Tag Archives: Western New York

D.I.Y MS4: Erie County

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The County’s Homegrown Application Provides Mapping and Data Collection Support to the Multi-Agency Western New York Stormwater Coalition

While the  Municipal Stormwater Sewer System (MS4) regulatory program may be taking a back seat in focus to COVID-19 across Empire State governments in 2020, compliance efforts nonetheless continue in the background.  The DEC program has seen governments responding to meet annual submission requirements in a variety of ways ranging from full vendor supported solutions, hybrid approaches of using in-house resources and commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) products, while others have built the solution totally in-house.  Aka Do-it-Yourself (DIY).

One such MS4 DIY organization is Erie County which provides administrative and technical support to the Western New York Stormwater Coalition (WNYSC) which has a broad geographic footprint.  Erie County took the stormwater management regional lead in western New York in 1999 when it became apparent both Erie and Niagara Counties would be required to come in compliance with the United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) Phase II Stormwater requirements. Recognizing much of the MS4 General Permit was general in context of most permit requirements being the same for all governments, the Coalition was created in 2003 as a means to share work such as public education and outreach, development of policies and procedures, employee training – and mapping.  While the Coalition is not an official Erie County government agency, it is housed administratively inside County offices.

Erie County MS4 Support 

Initial development of the program started in 2012 by the current Director of Erie County’s Office of GIS, Lisa Matthies-Wiza, who was part of a team that designed databases, field applications, and quality assurance plans to manage data collection.  This was facilitated through a series of grants through NYSDEC and partnerships with Erie County and Buffalo State College provided to the Coalition.

More recently, support to the Coalition’s MS4 compliance efforts has been Michael Ruffino who came to the County in March of 2019.  Prior to Erie County, he had experience in the use of ArcGIS Online (AGOL) Survey123 and Collector in Chautauqua County where he was able to incorporate similar apps for the environmental health department septic systems and water supply inspections.  Currently Erie County hosts all of the GIS data and hardware/software infrastructure for the entire WNYSC program.

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Geospatial Business Spotlight: EagleHawk One, Inc.

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Company Name:                EagleHawk One, Inc

Website:                             www.eaglehawkone.com

Established:                       2016

Employees:                       6 + Nationwide network of certified drone pilots

EagleHawk was founded in 2016 by Willard Schulmeister and Patrick Walsh in Buffalo, NY, and has grown to be one of the most successful drone data and services operations in New York State today. Together they bring years of technological and business expertise to the fast moving startup company. Willard has a Master’s degree in Geographic Data Science and Geography from the University at Buffalo and Patrick holds a Master’s degrees in Aerospace Mechanical Engineering from the Rochester Institute of Technology as well as an MBA from Rollins College. Both are licensed sUAS (drone) pilots with the Federal Aviation Administration. EagleHawk has recently added Jonathan Byrd to its executive team. Jon holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and has over 15 years of experience in strategy, finance, engineering, and operations, and has held leadership roles in a variety of companies and industries. EagleHawk’s professional staff includes engineers, pilots, data scientists and industry experts located at their offices in Buffalo, Syracuse, Charlotte and Orlando, as well as other remote locations in the U.S.

EagleHawk has built a solid reputation within the drone community and has completed work for over 100 customers to date, many of which are repeat clients. EagleHawk is a Launch NY portfolio company and an Esri Emerging Business Partner. They are active in the NYS GIS Association and in both the central and western NYS GIS  communities. EagleHawk recently won $500,000 prize in GENIUSNY, the world’s largest business accelerator program for drone systems and technology based in Syracuse, NY.

Geospatial Products and Services

EagleHawk provides a portfolio of specialized services, but they are most often sought out by corporations, universities, and developers for their expertise in campus-wide aerial infrared roof inspections. To date, EagleHawk has inspected over 800 buildings and has found that nearly 80% of those roofs show signs of leaking.

The company has established a routine inspection program that empowers clients with a means to proactively manage and extend the average lifespan of their roofs, enabling a logical and fiscally responsible approach to capital planning and budgeting for roof maintenance. EagleHawk is currently developing a GIS-based asset management software solution that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to derive meaningful insights from the data they collect.

EagleHawk specializes in the following areas:

  • Geographic Data Collection and Map/Data Processing
  • University and Corporate Campus Physical Inspections
  • Aerial Infrared Roof and Building Analysis
  • Utility and Infrastructure Inspections
  • Sensor Integration with UAV’s

A more detailed listing of EagleHawk’s services can be found at: www.eaglehawkllc.com/droneservices

University and Corporate Campus Mapping & Inspections

EagleHawk has conducted several large inspections for universities and corporate campuses throughout the Eastern United States.  For these projects, the campuses are carefully mapped in order to generate useful information for the inspection, such as building dimensional information, or roof elevation profiles.  EagleHawk conducts both façade and roof inspections  using advanced thermal imagers to detect issues not visible to the naked eye. EagleHawk certified data analysts conduct a building-by-building evaluation and generate meaningful insights from the data collection.

This image, from a SUNY campus, identifies wet and areas of concern within the building roof insulation invisible to the naked eye.  These areas are within the georeferenced “red rectangles” in the upper right image.

Pre-Construction Site Analysis

For this project EagleHawk collected approximately 550 acres of map data and imagery over a rural area in upstate New York for a client. Elevation data was needed for a pre-construction site analysis in order to determine if the area was viable for development.  EagleHawk generated an orthomosaic map, elevation contours and a massive 3D point cloud which allowed for critical decision making regarding plans at the site. This project was a great example of the benefits of drones in capturing geographic data for a large site effectively and efficiently.

For this upstate project, EagleHawk used two drones with 20MP cameras to collect imagery in one field day.  Imagery captured was processed to generate orthomosaic and topographic data delivered in common GIS & CAD formats. Clients receive the data as well as access to an interactive GIS with the data.

Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper

EagleHawk has worked with Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper on more than a dozen different project sites throughout western New York including the Buffalo River, the Niagara River, Ellicott Creek and at Tifft Nature Preserve. EagleHawk collects aerial imagery and maps project sites to document change and also generates useful geographic data to aid in shoreline enhancements and restoration efforts.

The Buffalo River is one of eight habitat restoration projects in the Buffalo area that EagleHawk  is collecting imagery on.

Contact:

Patrick Walsh CEO – pwalsh@eaglehawkllc.com
Willard Schulmeister COO – wschulmeister@eaglehawkllc.com
Jonathan Byrd CFO – jbyrd@eaglehawkllc.com

EagleHawk One, Inc –  844-4-UAS-DATA  |   716-810-1042  | info@eaglehawkllc.com
FAA Certified Commercial Drone Operations

Orbitist: Storytelling on the Western Front

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It’s always refreshing discovering new startups and firms mixing geospatial concepts with other technology and media platforms.  Not necessarily true geospatial firms which we’ve come to label as such, but clearly operating on the fringe and providing selected products and services mainstream geospatial consultants market and provide.  One such relatively new firm is Orbitist based out of Fredonia, New York.

Orbitist is led by Nick Gunner who has been filming and directing video productions since 2007 when he began pursuing his Bachelor of Science Degree in TV/Digital Film, Audio/Radio production, and Earth Science at the State University of New York at Fredonia. During that time, Nick started building content management systems and digital mapping technology which he continued while serving four years as the university’s New Media Manager.   On the side, he continued to pursue freelance work as a public radio producer, freelance documentary filmmaker, and web developer. In the Summer of 2015, Nick launched Orbitist LLC as part of the Fredonia Technology Incubator with the idea of using digital storytelling and technology to make important information as accessible as possible.

Initial Work

The Roger Tory Peterson Institute (RTPI) of Natural History was Orbitist’s first client.   In the Summer of 2015 they commissioned a short documentary on the Chadakoin River in Jamestown, as well as map three tours about various natural history topics.  Representative examples of RTPI products can be viewed on YouTube and the bottom three links on this Orbitist web page.  During this same time period – and ongoing today – Orbitist also performed work for the Chautauqua County Visitors Bureau.

Other recent products and services include:

A Story Map documenting the Winter 1929 Tewksbury boat and bridge crash on the Buffalo River resulting in the flooding of a 18 neighborhood blocks in South Buffalo.

This Story Map uses a variety of multimedia which pinpoints cultural and historical features from different Spanish-speaking countries, including architectural feats, traditional dances, and tipping customs, among others. Each map utilizes Spanish phrases with English translations to bridge the gap between languages.

Software Suite

Relying on the experience he gained building systems for the last 10 years, software products used at Orbitist reflects Nick’s commitment to combining content management with interactive mapping – much of which is accomplished by integrating and combining leading Open Source components.   Currently the Orbitist mapping platform is a simple content management system which associates posts (internally called “points”) with latitude/longitude values.  The Orbitist team often uses Mapbox GL as a primary front-end mapping library but behind that everything in their system is API-driven, meaning story maps are created top of products such as Leaflet and Google Maps.  They also use Carto as a stand-alone product for building real-time analytics maps.  All combined, the Orbitist “system” also manages images and a variety of data (icon type, time of day, external links, etc.) and provides access to YouTube, Vimeo, and even Facebook for video hosting. GitHub is leveraged to host static web projects. Continue reading →