USDA Liaison Committee

Attendees:
Ken Fleming, Chairman, Coleman Aerial Imaging
Larry Konty, Vargis
Tim Rogan, Titan
Richard Crouse, Richard Crouse & Associates
Larry Deibert, Horizon, Inc.
Michael Shillean, BAE Systems
Ken Stiller, HAS Images
Dan Short, Leica
Ken Potter, Keystone Aerial
Craig Molander, Surdex
Gary Florence, Photo Science
Tom Brennan, Kodak
Dave Hart, Continental Mapping
Fred Halfer, Ayers, Associates
Glenn Bethel, USDA

Mr. Fleming began the meeting by recapping the liaison committee’s charge. It is imperative that we as a group are to continue to solidify our relationship with the USDA by exchanging ideas.

Mr. Bethel presented and covered several topics via PowerPoint. He first reviewed the southern CA, Montana, and Idaho forest fire detection program. He next discussed the PSU project which is in its last year of the three contract cycle. It will be re-bid next year and currently the contractors are performing well.

The Geospatial Service and Technology Center was reviewed. This contract was let early this year and the RFP has closed and is about to be awarded. The incumbents were Titan and Photo Science (via G&O). There about 60 task orders amounting to $9 million.

The next item Mr. Bethel discussed was the NAIP contract. The RFP is going to be released on March 31st. He said that the NAIP contract is 10 times bigger than NAPP and he made some general comparison between the two programs such as leaf-on vs. leaf-off. The NAIP program works with the CLU projects and the CLU is similar to the census as to knowing owner of the land, type of crop group, parcels/tract division and such. He covered the cost of last year versus their budgeted numbers, which for the one meter they were under budget while the 2 meter they were slightly over the estimated budget. Actual 1m average was $12.10 per square mile versus a budgeted $20 and actual 2m was $9.92 per square mile versus a budgeted $8.00. They experienced some internal metadata issues but now the contractor will handle this phase of the project. There was discussion on the cost to perform the project.

The project will consist of some states being flown with CIR in addition to color and once a county has been flown delivery will be in 30 days. The criteria for the contract includes tone balance, metadata required for compressed county mosaics, flight planning, one year product warranty, electronic progress reports, and alternative acquisition methods such as digital cameras. The budget ranges from $11 million to $19 million. The data would be resold.

There was extensive discussion on the payment schedule. The current structure is 60% paid upon 100% of acquisition or end of flying, 30% upon delivery of data, and 10% payment after inspection. Compared to previous contracts this is an improvement. The committee concluded that the contractor would like to see progress payments on a monthly basis and not be subjected to the 10% withholding given the contractors commitment of product warranty. Larry Deibert and Craig Molander will submit a proposal to Glenn and Geoff about modifying this in the contact. We realized that time is of the essence and it may be difficult to change this at this late date.

It was discussed that in the proposals or during negotiation that adjoining states could be flown continuously to reduce duplication. The final map should be ready but it could change by next week.

PREVIOUS MEETING SUMMARY (scroll down)

J.W. Marriott, Washington DC
November 10, 2003

In Attendance:
Ken Fleming, Coleman Aerial Imaging, Chair
Doug Fuller, Aero-Metric, Inc.
Larry Deibert, Horizon, Inc.
Jeff Donze, Perot Systems Government Services
Ken Stiller, HAS Images, Inc.
Tom Brennan, Eastman Kodak
Russ Cowart, i-cubed
Ken Potter, Keystone Aerial Surveys
Gary Florence, Greenehorne & O’Mara
Andrew Fisher, Applanix Corp.
Al Killinen, Precision Photo & Imaging
Dan Short, Leica
Greg Tilley, VARGIS
Glenn Bethel, USDA

Mr. Fleming began the meeting by stating the purpose of this liaison committee, and that the group is charged with assisting the USDA by continuing to increase the working relationship with the USDA and the industry.

Mr. Bethel provided an overview of USDA programs, results of the programs, and funding issues. The USDA has increased their outsourcing contracts over the years. In 1994 they contract out 3 million and last year 2003 they contracted out 28 million.

The 28 Million was spent in 4 areas
NAIP 34% $9.6
MDOQ / CLU 41% $11.6
NRI 20% $5.5
USFS 5% $1.3

Under the NRCS program, there were 69578 PSU sites in 2003 worth $ 5,472,198. As of October 8, 2003, 97% of the sites were flown, and 91% was accepted. Currently only 10 sites were not flown, not accepted

Resources Photography (USFS, BLM, BIA) spent 1.3 Million last year.

MDOQ / CLU contract out $ 11,588,200

The NAIP replaced 35 mm photography. This is the first year for this program and it was successful. The deliverables are compressed imagery in county format however, the USDA is looking at delivering the data via firewire. The contractor is paid for what they capture, there is no second season. The contractor warranties the quality and the county office can reject it after they receive it. Payment to contractors is as follows: 60% paid upon acquisition of photography, remaining 40% is paid upon final acceptance of metadata, county mosaic, DOQQ and Film. The USDA tested the new digital cameras and the USDA was very happy with the Digital camera results. However, they feel the industry is not capable of doing much more than they did last year. He feels that if it was not for having 3 teams to work those areas designated for digital camera capture, it would not have been completed.

There were a few problems with the NAIP county mosaics:
Blue Ghost (Digital Camera)
Titling showing in mosaic
Edge matching not good
Gaps or no coverage

A lot of samples were displayed, the quality of the counties varied greatly. Some counties look very good and others had two or three tone differences. Glenn mentioned that tone balancing was not a requirement of this contract. However it might be required in the next.

For 2003, NAIP program contracted out $ 9,489,878
1 meter $ 6,704,588
2 meter $ 2,785,290

For the proposed 2004 coverage.
1.4 million square miles
2005 whole counties
407 partial counties (may grow with cost share)
This is about double of last year. However, the budget is not set and is uncertain.

2003 was very successful do to a great amount of state cost sharing. Over 3 million went into the program from outside sources.

They were very happy with the CIR results. They are considering using CIR in the southern states where haze is a factor.

For the 2004 Budget, the President asked for 13.3 Million for MDOQ / CLU and 14 Million for NAIP. However the House returned 1/5th of the budget and senate ½ of what the President request.

Questions from the group:

Q. If budget materializes to be 1/5th, what will be the priority?
A. Not sure but most likely NAIP is lower on the priority because it is not an operational program

Q. With NAIP, is there a priority on Film or Digital Capture?
A. They like the Digital, but do not think the industry can handle it, so majority will be film. If digital is done it will be about the same as last year.

Q. There were 6 contractors last year, with the size doubling, will there be more contractors?
A. Maybe but not much more. AFPO wants to keep it to fewer than 10 contractors for ease of management.

Q. Is there any mandate for archiving?
A. APFO gets the aerial film and the National Map gets the digital data.

Q. Do contractors have right to resale products?
A. Yes, as long as it does not restrict FSA use or delay them in getting their products.

Q. Since the USDA, and in particular the NAIP and PSU programs, might have some funding issues, MAPPS could make a harder push to solidify funding for these programs. Given this, would the USDA be willing to use QBS with the NAIP program?
A. The USDA and APFO will discuss this.

USDA Liason Meeting
March 27, 2003
J.W. Marriot, Washington D.C.

In Attendance:
Ken Fleming, Chair, Coleman Aerial Imaging
Debbie Marchi, HAS Images
Glenn Bethel, USDA
Deborah Staples, USDA
Tom Brennan, Eastman Kodak
Tim Rogan, Titan Geospatial
Joe Senftle, Advanced Power Tel. Inc.
John Voycik, Greenhorne & Omara
Dan Short, Leica Geosystems
Russ Cowart, i-cubed
Tony Palizzi, Pixxures, Inc
Wolfgang Walcher, Vexcel
Mike Tully, Aerial Services
Dave Hart, Continental Mapping Consultants
Jim Schriever, Space Imaging
Kevin Perkins, Applanix
Micheal Kim, SAIC
Mark Bradstreet, Bradstreet & Associates
Ralf Platte, James W. Sewall
Ron Huffman, Surdex

Chairman Fleming began the meeting by welcoming everyone and briefly explaining the concept behind having the Liaison meeting. It is our intent to discuss issues relating to the USDA and the membership whereby both group can benefit.

Mr. Bethel started his presentation by reviewing recurring and nonrecurring programs – such as NAIP, Resource photography, and NRI while non-recurring included CLU and MDOQs.

Currently, there are 28 digitizing centers which is up for last year from 22. Mr. Bethel anticipates that no more will be opened and reiterated that these center will come to a conclusion at the end of 2004. He said that since the employees of these centers are county employees they do not come under A-76. The service center will provide QA/QC of the CLU/contractor production. It was asked that if the maintenance of the tracts will be fulfilled by the service center when a change in crops occur and they will be.

Some FAS AP funds come from commodity credit corporation funds – appropriated by OMB.

FSA – NAIP, CLU, MDOQ, NAPP, DOQ
NCRS – NRI, NAPP, DOQ
Commodity Credit Corp approves funding and OMB appropriates.

Mr. Bethel realizes that using the existing contract and only inviting two other firms was not well received by many others. Going through a full procurement which would take 90 days would put completing the project in jeopardy. Hence, the contract was awarded on March 19th for CLU digitizing to 4 firms:
1) TITAN
2) G&O
3) RSI (8a)
4) S&K Technologies

CLU becomes basis for interaction with individual farmers. FSA strongly behind keeping centers. Important to keep historical records of CLU’s because occasionally need to go back and look at historical record. Each farmer signs a yearly contract that defines their acreage

Discussion was had about the “cost per polygon” of digitizing the CLU’s. CLU progress can be monitored via the website.

FSA internal review found that it cost $0.53 per polygon vs $0.68 for contracting out. There was some vigorous debate about how these numbers were derived, and obviously some great difference of opinion. Tim Rogan of Titan Corp (Portland OR) commented “There is nothing to gain in trying to compare apples to oranges”.

NAIP – will be posted in the next couple of weeks for flying 900 counties in 26 states from June through August 2003. Starting in 2003 FSA and USDA funds to support USDA/OCIO.

NAIP budgets call from $7.5 million to cover the program this year with a plus up to $15.3 million in 2004 and a possibility of $24 million in 2005. The NCRS program will hold steady for this year and next year at $5.8 million. The MDOQ program is funded at $1.6 million for 2003 and $8.2 million for 2004. The CLU has been allotted $7.5 million for 2003 and $13.3 million for 2004.

2002 - $6m
2003 - $24.156m
2004 - $43m
Estimate of 2005 is under $30m

USDA contracting history: 1994 1.3 million to 2004 – 43 million

For NAIP, it is expected that about 12 contractors will be awarded contracts for this year

Resource AP (Forest Service) – multiple contract awards annually – doesn’t know how many.

National Resource Inventory (NRI) - 6 firms have 3 year contract, quantities allocated according to capacity, past performance, and budget.

For the NAIP, there are four potential choices:

1) Ortho - Ortho using ABGPS, Control DOQ and DEM
2) “Ortho-light” – ABGPS and DEM only
3) Geo-rectified – ABGPS and control DOQ
4) Geo-referenced – 1 point only

NAIP – Digitize all farm fields, assign farm, farm tract, field numbers
This data used at the FSA offices – farmers report what is grown and become eligible for programs. Used for planting/production history and planting planning.

Formerly used 35mm 1-2 section slides. That program is greatly diminished.

Now the program include:

“Best value”
2 meter geo-referenced images or
1 meter orthos
1:40000 color
30-40 day flying season
one month delivery time.

A change that they are seeing in proposed production methods that is significant:

OLD – Fit new imagery to existing ortho
NEW – Use airborne GPS and IMU and existing DEM – produces a pretty good product

Deliveries now include a single county-wide compressed MrSID image as an initial delivery, and later deliveries of quarter-quad TIFFs

CLU’s are added at the quad level.

Awards for all contracts based on the following evaluation criteria: 75% technical and 25% price. USDA wants flexibility of best technical application with price consideration given this is a new product. QBS was discussed and strides will be made to achieve a true QBS procurement for this program.

2001 NAIP: 400K – Some Kansas counties only
2002: - 5 states, 121 counties (split between 1m and 2m counties)
2003 - 36 states, 900 counties
2004 – 1338 counties, 1,4 million square miles

Additional info on program available at www.apfo.usda.gov

NAPP funding

Maine $580,000 natural color/leaf on
MT $881,000 CIR
OK $454,000 B/W leaf on
AZ $471,000 B/W