vernonia’s
voice
city news
april
2009
Geography Matters
By Ben Fousek
My name is Ben Fousek. I am a survey tech and the
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) manager at KLS Sur-
veying, here in Vernonia. The city has contracted with KLS to
build and maintain a GIS for the city. You can find out more
about the City of Vernonia GIS by visiting the City’s GIS web-
site at http://www.klssurveying.com/vernonia/.
This is the first in a regular column that will be appearing in
Vernonia’s Voice. If you have a specific geography or GIS topic
you would like to hear about, contact me through the website.
One of the projects I’ve had in mind for the Vernon-
ia GIS for quite a while, is installing a weather ISS (In-
tegrated Sensor Suite) here in Vernonia. Right now, Ver-
nonia doesn’t have a weather station that is linked into any
weather reporting systems, so when you look online for
“Vernonia weather” reports, you may not be getting actual
information from here in Vernonia.
The ISS I am looking to install is simply a cluster of
weather and climate sensors that measures several different
conditions. Of course, it measures basic conditions like wind
speed and direction, precipitation and humidity, but it also
measures other environmental conditions that we don’t often
think of. These include ultraviolet (UV) index, solar radiation
and dose, evapotranspiration and more. The whole of these
measurements can give a detailed picture of the weather and
climate that goes beyond looking out the window or watching
the weather report on the news. And after the past two win-
ters, it’s pretty obvious more and accurate weather data could
be useful to our community.
Now that you know what an ISS is, let’s look at what hap-
pens to the data once it is collected and how it benefits not just
you, but the whole world. The ISS collects the climate data
and sends it to a computer where it is stored. The data is then
made available to different external systems. Probably most
useful to us locally, the data is made available via the web.
Real time weather conditions would be available 24 hours a
day right on the Vernonia GIS web site. The other great fea-
ture of the ISS package that I’ve been looking at is the ability
to graph the data over time. For example, if you wanted to
graph temperature, humidity and solar radiation over the last
30 days, you could do so right through a web browser, and
print your graph. On a longer timeline, like a year or ten years,
we would be able to monitor changes in climate for Vernonia.
That’s great for Vernonia, but how, you might ask, is it
going to benefit the world? Well, here it is… The software
package that comes with the ISS also sends the collected data
to the national weather grid through various means I won’t
go into here. That data is used in many different ways. One
use is in regional and national weather reporting. The data
can also be used for weather forecasting and tracking severe
weather. The data is also used by researchers at universities
and by others who study weather and climate change.
The ISS and software package costs a little over $900.
As of right now, there are $200 in pledged contributions
to purchasing the ISS package. Anyone who would like
to contribute or would like to talk about the Vernonia GIS
Weather and Climate Project can contact me during the
week at 503 429-6115.
I mentioned the term “climate change” above, and I
would like to take this opportunity to discuss climate change
and what it means for us here in Vernonia. Climate change
is getting more and more attention these days, and with good
reason. You may have heard the term “global warming” be-
ing used, but that isn’t always the proper term to use when
discussing climate change. Although most of the planet is
getting warmer, there are places that are cooling because of
recent changes in climate. Another idea to keep in mind when
talking about climate change is that the climate on Earth has
been continually changing for billions of years. There have
been periods when the planet was much colder and periods
when it has been much warmer. So what makes changes in
climate today so different from past climate change? It is all
about the rate of change. The average global temperature has
increased almost 1° C in the last 100 years, which may not
seem like a lot, but historically that amount of change has tak-
en much longer. The rate in temperature increase over the last
few decades has been even steeper. If temperature increases
continue at the same rate as they have from 1960 to present,
the next hundred years could see an increase of 6.4° C. The
issue with such rapid climate change is that species, plants and
animals alike, are unable to adapt at the same rate as the cli-
mate is changing. These climate changes also promote envi-
ronmental changes that go beyond atmospheric changes. For
instance, most humans live in very dense population centers
along shorelines in low-lying areas. With the rate at which po-
lar ice is melting, cities like New York and Los Angeles could
be uninhabitable in a hundred years. Imagine the cultural and
economic problems that could arise in such a scenario.
So, what about Vernonia? Most likely, the biggest effect
07
of climate change locally is, I hate to use the f word, but I’m
going to--- flooding. With increased global temperature comes
increased evaporation of water, which means more precipita-
tion for certain regions. Unlike the Great Plains, which will
be drier with increased global temperature, the Pacific North-
west is going to get wetter. Unfortunately, it’s not going to
be an increase that can be characterized as a daily or monthly
average increase, but rather it will be in the form of extreme
weather events. That’s exactly what we saw in December of
2007. So is climate change responsible for two major flood
events on the Nehalem River in 11 years? I won’t go so far as
to blame climate change entirely, but it certainly was part of
the equation. I will, however, make a prediction about future
floods, and say that the next couple of hundred years will see
an increase in the flood event rate for the Nehalem River.
I apologize for being blunt, but I feel that’s the best way
to get people thinking. So now that I have you thinking, what
are we going to do about climate change? We could choose
to ignore it and hope for the best. Or, we could take action to
slow rapid climate change and mitigate future effects. The lat-
ter is already happening here in Vernonia in the form of land
buy-outs, raising homes and moving important infrastructure
like the schools. As a community, we can do more, like mov-
ing more homes and businesses away from flood-prone areas,
and reestablishing natural flood plains. Not to mention the
many other ways to help mitigate future flood events from im-
pacting us as much as the last two have.
I wasn’t around for the 1996 flood, but I’ve heard that
the community was told that it wouldn’t flood again for a long
time. We know better now, so let’s accept our circumstances,
and get to work correcting the mistakes of the past, which I
know many of you are valiantly striving to do. As we move
forward, let that work not be for just the present or for our
most immediate and selfish desires, but instead let it be for
a brighter future for Vernonia for generations to come. As a
community, we can make the future brighter for ourselves, our
children and the children of our great-grandchildren, but we
have to come to a consensus on what our goals are and all
work toward those common goals.
Maybe it’s a little silly to be so passionate about climate
change, or maybe that’s the kind of reasoning that will over-
come the obstacles we face as a community when it comes to
the reality of climate change right here in Vernonia. And if it
works for climate change, maybe it could work for the many
other issues that Vernonia is facing. Think about it.
What’s the Plan Stan? A Monthly Update on City Planning
By Seth Lenaerts
Vernonia has entered the Geographic Information Sys-
tem (GIS) age! In November of 2008, the City and KLS Sur-
veying formed an agreement for KLS to host the City’s GIS
system. The KLS GIS technician, Ben Fousek, has put in an
enormous amount of work (much of which he volunteered)
and Monday, March 16, he unveiled Vernonia Map, a web-
based GIS that is open to the public. I highly recommend
having a look, and be sure to stay posted. This is a young
project and more information will continue to be added.
The other day a friend asked me, “What is so great
about this GIS I have been hearing about?” I, of course, re-
sponded sarcastically, “What isn’t so great about this GIS?”
And expected the conversation to be over. Seth
1, friend 0. However, it appears that she wasn’t
satisfied with this response, so we began to talk
about some of the basic functions, history and
uses for Geographic Information Systems.
GIS is most commonly thought of as a
computer-based mapping program. As the name
Geographic Information System implies, it is a
system to store geographic information. The in-
formation is stored and organized by attaching
the data or attributes to points, lines and polygons which can
then be viewed using mapping software, usually ARCmap.
Still with me? Let’s use an amusement park as an example
of how points, lines and polygons work. At an amusement
park, there are a number of vendors and we’ll make each
vendor a point. Now that the point is established, we can
add an infinite amount of information to that point; for ex-
ample, the name, what they sell, how much items cost, what
the profit is per item, customers per day, hours of operation,
who is working, their wage, etc. Alright, we have our points,
let’s make some lines. The lines for our example will be the
paths that people walk on. Again, all sorts of information
can be added: how many people take each route a day, how
wide the path is, the path condition, is it open to the public,
etc. Finally, we need a polygon. The park property is going
to be our polygon and I’ll call the park, Seth’s Wacky Wis-
consin World or as people in the know call it, SW3.
At this point, you are probably thinking, “OK, all you
did was make a map, not impressed!” But here is the kick-
er-- we didn’t actually make a map, we made a database. We
have compiled all our information and organized it, using
points, lines and polygons. Then, to make that information
more presentable, we can project it in map form.
What’s really great is, our map has several advantages
over a typical map. For one, all of the information about each
site is located in one database, using one program that mul-
tiple users can access and update. Secondly,
unlike an Excel database or other type of da-
tabase, GIS allows us to map the information,
which makes it easier to understand and pres-
ent. But, it’s the ability as a user to manipulate,
view and organize all of the information that
really makes ARC software amazing. For ex-
ample, say the manager at SW3 wants to close
an under-performing food cart. ,Using GIS, he
can run a quick
query that compares hours of
operation, profit per food item,
employee pay rate, number of
people that go to the cart, etc.
He can find his least profit-
able cart and close it. How-
ever, it may not be that simple.
The manger could run another
query that takes into account
what items are being sold, how
much traffic goes by the cart,
the cart’s proximity to other
carts and other carts that sell
similar items. Maybe there is
I, of course,
responded
sarcastically,
“What isn’t so
great about
this GIS?”
a lot of traffic by the cart, but the problem is that it is too close
to another cart that sells similar products. He may just go from
Pizza to Tacos and, boom, back in business!
Imagine the efficiency when all of the City’s informa-
tion is linked into one database: fire, police, building, plan-
ning, transportation, environmental information, etc. What’s
really amazing is when one entity updates a piece of infor-
mation, everybody is updated. Even in small communities,
GIS systems can save significant amounts of money.
Finally, in the next month or so, we would like to start
hosting a monthly GIS meeting that will give updates, infor-
mation and work on volunteer projects. Also, be sure to look
out for Ben’s new article about GIS that is premiering in this
month’s publication of the Vernonia Voice. So, as you can see,
the question really is, “What’s not so great about this GIS?”
Till next time, you don’t have to be coy, Roy, just listen to me.
You can reach Seth Lenaerts at the Vernonia City Hall or
email him at Seth@vernonia-or.us. The new city GIS web-
site is http://www.klssurveying.com/vernonia/maps.html.
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