real-time weather data currents, and generates easy to read GIS maps).
Previous efforts to connect the EPA’s Inland Sensitivity Atlas with NOAA’s Great Lakes ERMA failed until now. This interagency team was able to identify a path forward by discussing the transfer process, how the data layers will be maintained, and security restrictions for controlled access providing both EPA and NOAA shared digital assets. This partnership will allow end users of both platforms to have critical information for planning, prevention, and incident response.
For further information, contact Rachel.Pryor@noaa.gov.