** 1 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA CASE NO. 88-1886-CIV-HOEVELER UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, et al., ) ) Plaintiffs, ) ) VS. ) ) SOUTH FLORIDA WATER MANAGEMENT ) DISTRICT; JOHN R. WODRASKA, ) EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SOUTH FLORIDA ) WATER MANAGEMENT DISTRICT; ) FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL ) REGULATION; AND DALE TWACHTMANN, ) SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF ) ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION, et. al., ) ) Defendants. ) / DEPOSITION OF DAVID W. BLACK TAKEN ON BEHALF OF THE PLAINTIFF *** DATE: August 28, 1990 PROFESSIONAL REPORTING SERVICE Commerce Center 324 Datura Street, Suite 303 West Palm Beach, Florida 33401 (407) 659-4046 ** 2 INDEX August 28, 1990 DIRECT CROSS REDIRECT RECROSS DAVID W. BLACK By Ms. Beverly Nash 5 By Mr. Joe Richards 24 ** 3 The deposition of David W. Black, in the above-entitled and numbered cause, was taken before me, KAREN BAUER FRY, C.S.R., Court Reporter and Notary Public for the State of Florida at Large, at Professional Reporting Service, Commerce Center, 324 Datura Street, in the City of West Palm Beach, Palm Beach County, in the State of Florida, beginning at the hour of 3:30 o'clock p.m., on August 28, 1990, pursuant to the Notice in said cause for the taking of said deposition, which is annexed to the Court file herein, on behalf of the Plaintiff in the above-entitled action pending in the above-named court. The appearances at said time and place were as follows: Beverly Sherman Nash, Esquire U.S. Department of Justice Environmental and Natural Resources Division P. O. Box 663 Washington, D.C. 20044-0663 Attorney for Plaintiff Joseph Richards, Esquire Peeples, Earl & Blank, P.A. Two South Biscayne Blvd. One Biscayne Tower, Suite 3636 Miami, Florida 33131 Attorney for Cities of Belle Glade and Clewiston ** 4 Katharine Stollman, Esquire Allison Burdette Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher, & Flom 1440 New York Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20005 Attorney for South Florida Water Management District Jackie Waters, Esquire So. Florida Water Management District Box 24680 3301 Gun Club Road West Palm Beach, FL 33416 ALSO PRESENT: Toni Lafuente Mike Rose David Buker Ray Roberts ** 5 THEREUPON, DAVID W. BLACK being by me first duly sworn to tell the whole truth, as hereinafter certified, testified as follows: DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MS. NASH: Q. Mr. Black, I'm counsel for the United States in this litigation. We're here taking these depositions to understand the Water Management District's computer systems, and how they're used, what data is on it, and how that data is formatted. You have been selected as a representative of the Water Management District having knowledge of one or more of the categories of inquiry that we are interested in. Have you been shown that list of categories? A. Yes. Q. And are you aware of which categories you're able to respond to? A. If I might look at a list, I could read them off to you. Let's see. No. 4, No. 5 and No. ** 6 9. Q. What is your present title or position? A. Supervising professional environmentalist. Q. In what department or division? A. The environmental planning division of the planning department. Q. And what are your job responsibilities? A. Let's see. I supervise six employees and I manage -- well, one contract, and generally help people solve certain problems having to do with the GIS. Q. How long have you been a supervising professional environmentalist? A. About one year. Q. Have you had other positions at the Water Management District? A. Yes. Q. And what positions were those? A. Prior to my present position, I was a senior environmentalist. And prior to that, a research environmentalist. Q. And how long were you a senior environmentalist? A. Perhaps six months. Q. In what division? ** 7 A. In the water quality division of the resource planning department. Q. What were your job responsibilities as senior environmentalist? A. I managed two contracts. Q. What were those contracts? A. Well, one of them involved a study of an orange grove in Hendry County. The other a -- was a study of the effects of orange groves, citrus development on wildlife habitat. Q. How long were you a research environmentalist? A. A year and a half approximately. Q. In what division or department? A. In that same water quality division of the resource planning department. Q. What were your responsibilities as a research environmentalist? A. Essentially the same as my responsibilities as a senior environmentalist. Q. And what is your educational background? A. Let's see. I have a BA degree with a major in biology from Reed College in Portland, Oregon. I have a Ph.D. in biology from the University of Miami. I have taken course work at ** 8 Florida Atlantic University in computers and engineering. Q. Who is your supervisor in the environment planning division? A. Tony Federico is my supervisor. Q. And you indicated that there are six employees that work for you? A. Right. Q. What are their names and job descriptions? A. Louise Boss, who is a -- her actual title is environmentalist, Dan Haunert, who is a senior environmentalist, Herbert Grimshaw, who is a research environmentalist, Lorraine Janus, who is a senior environmentalist, Les Vilchek, who is a research environmentalist, and Patty Sime, who is a technician. Q. What computers are utilized in the environment planning division? A. I use an IBM AT and a SUN 4386. Q. What software packages do you utilize on the IBM AT? A. Word Perfect and Symphony. Q. What type of work do you do on the IBM AT? A. Mostly word processing. Q. And what software packages do you utilize ** 9 on the SUN 4386? A. ARC/INFO. Q. Any others? A. No. Q. What work do you do on the SUN? A. I'm training Les Vilchek and Patty Sime in using ARC/INFO to update wetland maps. Q. Are these wetland maps you refer to on the computer? A. Yes. Q. What computer are they on? A. Most of them are on a DEC computer, which is accessed through the SUN. The remainder are on the SUN itself. Q. What are the locations of the wetland maps on the SUN? A. Well, they're located on the hard drive now. Q. What locations do the maps cover? A. Oh, what part of Florida? Q. Okay. A. All right. Mostly the western part of the Water Management District, but including parts of the Everglades systems. Q. And what are the geographic locations on ** 10 the wetland maps on the DEC? A. The same areas. Q. Are there wetland maps covering Everglades National Park? A. No. Q. Are there wetland maps on either the DEC or the SUN covering the Water Conservation Areas? A. I'm not certain. Q. Are there wetland maps on either the DEC or the SUN covering the Everglades Agricultural Areas? A. Yes. Q. Do you know on which computer? A. No. Q. Do you know who produced the wetland maps we've been discussing? A. Yes. Q. Who is that? A. The Federal Government, the national wetlands inventory. Q. Do you know which counties the wetlands map cover? MS. STOLLMAN: I don't want you to speculate, if you don't know. A. Well, there are some in Collier and Hendry ** 11 and Broward County, I believe, but there very well may be others that I'm not certain of. Q. (By Ms. Nash) Is there any listing of the wetlands maps? A. Yes. Q. Where is that listing? A. On the wall of Les Vilchek's office. Q. You indicated that you're training Les and Patty to update the wetland maps? A. Yes. Q. What is the data that's being utilized to update the wetland maps? A. Spot satellite imagery. Q. And what geographic locations are covered by the spot satellite imagery? A. I'm not certain. Q. Who would know? A. Brent Moll. Q. Is there any order to the wetlands maps being updated? A. I don't understand. Q. Is there any prioritization being done to which maps or being updated? A. Yes. Q. What is that prioritization? ** 12 A. The western part of the district is being done first. Q. What features on the wetlands maps are being updated? A. The actual locations of wetlands and uplands. Q. Are there any other perimeters or features being taken from the spot satellite imagery to update the wetlands maps? A. Locations of new roads. Q. Any other features? A. No. Q. Is any actual verification or ground truthing being done? A. Yes. Q. And who is doing that? A. Les Vilchek and Patty Sime. Q. Is there other geographic information that you're aware of stored on the Water Management District's computers besides the wetland maps mentioned? A. Yes. Q. What geographic information is that? A. There's land use, land covered data. Q. Any other? ** 13 A. Not that I'm directly certain of. Q. Where is this land use, land cover data stored? MS. STOLLMAN: In what computer system. A. I do not know. Q. (By Ms. Nash) Who would know? A. Bob Brown. Q. Do other divisions within the Water Management District have access to the wetland map data you have been referring to? A. Yes. Q. What divisions would those be? A. The Water Supply Planning Division, that Sharon Trost is the director of, that is all. Q. Are there other entities outside the Water Management District that have access to the wetland map data? A. Not that I'm aware of. Q. Do you know whether the updating of the wetlands maps is part of the data base development for GIS? A. Yes, it is. Q. Do you know when the GIS data base will be operational? ** 14 A. No. Q. Are you aware of what data exists in the Water Management District's digital image processing system? A. No. Q. What data is going into the geographical information system? A. There is a list, and I can remember a few things off of that list. Q. Whatever you can remember. A. Property owned by the district, locations of sampling stations for water quality or other kinds of samples, the USGS digital line graph data for the region. This shows location of hydrographic features, the roads and trails, the land use, land cover data, the wetland -- wet data that we had mentioned previously. I am certain that I have forgotten a number of other kinds of data. Q. Does that list you mentioned have a name? A. I don't remember whether it has a name. Q. Where is this list located? A. Bob Brown certainly has a copy. Q. Are there analyses that have been done on the data in the geographical information system? ** 15 MS. STOLLMAN: Do you need some clarification? THE WITNESS: Yeah. Perhaps in the sense that we don't have a full geographic information system yet -- and no, but some -- some analysis has been done of geographic data on the computer. Q. (By Ms. Nash) Have any of the analyses that have been done relate to the Water Conservation Areas? A. Not that I am aware of. Q. Have any of the analyses that have been done relate to the Everglades Agricultural Area? A. Again, not that I am aware of. Q. Have any of the analyses that have been done relate to Everglades National Park? A. Not that I am aware of. Q. Who has performed the analyses? MS. STOLLMAN: Which analyses are you referring to? MS. NASH: He said there were some analyses that had been done using the data in GIS system. He was not aware of what they relate to, and so I'm trying to find out who's performed them. A. Patty Sime has recently performed an ** 16 analysis. Q. (By Ms. Nash) On what geographic location or locations? A. The lands that are part of the Miccosukee Indian Reservation. Q. Do you know whether it's a part of the reservation along the Tamiami Trail? A. No, it is not. Q. Do you know whether the wetlands maps you were referring to earlier have been utilized to detect vegetation changes? MS. STOLLMAN: I object to that question. I don't think that's relevant here. MS. NASH: I'm trying to find out what data is on the computer. MS. STOLLMAN: Well, you've identified the maps that are on the computer and what they contained. What they're used for is not relevant to what exists. MS. NASH: The maps are not, but the data files that are on the computer -- I'm trying to find out what data files are on the computer. MS. STOLLMAN: Well, I don't think the question -- MS. NASH: If data files have been ** 17 generated as a result of doing analyses of the maps, I'm entitled to know that. MS. STOLLMAN: I will permit the witness to answer questions with respect to whether data files have been created. MS. NASH: Question 5 goes directly to what data analyses exist, and he says he is responsive to Question 5. MS. STOLLMAN: I understand that. MS. NASH: I'm trying to find out whether there are any data analyses that exist that have utilized the wetlands maps and detect vegetation changes, and I am entitled to that information. MS. STOLLMAN: I have just stated that I will permit the witness to answer questions with respect to whether data files have been created using the wetlands maps and vegetation, if you know. A. No. Not that I'm aware of. Q. (By Ms. Nash) Is your answer that no analyses have been done to detect vegetation changes or that there are no data files that exist with those analyses? MS. STOLLMAN: What is your -- could ** 18 we have the question read back and then you can answer the question. THE WITNESS: Please, if you would repeat the question. (WHEREUPON, the requested testimony was read back by the court reporter.) MS. STOLLMAN: You may answer that question with respect to data files on the computer system. Q. (By Ms. Nash) My question is: Whether there are data analyses, whether the actual analyses, are presently in a file on a computer or not? MS. STOLLMAN: All right. You may answer that question then. A. No. There are no analyses that I'm aware of on the computer system, on that particular topic. Q. (By Ms. Nash) Do you know which part of the Miccosukee Reservation Patty Sime did her analysis? A. Yes. Q. What part? ** 19 A. I mean, I know it in the sense that I could show you on a map. It is the part that's being proposed to have some development. The Alligator Alley passes through it -- and passes through it, passes over the top of it perhaps. It would be safest if I could show you on a map, but the L28 -- part of the L28 canal forms a boundary of this region. MR. RICHARDS: Can I have the question back, please, that he's responding to? (WHEREUPON, the requested testimony was read back by the court reporter.) MS. STOLLMAN: Why don't we identify what it is that the witness is looking at here. THE WITNESS: It's a map of the South Florida Water Management District. Patty Sime analyzed this area. MS. STOLLMAN: And this is an analysis that she performed on the computer system? THE WITNESS: She did, yes. MS. STOLLMAN: And does that area that you've pointed to have a name? THE WITNESS: Not that I know of. ** 20 THE WITNESS: What are the coordinates on the map where it's located? THE WITNESS: It looks like N11. Q. (By Ms. Nash) Now, Mr. Black, you indicated that you're also responsive to No. 9. What satellite imagery are you aware of that the Water Management District has covering the Water Conservation Areas? A. I know there is spot imagery in the district that covers the Water Conservation Areas. Q. And what satellite imagery are you aware of covering the Everglades Agricultural Area? A. There is spot imagery that covers that, also. Q. And what satellite imagery are you aware of that covers the Everglades National Park? A. I'm not aware of what satellite imagery covers that area. Q. Do you know the dates on that satellite imagery? A. No. Q. Who would know? A. Brent Moll. Q. Where is that satellite imagery located? A. I'm not certain. ** 21 Q. Who would know? A. Brent Moll. Q. Are you aware of what vegetative mapping the Water Management District has on Water Conservation Areas? A. No, I'm not aware of what vegetation maps we have. Q. Are you aware of any vegetative mapping the district has on Everglades National Park? A. No. Q. Are you aware of what vegetative mapping the district has on the Everglades Agricultural Area? A. No. Q. Do you know who would be familiar with what vegetative mapping the district has? A. Dewey Worth would know more about it than I would. Q. Are you aware of what remote sensing information the Water Management District has? A. Yes, I'm aware of certain remote sensing information. Q. What is that remote sensing information that you're aware of? A. Spot imagery in the western part of the ** 22 district. Also, there's land sat imagery for certain parts of the district that I happen to be personally aware of. Q. What parts of the district are you aware of that have land sat imagery? A. I'm not certain what parts the imagery is of. I didn't mean to indicate that I'm aware that land sat imagery has been purchased. Q. And who would be most knowledgeable about the land sat? A. Brent Moll. Q. Are you aware of any GIS or CADD data files that would show the distribution of nutrient contents in any part of the Water Management District? A. No. Q. Do you know who would know whether such files exist? A. I would ask Tom Fontaine. Q. Are you aware of what list of the satellite imagery that the Water Management District has? A. Yes. Q. Do you know where that list is located? A. In Brent Moll's office. ** 23 Q. Are there any other locations for that list? A. Not that I'm certain of. Q. As the wetlands maps are being updated, are any historical records being kept of the older information? A. The original information is retained. Q. And where is that original information retained? A. On tapes. I don't know where those tapes are. Q. Is there a name by which you could access that information off the tapes? A. I don't understand. Q. If you wanted to request historical information, how would you ask for it? A. I would ask for the national wetland inventory maps. Q. Do you know how far back in time the inventory goes? A. Yes. 1972 in certain areas. MS. NASH: I have no further questions. MS. STOLLMAN: Would you like to take a break before we continue? ** 24 THE WITNESS: Okay. (Short break.) CROSS-EXAMINATION QUESTION BY MR. RICHARDS: Q. Mr. Black, my name is Joe Richards. I represent the cities of Belle Glade and Clewiston. When you were talking about the wetland area maps that covered mostly the western part of the Water Management District, you also mentioned that it covers part of the Everglades system; is that correct? A. Yes. Q. What part of the Everglades system is covered? A. Well, I know that part of the Miccosukee Reservation that Patty Sime worked on is covered, and I do not know how much more of the system is covered. Q. Who would know the answer to that question? A. Les Vilchek. Q. Could you spell his last name for me? ** 25 A. V-i-l-c-h-e-k. Q. And you also mentioned that the wetland map covered the Everglades Agricultural Area. Do you know if that's the entire area or only certain portions? A. Just certain portions. Q. Do you know what portions? A. No. Q. Who would know? A. Les Vilchek. Q. Prior to the update of these maps that you mentioned using the spot imagery, has the Water Management District added any other information to the national wetlands inventory maps? A. No. Q. Do you know whether these maps indicate vegetation types? A. Yes, they do. Q. It indicates vegetation species? A. No. Q. It just delineates between wetland and upland? A. No, it distinguishes a number of categories of wetland. Q. What are those categories? ** 26 A. I do not know all of the categories. Q. Could you list the ones you do know? A. Assiduous, broadly, forested wetland, assiduous, narrowly, forested wetland, evergreen broadly, forested wetland, emergent marsh, et cetera. Q. No particular species are identified? A. No. Q. In what format were these national wetland inventory maps, the original format of the maps, obtained by the district? A. Paper. Q. And the district converted them into computer format? A. The district had them converted. Q. Who converted them? A. GNX Martel. Q. And you mentioned that Mr. Vilchek and Patty Sime performed some ground truthing; is that correct? A. Correct. Q. Do you know the time frame of this ground truthing relative to the date of the maps, or the images rather, that were used? A. I don't entirely understand. ** 27 Q. They performed some ground truthing of the satellite imagery, right? A. They think of it as ground truthing of the wetland maps. Q. And the information that they were performing the ground truthing for, that was from the spot satellite imagery; is that correct? A. The spot imagery and the wetland map cover the same area. They visited the area -- Q. To perform the -- A. -- and then put the information -- associated the information with the map. Q. Was any ground truthing done to verify what was contained in the spot imagery? A. That was not the purpose of the ground truthing. Q. What was the purpose? A. Some were to -- to verify the accuracy of the national wetlands inventory match themselves. Q. When was this ground truthing performed? A. At various times over the past year, I'm aware they have ground truthed. Q. You mentioned that the GIS system will contain the location of water quality and other sampling stations; is that correct? ** 28 A. Yes. Q. Do you know where this sampling station location information is obtained from? A. The data management division of the district keeps most of those records. Q. Do you know who within the data management division? A. I would ask Rob Startzman. Q. Do you know whether the sampling station information that will be inputted into the GIS system is complete? MS. STOLLMAN: You can answer to the extent you know. A. I'm not entirely clear. MS. STOLLMAN: Could you clarify the question, please? Q. (By Mr. Richards) Do you know whether this information that will be put in the GIS system contains this information for all the district's sampling stations? A. I don't know whether some of them have been missed. Q. Who would know? A. I would ask Rob Startzman. Q. Do you know how many sampling stations are ** 29 contained in this information? A. No. Q. You stated that Patty Sime did some GIS work on the Miccosukee Indian Reservation. What was the nature of this work? MS. STOLLMAN: You can answer that to the extent that it's necessary to identify the work that she did on the computer. A. She -- MS. STOLLMAN: In addition, I would add that this has been asked and answered. We discussed this during the course of Beverly Nash's questions. MR. RICHARDS: I don't believe we did. A. She simply analyzed how much of what kind of wetland was proposed by the Indians for, and what kind of development. Q. (By Mr. Richards) Do you know when this analysis was performed? A. Within the last month. Q. Where is this information stored? Do you know in what computer? A. I'm not certain. Q. Where do you think it would be stored? ** 30 MS. STOLLMAN: I don't want you to speculate. Q. (By Mr. Richards) If you have some idea. MS. STOLLMAN: He's answered that he is not certain. THE WITNESS: Well -- MS. STOLLMAN: I don't want you to speculate on where it might be stored. If you don't know, I don't want you to answer the question. Q. (By Mr. Richards) Do you have some idea? A. Well, on the SUN work station that she works on, or on the DEC computer in Brent Moll's office, which was connected to the network. Q. In regard to the land sat imagery you mentioned, do you know what version of land sat photography that is? A. Oh, I'm not sure of what you're asking. MS. STOLLMAN: Could you clarify the question. A. Unless the map or imagery is the answer. MR. RICHARDS: Yes. A. Then, that is the type of imagery. Q. (By Mr. Richards) Do you know whether any analysis has been performed on this land sat ** 31 imagery? A. I'm not aware of any. Q. Are you aware of what alga rhythm will be used to analyze this satellite imagery? A. No. Q. Do you know who would be aware of that? A. Brent Moll maybe would be more likely to know than I. Q. Other than the use of the spot imagery for the national wetlands inventory, are you aware of any other analysis of spot imagery? A. Yes. Q. What is that? A. There was an analysis of change between two different dates, and the spot panchromatic data that was related to lakes, properties, and a possible violation of permitting rules. Q. Who performed this analysis? A. Brent Moll. Q. Are you aware of any other use of the spot or land sat imagery? A. I know that Brent Moll has done some other work with it. Q. Do you know what type of work was done? MS. STOLLMAN: You can answer to the ** 32 extent you can recall. A. I can't remember specific projects. Q. (By Mr. Richards) Are you aware of any projects that you used satellite imagery to show changes in vegetation patterns? A. No. Q. If the district was doing such work, do you know who would be aware of that? A. Brent Moll. Q. Anyone else? A. Or Dewey Worth. Q. Are you aware of the ARC/INFO coverages? A. Yes. Q. Are these ARC/INFO coverages organized by county? A. I'm only aware of certain ARC/INFO coverages. Q. Do you know by what geographic areas these coverages are organized? A. The ARC/INFO system that we have organizes everything within a state plane coordinate system, so that any particular area can be identified by its looming state plane coordinates, and data can be recovered for that area. Q. What coverages are you familiar with? ** 33 A. The national wetland inventory maps that we have out exist as ARC/INFO coverages. The land use, land cover data has been largely or totally converted to ARC/INFO coverages. The roads and trails hydrography maps from the USGS have been converted to ARC/INFO coverages. I am certain that there are others that I'm not directly remembering. Q. Are you aware of how many national wetland inventory maps were converted? A. No. Q. Do you know who would know that? A. Les Vilchek. Q. In regard to the wetland inventory, you said that they were recently updated, do you know how many times they have been updated prior to this last time? A. This is the first time that the district has updated any of these maps. I believe that the Federal Government has updated some of the maps. Q. Are you aware of the loss of any data files by the district? A. No. Q. Are you aware of any quality assurance or quality control guidelines utilized within your division? ** 34 MS. STOLLMAN: Are you asking with respect to the computer systems? MR. RICHARDS: Yes. A. These are under development. Q. (By Mr. Richards) Who is developing them? A. A committee. Q. Do you know who is on the committee? A. Bob Brown is the chairman of the committee, I am a member, Rob Startzman is a member, and there are several other members. Q. Do you know who they are? A. Bill Haight, Brent Moll, and I have forgotten a couple. Q. These guidelines that are being developed, is this specific to the environmental planning division? A. No. Q. What areas of the district are being covered? A. The guidelines are being developed for the geographic information system for the district. Q. When do you expect those guidelines to be completed? A. No date has been set. Q. When do you expect it to be completed? ** 35 MS. STOLLMAN: Asked and answered. MR. RICHARDS: I don't believe so counsel. MS. STOLLMAN: Asked and answered. Could you read the question before the one pending and the response? (WHEREUPON, the requested testimony was read back by the court reporter.) A. I don't know when it will be completed. I hope soon. Q. (By Mr. Richards) The committee hasn't set a time frame for when the guidelines should be completed? MS. STOLLMAN: You've asked this question several times and in several different ways -- MR. RICHARDS: And he hasn't answered it yet. MS. STOLLMAN: -- and he's testified that he doesn't know. A. Well, that's what I was trying to say, that no time has been set by the committee for completing this project. ** 36 Q. (By Mr. Richards) Do you expect to have a published document for these guidelines? A. Yes. Q. Do you know what it will be called? A. No. MR. RICHARDS: I have no further questions. Thank you. (The deposition was concluded at 4:47 o'clock p.m.)