Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration
Draft Data Catalog of Unusually Sensitive Areas
Last Updated: 04 January 2000
What are USAs?
Drinking Water Resources:
Other Related Sites:
Introduction
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) of the Department
of Transportation is required to identify areas unusually sensitive to
environmental damage in the event of a hazardous liquid pipeline accident,
in accordance with pipeline safety laws (49 U.S.C. Section 60109). Accordingly,
workshops are being held with regulatory agencies, pipeline operators,
and the public to define and identify "unusually sensitive areas" (USAs)
for drinking water resources, ecological resources, and cultural resources. As
part of this effort, a Pilot Study was undertaken to generate drinking water and
ecological USAs for California, Louisiana, and Texas.
The goals of the Pilot Study were both to develop and validate a standard
methodology for creating USAs.
The purpose of this draft data catalog is to document, evaluate, and test
the available data and process methodology for generating USAs. This draft catalog
identifies available drinking water, and ecological, sources
that are necessary for generating USAs and implements the Federal Geographic
Data Committee's metadata standard for documentation. As USAs are actually
generated, this catalog will document the process and report the results.
PHMSA recognizes the temporal nature of digital data and will update this draft catalog as part of the on-going USA program. Currently, this is only a draft.
List of data sources:
The following acronyms are found throughout the data catalog:
- GIS - Geographic Information System
- GW - Groundwater Well
- SWI - Surface Water Intake
- SSA - Sole Source Aquifer
- USA - Unusually Sensitive Area
- EPA - United States Environmental Protection Agency
- USGS - United States Geological Survey
- WHPA - Wellhead Protection Area
States that are currently being processed for drinking
water USAs: (listed by order of processing)
- Texas (In Progress as Part of Pilot Project)
- Louisiana (In Progress as Part of Pilot Project)
- California (In Progress as Part of Pilot Project)
- Oklahoma (Preliminary Drinking Water Report)
- Kansas (Preliminary Drinking Water Report)
- Missouri (Preliminary Drinking Water Report)
- Wyoming (Preliminary Drinking Water Report)
- Montana (Preliminary Drinking Water Report)
- Indiana (Preliminary Drinking Water Report)
- Ohio (Preliminary Drinking Water Report)
- Iowa (Preliminary Drinking Water Report)
- Illinois (Preliminary Drinking Water Report)
- Michigan (Preliminary Drinking Water Report)
- Pennsylvania (Preliminary Drinking Water Report)
- Nebraska (Preliminary Drinking Water Report)
- Colorado (Preliminary Drinking Water Report)
Map of USA Project Status
For further information, contact Christina
Sames (202-366-4561) at the Department of Transportation, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration
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