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If while driving around the Reservation
you come across some guy standing in the middle of the road staring
back at you with green sunglasses wearing an orange vest (and during
deer season a bright pink jacket) and holding a lime green light
saber or a yellow backpack with a yellow pole and white antenna, you
have just come across Earth Rover. Ok, maybe not. What you have come
across is the GIS specialist, Tim Krohn, for the reservation
collecting GPS data for government corners. Oh by the way, GIS means
Geographic Information System or in laymen’s terms computerized map
making and GPS means Global Positioning System. The equipment Tim is
using is a metal detector for finding iron pins, pipes, or rods in
the road or in the ground when off in the boonies. The GPS he uses
is accurate to under 3 feet and when he massages the data in his
office, the GPS data is accurate to about 1 foot.
The importance of collecting data
accurate to this scale is to create accurate map layers for
government corners, section lines, and property lines. Though this
data is not of survey quality, it is good enough for many uses such
as planning where to put new homes on the reservation. Many people
are moving back to the reservation creating a demand for new homes.
Currently, there is not a comprehensive map showing the location of
existing leases and accurate land ownership. Tim’s major project is
to develop this comprehensive map accurate to about 1 foot for all
landowners and leasees on the reservation. This means working with
BIA, Carlton Co., and St. Louis Co, to get legal descriptions for
all the parcels within the reservation boundaries. Once obtained,
the legals need to be drawn following survey procedures. There are
times when parcels overlap or the legal descriptions are poorly
written. These problems make the work interesting in how to fix
them.
Wetlands also affect where homes can
be sited. The GIS has a data layer of wetlands that is used with the
ownership layer to show the housing planners where new property
leases and homes can be appropriately sited. We can quickly
eliminate the wet areas that will cause flooded basements and failed
septic systems.
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