February 29, 2024 • 26 mins
Join Trent Neathery, GIS maestro at Communities Unlimited, as he guides us through rural community mapping. We'll discover the pivotal role of high-precision GPS in preserving water systems and local landmarks, revealing how meticulously gathered coordinates are revolutionizing the way small towns manage their most precious resources. Trent's tales from the field illuminate the tireless efforts and innovative strategies required to equip these communities with the power of advanced GIS technology—where every plotted point signals a leap into a more informed future.
We'll witness how Geographic Information Systems are redefining the landscape of community involvement. Imagine a world where drones soar, capturing crystalline images that transform into dynamic maps, enabling towns to manage everything from solid waste to emergency responses with newfound clarity. In this episode, Trent shares how these technological marvels are sparking a renaissance of local pride, turning residents into active custodians of their environment. Tune in and discover how GIS is becoming the compass by which communities navigate the complexities of modern asset management, charting a course toward resilience and self-sufficiency.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
I always tell people that if there's a problem to
solve, we can find a way tosolve it.
With GIS there is plenty ofopportunity.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Welcome to episode 21 of Small Talk, the podcast from
Communities Unlimited.
My name is Chris Baker.
Today is episode number two inour GIS podcast series, and I'm
joined by Trent Nethery.
Trent is the GIS projectmanager here at Communities
Unlimited.
Okay, so you're the GIS projectmanager, Trent.
What do you do?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Pretty much.
I kind of oversee the progressof all of our GIS projects.
I make sure that everything isgoing along on schedule, making
sure that we are meeting ourdeadlines, making sure that our
staff has everything that theyneed.
You know, just making sure thatthings keep rolling.
I just, you know, check andmake sure that we are completing
(00:52):
our deliverables as required.
I kind of keep tabs just on theschedule of things.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
I spoke with Don last episode, don Becker and Don was
telling us a little bit aboutwhat GIS is, how it's used in
communities, kind of informingus, because if I don't know what
GIS is, I'm lost already.
So why don't you give me yourperspective on what GIS at
Communities, unlimited, is usedfor and all of that?
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Yeah, gis it's a big world.
It's a lot of things.
There are a lot of things thatencompass it, but in general,
it's a way to manage data in away that is easy to see, easy to
understand.
It's a way to organize data ina method that anyone can pick up
and understand what we'rereferring to.
It allows you to make betterdecisions just using those.
(01:39):
Using the power of those maps,you can see where things are
located spatially, rather thanjust having maybe a list or a
spreadsheet or some other forumwhere your data is stored.
It allows you to manipulate itin a way that's a little bit
easier to understand.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
And I have to say, a lot of the communities that we
work in are very, very rural andoftentimes I have to imagine
and please correct me if I'mwrong again we're bringing a
highly technical, verytechnology-based product into a
very rural community.
That's got to be a big gapright there.
(02:18):
How do you?
Speaker 1 (02:18):
guys navigate that.
Yeah, it is a big gap and thatis something that we're working
on every day.
It's something that we aretraining our staff.
We are working on trainingourselves how to meet these
folks where they are and findout what their level is and how
we can meet them there to helpthem understand what we have to
(02:40):
offer and what the tools can dofor them.
So it really depends on theirlevel, their understanding of
technology.
Sometimes they may have beenexposed to a similar type of GIS
product before.
Sometimes they may have neverhad any experience at all and
have spent their entire careerworking with paper maps or
(03:03):
drawings, and we are takingthose things, digitizing them,
making a tool that is easy forthem to use, but then just
teaching them what they can dowith it and how they can use it
and how they can harness thatpower of that tool to better the
way they manage their watersystem.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
And the tool you're referring to.
There is a map right.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Yeah, that's correct.
Whenever we leave a community,we are leaving them with a
mapping application that can beutilized on a desktop computer
or on a mobile device like aniPhone or iPad tablet, and they
can take that map and manipulateit in order to manage their
system.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
And so, if I understand it correctly, I would
love to hit the field with youguys sometimes, so I have a real
full appreciation of it.
But you guys will go into acommunity.
Oftentimes you'll have an entrylevel amount of information
about, say, a water system orwhatever it is.
You may be mapping, and thenyou go out and you literally
visit all of those points andmake them more accurate and
maybe add some and subtract some.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Yes, that's correct.
We go into a community and wehave a rough idea of what's
there.
We take old maps that alreadyexist.
They could be original as builtmaps from when the system was
installed.
They could be hand drawn maps,they could be engineering
drawings from previous updates,previous editions.
We take all of those things,take them into consideration and
(04:28):
create a list of what we'relooking for.
So we have a rough idea of thenumber of water meters, for
example.
When we go into a community thatmay not be entirely accurate
depending on the accuracy of theprevious maps and data that we
have.
So we kind of go in with arough idea but kind of blind at
(04:51):
the same time.
Once we arrive in the community, we partner with the local
staff, so with the wateroperators, with meter readers,
whoever is on staff there in thecommunity that knows the system
well.
We really want that assistanceto help them build the capacity
so they understand what we'redoing.
We kind of understand whatthey're doing and we can work
(05:14):
together to create this product,this map product.
So we team up with them and wewill usually get in a truck and
just start driving Visit everysingle water meter, visit every
single valve, every fire hydrant, any storage facilities they
have, any water towers, storagetanks.
(05:35):
We visit their wells and pumps,pretty much any apparatus they
have on their water system.
We are actually physicallyvisiting that location and
because we have a listbeforehand, we'll have a rough
idea of you know in general,like the address maybe, of where
that water meter is.
(05:55):
But we'll actually take ourhigh accuracy GPS unit, go visit
that unit, whatever it is metervalve and collect a very high
accuracy GPS coordinate of thatlocation.
And the benefit fit of this isthat they now have the location
of that asset forever.
If it becomes buried maybe theroad is paved over and the valve
(06:19):
is buried or vegetation growsup around the meter box and they
can't find it they actuallyhave a very high accuracy GPS
coordinate that they can walkright up to that, wherever it is
.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
When you say high accuracy, what is the difference
between, say, plottingsomething on my phone versus
what you're talking about?
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah, so our GPS units.
We have an accuracy of roughlyabout a three foot circle, three
foot diameter circle.
So the way I describe it is ifyou were to take paint and paint
a three foot circle on theground where that location is,
that's where you need to dig inorder to find that.
Whatever it is, maybe a buriedvalve.
If you were to use your phone,it's more like 10 to 15 feet,
(07:01):
and so if you think about thatin the workload, that that is,
yes, you can get close with aphone, but it's not near as
close and you'll spend a lotmore time digging, a lot more
time looking.
So having the high accuracy GPSunit is very valuable.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Yeah, I can see that from a time saving standpoint,
from a cost saving standpoint.
I mean, if you're going to haveto dig something up or
something has a problem, betterdig a three foot hole than a 10
foot hole right Each time,absolutely.
Yeah, I have heard the termburied assets bandied around at
work and I never really knewwhat they were.
That makes sense.
Walk me through an engagementwith a community.
(07:39):
Maybe share some anecdotes ofthings you've seen that you
think might be common, that kindof stuff.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Yeah, we're working with all different types of
communities.
We work with all differentsizes.
I personally work withcommunities that have 100 people
all the way up to severalthousand.
The experience varies withthose two things.
Oftentimes we're seeing in theserural communities that we know
that there is a lack of educatedwater operators in the industry
(08:08):
.
We know that oftentimes we willcome into a community and maybe
there is there's a wateroperator that has been there for
many years and is ready toretire and they're struggling to
find someone to replace themthat has the same capability in
order to maintain that watersystem to the level that it has
been.
In a typical scenario like that, we are often trying to collect
(08:32):
the knowledge from theseoperators with years of
experience and try to get theminto a digital mapping interface
so that a new staff membercould come in and actually use
that information.
If it's stored in a map, it'sno longer in this other guy's
head and he can impart hisknowledge in a way that other
(08:58):
people can use it.
So that's the goal of whatwe're trying to do.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
And I have to imagine that when you're in the field
you might have seen some stuff,you might have experienced a
thing or two.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Yeah, GIS field work is.
It's an adventure, to say theleast.
It is an adventure we neverquite know what we're going to
get into.
You know, like I mentioned, wehave a rough idea of what a
community is on paper, butactually when we get there you
know we've been in places wherewe've had water up to our ankles
we're kind of walking throughthe mud to get where we need to
(09:32):
go.
Plenty of times we're searchingthrough the woods to find
something.
It's pretty common forcommunities to have these little
back roads that are not paved,so you need four-wheel drive to
get where you're going.
I worked with a communityrecently that there was only two
paved roads in the entirecounty and so, if that tells you
anything, Now I drive a bigfour-wheel drive truck so that I
(09:56):
can get to these places.
But oftentimes we're relying onthese operators to have
vehicles that are capable andwith communities that are kind
of low budget or they just needmore assistance, they may only
have one old pickup truck to doall the work that they need to
do.
We're going into this knowingthat we're going to have to
(10:20):
solve problems and kind of adaptto the scenario.
We often have to fight off dogsin front of your car.
It's always the little onesthat come out and bite you.
You know they want to put theirteeth on you.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Those little ones are always the ones with the
attitude, aren't they?
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Yes, the little ones are always the ones with the
attitude.
Absolutely, that's prettycommon.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
We're talking to Trent Nethery.
Trent is the GIS projectmanager here at Communities
Unlimited and you are listeningto Small Talk, the Communities
Unlimited podcast.
Hey, Trent, I know that you are.
You're a technology embrace.
You're very good at a lot ofthings.
We're going to get into yourdrone work eventually.
But I kind of wanted to ask youwater systems are pretty easy
for me to understand in a GISperspective.
(11:04):
Is there any other uses thatyou see that kind of seem
obvious to you, that maybe youfeel like people aren't taken
advantage of enough?
Is there anything out therethat's exciting to you in that
world?
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Yeah, gis is one of those tools that can be adapted
to anything.
I always tell people that ifthere's a problem to solve, we
can find a way to solve it.
With GIS there is plenty ofopportunity.
Anytime that we havelocation-based data, that could
be anything, anything that youcan think of that, any type of
data that has an address or evena zip code, or just any sort of
(11:39):
location-based data we canorganize with GIS.
We have created products incommunity for things like solid
waste or things like tourism.
For example, we could create atour guide for a community where
maybe they have severalhistorical sites and we want to
(12:00):
go ahead and put those on a map,maybe write a story about those
, have some sort of guide forpeople to come in and explore
that town, bring folks in thatwould otherwise normally not
have a way to engage with thathistory.
For example, we could createmaps of trail systems or
anything with location-baseddata that we want people to have
(12:22):
access to.
Also, there's a component ofemergency management that GIS
can be utilized for.
So one of the great thingsabout it it's not just points on
a map, it's actually datastorage and data analysis.
When you have a map interface,you might have points on a map,
but each point.
If I were to click on thatpoint then I can have files and
(12:45):
photos and notes and all kindsof data that I can store in
there.
I can see use case of maybe youhave I'm not a lawyer community
facilities, community buildings, government buildings, things
of that nature and the store inthe gis.
You have your emergency plans,you have your your fire
information, your you know allthose emergency documents that
(13:07):
you need To have on filesomewhere, but you just have
that organized inside the gisyeah, I know we've done some up
interesting projects with likethings like cemeteries and
things like that.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
The magic, in my opinion, of gis is the attached
data to that picture stories,files like you were talking
about.
That seems like where a lot ofcool stuff can be.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Definitely in the case of the cemetery, that's.
That's a great example.
That was a project where weactually mapped a location of
the headstones in the cemeteryand then attached to each
location is the name, the birthdate, the death date and then
Any other information about thatperson.
So in this particular projectthere was several famous people
(13:51):
that were buried in the cemeteryand we were able to kind of
write up a paragraph about them,about their life, you know, not
only to save that knowledge butalso to create a tool so that
the family members can come andsearch for their loved ones and
find out where they are buried.
They can actually just searchthem by name and their location
(14:12):
pop up and they can walk rightup to him.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Lots of, lots of possibilities with it.
Man, especially for communitieslike that, are making that leap
from not having anything likethis to something.
I hope that people really dreama little bit and are able to
see the possibilities.
You know yeah, most definitely.
You're also are de facto droneexpert.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Let's talk about those things you fly up in the
air, tell me what you use themfor and tell me about them so we
have a fleet of Two DJI Phantomfor drones that we use, and
these drones are specificallymade for very high quality
photography, so they havefantastic cameras on board.
So we have used them forphotography and in GIS.
(14:53):
Whenever you're creating a map,you need to have a reference
layer called a base map, and abase map is super important
because otherwise it would justbe points floating in mid air.
You wouldn't be able to haveany context where anything is
located.
Now, whenever you create a GISapplication, there are some
default base map options you cando like a satellite imagery
(15:14):
layer.
You know which, what you wouldtypically see like on a typical
Google maps.
You know like a street viewtype of layer.
But one of the downsides is thatyou are limited to whenever
that map was last updated.
Take, for example, the imagerylayer.
I don't know if that imagerylayer was updated six months ago
or five years ago, it justdepends on the imagery that's
(15:36):
available.
So the downside of that is,let's say, like the cemetery,
for example, we want to showexactly where all the headstones
are today, we want to show thetrees and we want to show the
roads and we want to show theexact layout of that cemetery
today.
So in that case, in thatproject, we took our drones and
(15:56):
we flew the drones over theentire cemetery property.
We can create a program to thattells it to take a photo every
few feet or so.
So we end up with around 300photos of the entire property
and each of them are georeferenced, so the drone has a
GPS on board and it knows whereit took that photo.
Then we can take all of thosephotos, put them in a software
(16:18):
that stitches them together andcreates a geo referenced imagery
layer called an ortho mosaic,and that ortho mosaic
essentially serves as a base mapthat is up to date immediately.
So that is what we see today.
No matter what, and becausewe're actually using our own
equipment we're not relying onsatellites that are orbiting
(16:41):
above the earth.
We're actually flying 300 feetabove the surface of the earth
we can get really crisp, highquality imagery that you can
almost zoom in and read the nameon those headstones.
With this imagery.
There are a few other use casesthat we could potentially
explore.
We have used them for brandingtypes type of things.
(17:03):
We can use them for water towerinspections.
We can use them to take photosof different assets in the water
system and we do use them forthat.
Whenever I provide a mappingapplication to a community, I
like to include photos of thatwater system.
So if I have the opportunity, Iwill bring the drone with me
(17:25):
every time I go out in communityand I'll take a photo of maybe
their downtown area or if theyhave a water tower.
I'll take a photo of that, youknow, because oftentimes they're
painted up nice.
They have like the high schoolmascot on it for something or
they have the community name andthat makes a great cover photo.
It adds value to the productthat we are providing them.
It also adds a sense of prideto them like this is my map,
(17:50):
this is my product, this is mycommunity and I'm proud of it.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Talking to Trent Nethery.
Trent is the GIS projectmanager here at Communities
Unlimited.
This is episode two of our GISseries.
Hey, trent, if there wassomething you wanted people to
know about working with the GIS,what would you tell them?
What would be your advice?
Speaker 1 (18:10):
I guess I'd say embrace the technology, because
the world is changing, we'rerelying more on technology every
day and this is something thathas so much potential to provide
value to future, to futurestaff it's almost future proof,
no matter who is on staff in thecommunity now.
That knowledge is then savedfor the future and we're not
(18:33):
relying on purely human memory.
We see that water system staff,they'll have an idea.
Maybe I think this valve ishere, I'm not sure.
I think it was paved over, Idon't know.
Those are questions that wedon't have to be concerned about
not remembering or losingknowledge.
We have a database of thatinformation stored forever to
(18:57):
use and we can always go back tothat.
So I would say embrace it,learn as much as you can.
Oftentimes water systems aregoing away from the traditional
manual read type water metersand going to these digital radio
read meters that a GPScoordinate is collected during
installation anyway.
(19:17):
So we already understand thevalue of having the location of
that asset.
So just embrace it.
Like you said earlier, dream ofways that you can use it.
There's no limit.
The sky's the limit onsolutions that GIS can provide.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Yeah, kind of what you get out of it is what you
put into it, right.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Yeah, is there anything else you'd like to add
before we wrap up Trent?
Because I know my experiencewith the GIS department is very
surface level, I haven't delveddeep into it too much.
It seems like a whole lot offun.
It seems very valuable to acommunity.
Is there anything I'm missing?
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Asset management is a big part of GIS that we are
learning how to implement.
Every state in our seven stateregion has kind of different
requirements for what they needfor asset management.
To explain what assetmanagement is essentially, we
are taking an inventory ofeverything in the system.
So everything that I've alreadytalked about water meters,
(20:12):
valves, hydrants, including thewater lines, the mileage of the
water lines, all the materials,makes and models about all of
those products pumps, storagetanks, everything that is owned
by the water system those areour assets and we need to keep
track of those.
When they're installed, whattheir useful life is, makes
models, schematics, maintenancerecords, everything about those
(20:36):
things.
Traditionally that is done in adatabase, some kind of
spreadsheet.
Gis is a great tool for thatbecause we already have the
location of that asset with theGPS coordinate In order to
create an asset management plan.
We can add all of thatinformation into those points.
(20:56):
So take a valve, for example.
If I were to click on a valve,I can go ahead and store inside
of that data point to make themodel, the install date, the
useful life, any maintenancerecords, the size.
I can also store in which waterlines are affected by that
valve.
So if I were to shut that off,how many of my residents are
(21:17):
affected?
That goes into the criticalscore of that valve.
So if that were to break, howmany people would be without
water?
All of that can be storedinside the GIS.
So what's great about this isthat it's just, it's a digital
version of that spreadsheet.
In a way, it's a little biteasier to see, it's a little bit
(21:38):
easier to understand.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Yeah, so if you're going to, if you have a map and
you have valve number 42, youcould store in things like you
were saying, like the makingmodel, you could store the PDF
of the you know, theinstructions or whatever the
case may be, when it was lastserviced, those kinds of things
and it just makes man, it makesthat workflow a lot easier.
I mean there's a lot of inputto do, but the value, the output
(22:00):
is tremendous there.
I mean it has to be.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Yes, and what's also great is, inside the GIS
software, different ways towrite code, to make calculations
and organize your assets in away that's that's easier to use.
And we can use that to docalculations.
Like we know the install dateand we know today's date, so
let's do a calculation of howold that is automatically.
(22:24):
So when I click on a valve, Ican instantly see the age of
that valve.
If I also know that the usefullife for a product like a meter
is 10 years.
So if I installed it let's sayI installed that meter in 2014,
we're now 10 years, we're at 10years, so the useful life of
(22:45):
that meter is up.
Let's say, a Item like a firehydrant has a useful life of 50
years.
I installed it in 2010.
I can do a calculation and seeoh well, it's been 14 years.
So now that useful life hasdropped and I can see the
calculation of the remaininguseful life and that's
(23:08):
beneficial for budgeting I cantell it.
I can have the GIS give me analert, give me a notification
when my useful life has droppeddown to whatever I said it to be
.
That could be five years or twoyears or one year, depending on
my budgeting needs, so that onthe finance side of things, I
can know that, hey, I have someassets in my water system that
(23:32):
are almost used up, they havealmost completed their useful
life and it's now time for me tobudget and I can go ahead and
consider that in the next fiveyears, I need to replace 10 fire
hydrants, for example, and Ican go ahead and think about
that and what that entails.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Makes so much sense.
Man, how does an engagementwith the GIS team here at
Community Zone Limited work?
Is it often kind of a one anddone, or are you guys constantly
talking to communities, helpingthem with their product and all
that?
How does that work?
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Yeah, we have a couple of different options that
we offer.
We have options that we cancome in to a community, collect
the data, as we talked about,visit every asset, collect the
data.
But then we have a level ofsupport that we offer.
I think it's 20 hours ofsupport and that's phone calls,
(24:23):
that can be Zoom meetings, thatcan be training.
That is completely up to thecommunity to decide how they
would like to use that.
We do offer in-house datastorage.
So whenever we work with acommunity, we create them a map
and then we offer them theability to host that map through
Community Zone Limited.
(24:44):
So we will continue to maintaintheir map on our servers.
We will back up their data andthat's for a yearly fee that the
community will pay and they canpay that for as long as they
would like to continue theservices with Communities
Unlimited.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
OK, cool.
Well, Trent, I do appreciateyour time, I guess.
To wrap up, I would ask you doyou have an ideal example of a
community that used GIS and isstill using it properly, or is
there an all-star out there?
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Yeah, so Waldron Arkansas comes to mind.
They're one of our communitiesthat they use GIS for both their
water system and theirwastewater system, so we have
mapped both and we have beensupporting them.
They love it, they speak highlyof it, they use it all the time
, they keep it up to date everyday.
(25:30):
I think they're one of ourcommunities that they log in
just about every day, and thatis an ideal situation.
The GIS should be a tool thatyou carry in your pocket and you
use every day and you log in,and every time that you make a
change, every time you make anupdate, you make a repair, you
add a asset or remove an asset,that update is that's updated
(25:53):
immediately into the GIS.
It's always accurate.
The downside of paper maps is,as soon as you print the map out
, it's out of date, right?
The GIS is always up to date.
It's always in real time.
Anyone can get in there and seewhat's going on with the system
.
So yeah, waldron Arkansas,they're doing great things and
we love working with them.
All right, trent?
Speaker 2 (26:14):
GIS project manager here at Community Zin unlimited,
Trent and Nethery.
That's episode 21 of Small Talkin the Books.
We'll be back in a couple ofweeks with episode number 22.
Thanks, Trent.
Thank you.
I always tell people that if there's a problem to
solve, we can find a way tosolve it.
With GIS there is plenty ofopportunity.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Welcome to episode 21 of Small Talk, the podcast from
Communities Unlimited.
My name is Chris Baker.
Today is episode number two inour GIS podcast series, and I'm
joined by Trent Nethery.
Trent is the GIS projectmanager here at Communities
Unlimited.
Okay, so you're the GIS projectmanager, Trent.
What do you do?
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Pretty much.
I kind of oversee the progressof all of our GIS projects.
I make sure that everything isgoing along on schedule, making
sure that we are meeting ourdeadlines, making sure that our
staff has everything that theyneed.
You know, just making sure thatthings keep rolling.
I just, you know, check andmake sure that we are completing
(00:52):
our deliverables as required.
I kind of keep tabs just on theschedule of things.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
I spoke with Don last episode, don Becker and Don was
telling us a little bit aboutwhat GIS is, how it's used in
communities, kind of informingus, because if I don't know what
GIS is, I'm lost already.
So why don't you give me yourperspective on what GIS at
Communities, unlimited, is usedfor and all of that?
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Yeah, gis it's a big world.
It's a lot of things.
There are a lot of things thatencompass it, but in general,
it's a way to manage data in away that is easy to see, easy to
understand.
It's a way to organize data ina method that anyone can pick up
and understand what we'rereferring to.
It allows you to make betterdecisions just using those.
(01:39):
Using the power of those maps,you can see where things are
located spatially, rather thanjust having maybe a list or a
spreadsheet or some other forumwhere your data is stored.
It allows you to manipulate itin a way that's a little bit
easier to understand.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
And I have to say, a lot of the communities that we
work in are very, very rural andoftentimes I have to imagine
and please correct me if I'mwrong again we're bringing a
highly technical, verytechnology-based product into a
very rural community.
That's got to be a big gapright there.
(02:18):
How do you?
Speaker 1 (02:18):
guys navigate that.
Yeah, it is a big gap and thatis something that we're working
on every day.
It's something that we aretraining our staff.
We are working on trainingourselves how to meet these
folks where they are and findout what their level is and how
we can meet them there to helpthem understand what we have to
(02:40):
offer and what the tools can dofor them.
So it really depends on theirlevel, their understanding of
technology.
Sometimes they may have beenexposed to a similar type of GIS
product before.
Sometimes they may have neverhad any experience at all and
have spent their entire careerworking with paper maps or
(03:03):
drawings, and we are takingthose things, digitizing them,
making a tool that is easy forthem to use, but then just
teaching them what they can dowith it and how they can use it
and how they can harness thatpower of that tool to better the
way they manage their watersystem.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
And the tool you're referring to.
There is a map right.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Yeah, that's correct.
Whenever we leave a community,we are leaving them with a
mapping application that can beutilized on a desktop computer
or on a mobile device like aniPhone or iPad tablet, and they
can take that map and manipulateit in order to manage their
system.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
And so, if I understand it correctly, I would
love to hit the field with youguys sometimes, so I have a real
full appreciation of it.
But you guys will go into acommunity.
Oftentimes you'll have an entrylevel amount of information
about, say, a water system orwhatever it is.
You may be mapping, and thenyou go out and you literally
visit all of those points andmake them more accurate and
maybe add some and subtract some.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Yes, that's correct.
We go into a community and wehave a rough idea of what's
there.
We take old maps that alreadyexist.
They could be original as builtmaps from when the system was
installed.
They could be hand drawn maps,they could be engineering
drawings from previous updates,previous editions.
We take all of those things,take them into consideration and
(04:28):
create a list of what we'relooking for.
So we have a rough idea of thenumber of water meters, for
example.
When we go into a community thatmay not be entirely accurate
depending on the accuracy of theprevious maps and data that we
have.
So we kind of go in with arough idea but kind of blind at
(04:51):
the same time.
Once we arrive in the community, we partner with the local
staff, so with the wateroperators, with meter readers,
whoever is on staff there in thecommunity that knows the system
well.
We really want that assistanceto help them build the capacity
so they understand what we'redoing.
We kind of understand whatthey're doing and we can work
(05:14):
together to create this product,this map product.
So we team up with them and wewill usually get in a truck and
just start driving Visit everysingle water meter, visit every
single valve, every fire hydrant, any storage facilities they
have, any water towers, storagetanks.
(05:35):
We visit their wells and pumps,pretty much any apparatus they
have on their water system.
We are actually physicallyvisiting that location and
because we have a listbeforehand, we'll have a rough
idea of you know in general,like the address maybe, of where
that water meter is.
(05:55):
But we'll actually take ourhigh accuracy GPS unit, go visit
that unit, whatever it is metervalve and collect a very high
accuracy GPS coordinate of thatlocation.
And the benefit fit of this isthat they now have the location
of that asset forever.
If it becomes buried maybe theroad is paved over and the valve
(06:19):
is buried or vegetation growsup around the meter box and they
can't find it they actuallyhave a very high accuracy GPS
coordinate that they can walkright up to that, wherever it is
.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
When you say high accuracy, what is the difference
between, say, plottingsomething on my phone versus
what you're talking about?
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah, so our GPS units.
We have an accuracy of roughlyabout a three foot circle, three
foot diameter circle.
So the way I describe it is ifyou were to take paint and paint
a three foot circle on theground where that location is,
that's where you need to dig inorder to find that.
Whatever it is, maybe a buriedvalve.
If you were to use your phone,it's more like 10 to 15 feet,
(07:01):
and so if you think about thatin the workload, that that is,
yes, you can get close with aphone, but it's not near as
close and you'll spend a lotmore time digging, a lot more
time looking.
So having the high accuracy GPSunit is very valuable.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Yeah, I can see that from a time saving standpoint,
from a cost saving standpoint.
I mean, if you're going to haveto dig something up or
something has a problem, betterdig a three foot hole than a 10
foot hole right Each time,absolutely.
Yeah, I have heard the termburied assets bandied around at
work and I never really knewwhat they were.
That makes sense.
Walk me through an engagementwith a community.
(07:39):
Maybe share some anecdotes ofthings you've seen that you
think might be common, that kindof stuff.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Yeah, we're working with all different types of
communities.
We work with all differentsizes.
I personally work withcommunities that have 100 people
all the way up to severalthousand.
The experience varies withthose two things.
Oftentimes we're seeing in theserural communities that we know
that there is a lack of educatedwater operators in the industry
(08:08):
.
We know that oftentimes we willcome into a community and maybe
there is there's a wateroperator that has been there for
many years and is ready toretire and they're struggling to
find someone to replace themthat has the same capability in
order to maintain that watersystem to the level that it has
been.
In a typical scenario like that, we are often trying to collect
(08:32):
the knowledge from theseoperators with years of
experience and try to get theminto a digital mapping interface
so that a new staff membercould come in and actually use
that information.
If it's stored in a map, it'sno longer in this other guy's
head and he can impart hisknowledge in a way that other
(08:58):
people can use it.
So that's the goal of whatwe're trying to do.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
And I have to imagine that when you're in the field
you might have seen some stuff,you might have experienced a
thing or two.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Yeah, GIS field work is.
It's an adventure, to say theleast.
It is an adventure we neverquite know what we're going to
get into.
You know, like I mentioned, wehave a rough idea of what a
community is on paper, butactually when we get there you
know we've been in places wherewe've had water up to our ankles
we're kind of walking throughthe mud to get where we need to
(09:32):
go.
Plenty of times we're searchingthrough the woods to find
something.
It's pretty common forcommunities to have these little
back roads that are not paved,so you need four-wheel drive to
get where you're going.
I worked with a communityrecently that there was only two
paved roads in the entirecounty and so, if that tells you
anything, Now I drive a bigfour-wheel drive truck so that I
(09:56):
can get to these places.
But oftentimes we're relying onthese operators to have
vehicles that are capable andwith communities that are kind
of low budget or they just needmore assistance, they may only
have one old pickup truck to doall the work that they need to
do.
We're going into this knowingthat we're going to have to
(10:20):
solve problems and kind of adaptto the scenario.
We often have to fight off dogsin front of your car.
It's always the little onesthat come out and bite you.
You know they want to put theirteeth on you.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Those little ones are always the ones with the
attitude, aren't they?
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Yes, the little ones are always the ones with the
attitude.
Absolutely, that's prettycommon.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
We're talking to Trent Nethery.
Trent is the GIS projectmanager here at Communities
Unlimited and you are listeningto Small Talk, the Communities
Unlimited podcast.
Hey, Trent, I know that you are.
You're a technology embrace.
You're very good at a lot ofthings.
We're going to get into yourdrone work eventually.
But I kind of wanted to ask youwater systems are pretty easy
for me to understand in a GISperspective.
(11:04):
Is there any other uses thatyou see that kind of seem
obvious to you, that maybe youfeel like people aren't taken
advantage of enough?
Is there anything out therethat's exciting to you in that
world?
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Yeah, gis is one of those tools that can be adapted
to anything.
I always tell people that ifthere's a problem to solve, we
can find a way to solve it.
With GIS there is plenty ofopportunity.
Anytime that we havelocation-based data, that could
be anything, anything that youcan think of that, any type of
data that has an address or evena zip code, or just any sort of
(11:39):
location-based data we canorganize with GIS.
We have created products incommunity for things like solid
waste or things like tourism.
For example, we could create atour guide for a community where
maybe they have severalhistorical sites and we want to
(12:00):
go ahead and put those on a map,maybe write a story about those
, have some sort of guide forpeople to come in and explore
that town, bring folks in thatwould otherwise normally not
have a way to engage with thathistory.
For example, we could createmaps of trail systems or
anything with location-baseddata that we want people to have
(12:22):
access to.
Also, there's a component ofemergency management that GIS
can be utilized for.
So one of the great thingsabout it it's not just points on
a map, it's actually datastorage and data analysis.
When you have a map interface,you might have points on a map,
but each point.
If I were to click on thatpoint then I can have files and
(12:45):
photos and notes and all kindsof data that I can store in
there.
I can see use case of maybe youhave I'm not a lawyer community
facilities, community buildings, government buildings, things
of that nature and the store inthe gis.
You have your emergency plans,you have your your fire
information, your you know allthose emergency documents that
(13:07):
you need To have on filesomewhere, but you just have
that organized inside the gisyeah, I know we've done some up
interesting projects with likethings like cemeteries and
things like that.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
The magic, in my opinion, of gis is the attached
data to that picture stories,files like you were talking
about.
That seems like where a lot ofcool stuff can be.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Definitely in the case of the cemetery, that's.
That's a great example.
That was a project where weactually mapped a location of
the headstones in the cemeteryand then attached to each
location is the name, the birthdate, the death date and then
Any other information about thatperson.
So in this particular projectthere was several famous people
(13:51):
that were buried in the cemeteryand we were able to kind of
write up a paragraph about them,about their life, you know, not
only to save that knowledge butalso to create a tool so that
the family members can come andsearch for their loved ones and
find out where they are buried.
They can actually just searchthem by name and their location
(14:12):
pop up and they can walk rightup to him.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Lots of, lots of possibilities with it.
Man, especially for communitieslike that, are making that leap
from not having anything likethis to something.
I hope that people really dreama little bit and are able to
see the possibilities.
You know yeah, most definitely.
You're also are de facto droneexpert.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Let's talk about those things you fly up in the
air, tell me what you use themfor and tell me about them so we
have a fleet of Two DJI Phantomfor drones that we use, and
these drones are specificallymade for very high quality
photography, so they havefantastic cameras on board.
So we have used them forphotography and in GIS.
(14:53):
Whenever you're creating a map,you need to have a reference
layer called a base map, and abase map is super important
because otherwise it would justbe points floating in mid air.
You wouldn't be able to haveany context where anything is
located.
Now, whenever you create a GISapplication, there are some
default base map options you cando like a satellite imagery
(15:14):
layer.
You know which, what you wouldtypically see like on a typical
Google maps.
You know like a street viewtype of layer.
But one of the downsides is thatyou are limited to whenever
that map was last updated.
Take, for example, the imagerylayer.
I don't know if that imagerylayer was updated six months ago
or five years ago, it justdepends on the imagery that's
(15:36):
available.
So the downside of that is,let's say, like the cemetery,
for example, we want to showexactly where all the headstones
are today, we want to show thetrees and we want to show the
roads and we want to show theexact layout of that cemetery
today.
So in that case, in thatproject, we took our drones and
(15:56):
we flew the drones over theentire cemetery property.
We can create a program to thattells it to take a photo every
few feet or so.
So we end up with around 300photos of the entire property
and each of them are georeferenced, so the drone has a
GPS on board and it knows whereit took that photo.
Then we can take all of thosephotos, put them in a software
(16:18):
that stitches them together andcreates a geo referenced imagery
layer called an ortho mosaic,and that ortho mosaic
essentially serves as a base mapthat is up to date immediately.
So that is what we see today.
No matter what, and becausewe're actually using our own
equipment we're not relying onsatellites that are orbiting
(16:41):
above the earth.
We're actually flying 300 feetabove the surface of the earth
we can get really crisp, highquality imagery that you can
almost zoom in and read the nameon those headstones.
With this imagery.
There are a few other use casesthat we could potentially
explore.
We have used them for brandingtypes type of things.
(17:03):
We can use them for water towerinspections.
We can use them to take photosof different assets in the water
system and we do use them forthat.
Whenever I provide a mappingapplication to a community, I
like to include photos of thatwater system.
So if I have the opportunity, Iwill bring the drone with me
(17:25):
every time I go out in communityand I'll take a photo of maybe
their downtown area or if theyhave a water tower.
I'll take a photo of that, youknow, because oftentimes they're
painted up nice.
They have like the high schoolmascot on it for something or
they have the community name andthat makes a great cover photo.
It adds value to the productthat we are providing them.
It also adds a sense of prideto them like this is my map,
(17:50):
this is my product, this is mycommunity and I'm proud of it.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Talking to Trent Nethery.
Trent is the GIS projectmanager here at Communities
Unlimited.
This is episode two of our GISseries.
Hey, trent, if there wassomething you wanted people to
know about working with the GIS,what would you tell them?
What would be your advice?
Speaker 1 (18:10):
I guess I'd say embrace the technology, because
the world is changing, we'rerelying more on technology every
day and this is something thathas so much potential to provide
value to future, to futurestaff it's almost future proof,
no matter who is on staff in thecommunity now.
That knowledge is then savedfor the future and we're not
(18:33):
relying on purely human memory.
We see that water system staff,they'll have an idea.
Maybe I think this valve ishere, I'm not sure.
I think it was paved over, Idon't know.
Those are questions that wedon't have to be concerned about
not remembering or losingknowledge.
We have a database of thatinformation stored forever to
(18:57):
use and we can always go back tothat.
So I would say embrace it,learn as much as you can.
Oftentimes water systems aregoing away from the traditional
manual read type water metersand going to these digital radio
read meters that a GPScoordinate is collected during
installation anyway.
(19:17):
So we already understand thevalue of having the location of
that asset.
So just embrace it.
Like you said earlier, dream ofways that you can use it.
There's no limit.
The sky's the limit onsolutions that GIS can provide.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Yeah, kind of what you get out of it is what you
put into it, right.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Yeah, is there anything else you'd like to add
before we wrap up Trent?
Because I know my experiencewith the GIS department is very
surface level, I haven't delveddeep into it too much.
It seems like a whole lot offun.
It seems very valuable to acommunity.
Is there anything I'm missing?
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Asset management is a big part of GIS that we are
learning how to implement.
Every state in our seven stateregion has kind of different
requirements for what they needfor asset management.
To explain what assetmanagement is essentially, we
are taking an inventory ofeverything in the system.
So everything that I've alreadytalked about water meters,
(20:12):
valves, hydrants, including thewater lines, the mileage of the
water lines, all the materials,makes and models about all of
those products pumps, storagetanks, everything that is owned
by the water system those areour assets and we need to keep
track of those.
When they're installed, whattheir useful life is, makes
models, schematics, maintenancerecords, everything about those
(20:36):
things.
Traditionally that is done in adatabase, some kind of
spreadsheet.
Gis is a great tool for thatbecause we already have the
location of that asset with theGPS coordinate In order to
create an asset management plan.
We can add all of thatinformation into those points.
(20:56):
So take a valve, for example.
If I were to click on a valve,I can go ahead and store inside
of that data point to make themodel, the install date, the
useful life, any maintenancerecords, the size.
I can also store in which waterlines are affected by that
valve.
So if I were to shut that off,how many of my residents are
(21:17):
affected?
That goes into the criticalscore of that valve.
So if that were to break, howmany people would be without
water?
All of that can be storedinside the GIS.
So what's great about this isthat it's just, it's a digital
version of that spreadsheet.
In a way, it's a little biteasier to see, it's a little bit
(21:38):
easier to understand.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Yeah, so if you're going to, if you have a map and
you have valve number 42, youcould store in things like you
were saying, like the makingmodel, you could store the PDF
of the you know, theinstructions or whatever the
case may be, when it was lastserviced, those kinds of things
and it just makes man, it makesthat workflow a lot easier.
I mean there's a lot of inputto do, but the value, the output
(22:00):
is tremendous there.
I mean it has to be.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Yes, and what's also great is, inside the GIS
software, different ways towrite code, to make calculations
and organize your assets in away that's that's easier to use.
And we can use that to docalculations.
Like we know the install dateand we know today's date, so
let's do a calculation of howold that is automatically.
(22:24):
So when I click on a valve, Ican instantly see the age of
that valve.
If I also know that the usefullife for a product like a meter
is 10 years.
So if I installed it let's sayI installed that meter in 2014,
we're now 10 years, we're at 10years, so the useful life of
(22:45):
that meter is up.
Let's say, a Item like a firehydrant has a useful life of 50
years.
I installed it in 2010.
I can do a calculation and seeoh well, it's been 14 years.
So now that useful life hasdropped and I can see the
calculation of the remaininguseful life and that's
(23:08):
beneficial for budgeting I cantell it.
I can have the GIS give me analert, give me a notification
when my useful life has droppeddown to whatever I said it to be
.
That could be five years or twoyears or one year, depending on
my budgeting needs, so that onthe finance side of things, I
can know that, hey, I have someassets in my water system that
(23:32):
are almost used up, they havealmost completed their useful
life and it's now time for me tobudget and I can go ahead and
consider that in the next fiveyears, I need to replace 10 fire
hydrants, for example, and Ican go ahead and think about
that and what that entails.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Makes so much sense.
Man, how does an engagementwith the GIS team here at
Community Zone Limited work?
Is it often kind of a one anddone, or are you guys constantly
talking to communities, helpingthem with their product and all
that?
How does that work?
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Yeah, we have a couple of different options that
we offer.
We have options that we cancome in to a community, collect
the data, as we talked about,visit every asset, collect the
data.
But then we have a level ofsupport that we offer.
I think it's 20 hours ofsupport and that's phone calls,
(24:23):
that can be Zoom meetings, thatcan be training.
That is completely up to thecommunity to decide how they
would like to use that.
We do offer in-house datastorage.
So whenever we work with acommunity, we create them a map
and then we offer them theability to host that map through
Community Zone Limited.
(24:44):
So we will continue to maintaintheir map on our servers.
We will back up their data andthat's for a yearly fee that the
community will pay and they canpay that for as long as they
would like to continue theservices with Communities
Unlimited.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
OK, cool.
Well, Trent, I do appreciateyour time, I guess.
To wrap up, I would ask you doyou have an ideal example of a
community that used GIS and isstill using it properly, or is
there an all-star out there?
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Yeah, so Waldron Arkansas comes to mind.
They're one of our communitiesthat they use GIS for both their
water system and theirwastewater system, so we have
mapped both and we have beensupporting them.
They love it, they speak highlyof it, they use it all the time
, they keep it up to date everyday.
(25:30):
I think they're one of ourcommunities that they log in
just about every day, and thatis an ideal situation.
The GIS should be a tool thatyou carry in your pocket and you
use every day and you log in,and every time that you make a
change, every time you make anupdate, you make a repair, you
add a asset or remove an asset,that update is that's updated
(25:53):
immediately into the GIS.
It's always accurate.
The downside of paper maps is,as soon as you print the map out
, it's out of date, right?
The GIS is always up to date.
It's always in real time.
Anyone can get in there and seewhat's going on with the system
.
So yeah, waldron Arkansas,they're doing great things and
we love working with them.
All right, trent?
Speaker 2 (26:14):
GIS project manager here at Community Zin unlimited,
Trent and Nethery.
That's episode 21 of Small Talkin the Books.
We'll be back in a couple ofweeks with episode number 22.
Thanks, Trent.
Thank you.
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