Organizing Meeting(s)
Meetings in Subregions
Following the strategy outlined in A Strawman Proposal for Getting Started, we've taken the liberty to self-organize meetings for stakeholders in Nevada and Utah, respectively. The Nevada meeting was held May 18, 2000, in conjunction with a meeting of the Nevada Seismic Safety Council. The Utah meeting will be held July 7, 2000, in conjunction with a meeting of the Utah Seismic Safety Commission.
We encourage any and all of you to self-organize similar meetings or informal interactions within your own state and/or with partners in neighboring states, either in advance of or after a coordination meeting for the whole Intermountain West.
Organizing Meeting for Intermountain West Region
An organizing meeting for the whole Intermountain West is obviously needed, but it poses some daunting logistic challenges. No special meeting funds are available to support travel costs for participants.
Participants ideally should include not only network operators but emergency managers, engineers, and other stakeholders from each of the nine states. To be realistic, we're initially focusing on the network operators in the Intermountain West region, hoping to get as many together as possible and relying on them in turn to organize others in their own state and/or subregion.
Where and When?
We offer to host a one-and-a-half-day workshop in Salt Lake City sometime between June 19 and 27, 2000--with final dates to be chosen after we review responses to a questionnaire being distributed through the CNSS listserver. (We're prepared to make a special plea to the USGS to help cover at least the cost of airfare for hardship cases.) In part, we're attempting to meet in advance of the next meeting of the Interim ANSS National Committee in mid-July.
Again, we recognize that, at the present time, the full implications of how we self-organize are not yet clear, and thus some individuals or groups may be attending our June meeting to explore the implications of joining an Intermountain West ANSS Region without committing themselves to that organizational structure.
Both of us (Walter Arabasz and John Anderson) will coincidentally be attending, as observers, an organizational meeting for a Pacific Northwest ANSS region in Seattle, June 15-16, 2000. This raises an opportunity for discussion with any of you who may also be at that meeting. We're also planning to organize a broader meeting of Western U.S. stakeholders (notably emergency managers and state geologists) in conjunction with the WSSPC annual meeting in Seattle, September 17-22, 2000.
Goals of June Workshop
What we have to accomplish stems directly from "marching orders" explicit in the ANSS national management plan:
"Once a region defines its geographic boundaries, identifies participants, and develops a regional implementation plan, this plan will be submitted to the National Implementation Committee for endorsement."
(See <http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/eqhaz/anss/ANSScurrent.html>
under the heading, "ANSS Management and Implementation.")
We don't have to come up with a final implementation plan at the June workshop, but it's desirable to shape as much of the plan as possible to signal our intentions to the Interim ANSS National Committee, who will meet in July. With this in mind, our workshop goals are:
PostscriptConsensus on proposed geographic boundaries for an Intermountain West region
Discussion of A Strawman Proposal for Getting Started and consensus on the issue of subregions within the Intermountain West
Guidelines for creating one overarching ANSS "Regional Subcommittee" for the Intermountain West region and, if desirable, steering committees for its subregions
Initial planning for (1) coordination of seismic monitoring in the Intermountain West under the ANSS and (2) ways to achieve the desired creation and delivery of the key information products and services outlined earlier in A Strawman Proposal for Getting Started
A template for action so that workshop participants can organize other stakeholders in their respective states and/or subregions
If you haven't received a companion e-mail notice from the CNSS listserver regarding an Intermountain West organizing meeting in Salt Lake City, contact one of us for more information. Thank you.
Walter J. Arabasz John G. Anderson University of Utah University of Nevada, Reno Phone: 801-581-7410 Phone: 775-784-4265 Return to Home Page