At the Appropriations Hearing on February 23, 1999, the issue of cost recovery of Digital Elevation Models and the Digital Orthophoto Quadrangles was brought up. Below is the response provided by NRC to the Appropriations Committee.

Also, the Data Bank Technical Advisory Committee is charged to look into various options to determine the simplest and most cost effective way to recover cost and collect fees from data users when applicable.

This statewide project was completed in slightly over three years and was carried out through a workshare agreement with the United States Geological Survey Mapping Division. The workshare arrangement was 50-50. The USGS estimated the product cost for the statewide effort to be approximately $5.0 M. However, the NRC staff devised several new techniques and automated procedures, and the NRC's estimated share turned out to be $1.1M for the project. This project was carried out in conjunction with our planning and review process as well as our Natural Resources Data Bank program. Our longstanding policy and philosophy in the Data Bank program has been to provide easy and open access to natural resources data bank records to all interested parties. Generally, the information is provided free of charge over the Internet and we only charge for out of pocket costs if we are requested to reformat the information for a particular need. Information about our charges was provided to the Legislature's Executive Committee as requested several years ago. At that time there was some concern about the charges being made for information available by other agencies that were higher for electronic inquiries than those approved by the Legislature for a paper file. In the case of Department of Motor Vehicles and the Library Commission, the Library Commission has an agreement with a private vendor to provide Department of Motor Vehicles driver licenses information. The charges for electronic inquiries were a dollar higher than those approved by the Legislature for a paper file.

There was a question at the hearing related to cost-recovery charges. Therefore, we checked with the USGS to provide their latest price schedule to get an idea of such charges. Their charges for Digital Elevation Model are $1.00 per quadrangle with a $45.00 base charge for media costs and handling (any number) in addition to the shipping costs. For the Digital Orthophoto Quadrangles, the charges are $7.50 per quarter quadrangle with similar ($45) base charges and shipping costs.

Our long term goal is to provide the state's available natural resources data electronically at minimal cost as much as possible to allow customers to process the data in a format that will meet their needs. We will look into various options to determine the simplest and most cost effective way to collect fees from data users when necessary. We will also ask the Data Bank Technical Advisory Committee to assist us in developing these options.

One additional thing - a brief review of the history of the Natural Resources Data Bank program enacted by the Legislature in 1969. The legislation can be found in RRS Sec. 2-1568 to Sec. 2-1570. The legislation "authorized the Commission to establish, maintain and administer a data bank in the field of soil and water resources in the State of Nebraska." The law further directs, "The resources of the data bank shall be made available to all interested agencies and persons."

When the Data Bank was created, it was difficult to envision what a "computer" revolution would do to the system by which the natural resources data would be handled, stored and disseminated. In the past several years, mapping in a digital format is playing an ever-increasing role as layers of information are overlaid with a geographical information system, and are displayed over the Internet interactively.

In recent months, we have seen a monumental increase in the number of accesses to our website. (Accesses - viewing information through the web pages.) Just from May 98 to January 99, the monthly "access" count on our primary web server has almost tripled from 13,795 to 37,615. Of these counts, almost 86% of accesses came from outside users and 14% from the NRC staff. We, therefore, find this Internet mode to be a very effective way to disseminate natural resources data to the public and other interested agencies.

In summary, there has been a great change in the way data was provided 30 years ago and today. At that time our staff had to manually process each data request which was a very time consuming process. Now, the data is available 7 days a week, 24 hours a day on a worldwide basis.

1. Data Retrieval through Internet

No costs are charged for data information or coverages downloaded from NRC's Website over the Internet, except for special data requests processed in the Data Bank.

2. Cost Recovery - Digital Databases

Following are the proposed charges:

DEMs $1/coverage

DOQs $5/coverage

Material Cost: CD Blanks $2/CD

Shipping charges: As applicable

No handling costs

DEMs $1/coverage

DOQs $35/14 coverages for pre-defined regions

Material Cost: CD Blanks $2/CD

Shipping charges: As applicable

No handling costs

Option II As charged by USGS - National Mapping Division

DEMs $1/coverage

DOQs $7.50/coverage

DEMs $0.50/coverage

DOQs $2.50/coverage

Minimum Order $2500

USGS Base Charge $45/Order

USGS FTP Charge $30/Order

USGS Shipping Costs: As Applicable

Arc/Export, Shape Files $5/file

Other Formats $10/file

Bulk Rate (20 files or more of same database)

Arc/Export, Shape Files $3/file

Other Formats $6/file

Material Cost: CD Blanks $2 each

Diskettes $0.50 each

Shipping charges: As applicable

No handling costs