Public Land Survey System (PLSS) and Ownership Spatial Data Standard
United States Department of the Interior
BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT
Oregon State Office
P.O. Box 2965
Portland, Oregon 97208
blm.gov/or
MAY 15 2014
IN REPLY REFER TO:
1283/1601 (OR-936/OR-955) P
EMS TRANSMISSION 05/19/2014
Information Bulletin No. OR-2014-051
To: DMs, DSDs, Staff and Branch Chiefs
From: Chief, Branch of Information Resources Management
Subject: Public Land Survey System (PLSS) and Ownership Spatial Data Standard
This Information Bulletin (IB) announces the new Oregon/Washington spatial data standard for the PLSS, surface jurisdiction and subsurface rights. The PLSS comprises Township and Range, Sections and smaller aliquot parcels. Surface jurisdiction (otherwise known as surface managing agency or surface status) and subsurface rights (otherwise known as mineral estate) comprise ownership, predominantly from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) perspective, but including other owners as well. The data standard defines how this type of data is to be captured in a Geographic Information System (GIS) geodatabase, defines attributes used, and defines coding schemes (domains). An earlier IB (OR-2014-031) provided a draft of the data standard and draft geodatabase for a statewide review period.
A summary of comments received and resolution follows:
Comment Reference |
Comment |
Resolution |
Entire Standard |
Retain legacy names for Land_Lines dataset and OWNERSHIP_POLY, SUBSURFACE_RIGHTS_POLY |
Done |
Add feature class |
Add a quarter reference/reference grid feature class for locating all existing, historical or potential tabular legal descriptions |
Added PLSSReferenceGrid |
Add description of PLSSArcs |
Add description of PLSSArcs to the data standard |
Done |
Entire Standard |
Various spelling, capitalization, grammatical, language and domain value errors need fixing |
Done |
To see the full data standard, go to: BLM_OR_Ownership_Spatial_Data_Standard.pdf
The data is now located in the OR/WA statewide corporate spatial database and available for transactional editing.
The State Data Stewards for this dataset are Travis Thomas, at 503-808-6177, for the PLSS and Frank Lahm, at 503-808-6428, for ownership. Frank Lahm is also the GIS Technical Lead for the data standard. Questions about the data standard or data can be directed to them or to Pamela Keller, at pkeller @ blm.gov.
Districts with Unions are reminded to notify their unions of this information bulletin and satisfy any bargaining obligations before implementation. Your servicing Human Resources Office or Labor Relations Specialist can provide you with assistance in this matter.
Signed by David Haney Chief, Branch of Information Resources Management |
Authenticated by Rhondalyn J. Darnell Records Section |
Distribution:
OC-130 (Chatfield)
WO-570 (Hawkinson)