Findlay's GIS has bad data on waterlines

FINDLAY — Findlay's Geographic Information System (GIS) has a lot of wrong and missing information about the city's waterlines. Correcting the data will be expensive. Legislation that would appropriate $210,000 from the city's water fund to update the information was introduced to Findlay City Council at its July 15 regular meeting. A GIS is a type of database containing geographic data, combined with software for managing, analyzing and visualizing that data. In a letter to council, dated July 14, City Engineer Jeremy Kalb said the inaccuracies were found as work is being done to create a master plan for Findlay's water system. Kalb said the GIS often lists the wrong pipe material, and installation dates and connections throughout the system are missing. "This poses a problem when we start the capital planning process for waterline replacements and having an accurate outcome," said Kalb. "Correcting this information is a very labor-intensive process, but is needed to ensure that the data we are working with is true and accurate." In May, council appropriated $1.5 million from the city's water fund for the development of a master plan for the water department. Three firms were interviewed through a "request for qualifications" or RFQ process, with Arcadis US Inc., Toledo, receiving the highest score in the interview process. With Arcadis already working on the master plan, Kalb said it was decided to have the company update the GIS data, too. He said updating the data is outside the scope of the firm's contract with the city. The water treatment and distribution plan will address effective water resource management, long-term strategic planning and a framework for future growth and development. Kalb has said that having a long-term capital plan for the city's water system will ensure that the system can sustain any future growth or development. He said that with the size and cost of water projects, the city needs to ensure that any project at the water plant is effective for long-term development in the city. He said the master plan will also give the city an advantage in competing for grants. As for the missing or inaccurate information on the city's GIS, Kalb said that was probably a development decision. "This was most likely not an intentional thing, but for ease of getting the information on the GIS system, it might have been decided not to dig through all of the files and make some assumptions for the existing lines," he said. For example, Kalb said it may have been decided that lines without information would all be given an installation date of 1930. "So every line that was installed prior to the 1930 date was just given an installation date of 1930" in the city's GIS system, Kalb said. He said correcting the information will require the GIS tech to go through all of the city's original tap permits to determine the actual installation date, pipe type and size. "Since we are developing a master plan for the whole water system, we want to have the information as accurate as possible so that capital decisions can be derived from the final master plan," Kalb said. "Through the years, it has been found across the whole industry that in certain years the pipe that was made might have been weaker or stronger depending on the year that it was built, or the ground conditions that it was placed in."