Doing my part to save the bay and surrounding areas in MD

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Frostyone

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
May 21, 2008
1,230
8
0
Baltimore
As some of you well know, I'm a systems engineer for an ADC (Advanced Data Capture) solutions provider.
We specialize in data capture though RFID and barcoding. I just wanted to share with all of you an interesting project
that I've been tasked with at work. I'm heading up a project working with the Coastal Bays Program http://www.mdcoastalbays.org <http://www.mdcoastalbays.org>
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First a little about what the Coastal Bays Program is:
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CBP
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What is the Coastal Bays Program?
Part of the National Estuary Program, the Coastal Bays Program is a partnership among the towns of Ocean City and Berlin, National Park Service, Worcester County, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the Maryland Departments of Natural Resources, Agriculture, Environment, and Planning, which have come together to produce the first ever management plan for the coastal bays.

Established in 1987 under the Clean Water Act, the National Estuary Program was developed to protect economically and environmentally sensitive estuaries across the United States by engaging all user groups.

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The Coastal Bays Program is one of only 28 such programs nationwide.
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The Coastal Bays Program protects the land and waters of Assawoman, Isle of Wight, Sinepuxent, Newport, and Chincoteague bays.

Maryland's coastal bays make up one of the richest, most diverse estuaries on the eastern seaboard. For more than a century, agriculture, forestry, fishing, hunting, and more recently tourism, have sustained ways of life built on the land and water resources in this coastal community.

To the east of Route 113, the 175-square-mile watershed of the coastal bays includes Berlin, Ocean City, parts of Snow Hill and Pocomoke and the Assawoman, Isle of Wight, Sinepuxent, Newport, and Chincoteague bays.

Here, more than 300 species of migratory waterfowl, songbirds, and birds of prey seek the shallow bays for food and shelter. Rare species of plants and animals join blue crabs, flounder and clams in calling this estuary home.

At the same time, the coastal bays' multi-million-dollar tourism industry is fueled by 11 million annual visitors who flock to the coastal bays to fish, boat, swim or just enjoy the atmosphere in their favorite bayside restaurant.

But the history of this unique estuary extends beyond its marketability. A way of life in this community for over 400 years, farming and forestry continue to define the character and culture of this rustic jewel. Today, Worcester's forests and 474 farms contribute hundreds of millions of dollars annually to the local economy. Both also provide the open space and natural land essential to the wildlife which calls this part of the Eastern Shore home.

Yet these very attractions are paving the way for additional stress on the land and water resources that make up this coastal paradise. Population trends suggest that Worcester County will double in size east of Route 113 by the year 2020. Balancing growth with natural resource protection will be the ultimate challenge this estuary faces in the next millennium.

To achieve this balance, Worcester County residents from all walks of life have been working together to devise common sense ways of protecting the bays behind Ocean City and Assateague. This effort, the Maryland Coastal Bays Program, has culminated in a comprehensive conservation and management plan aimed at preserving this precious coastal resource.

Created by representatives from the development, farming, golf, tourism, and fishing industries, the plan represents a consensus of the best means needed to preserve the economic and ecological prosperity of the coastal bays in the next century. With help from local, state and federal planners and scientists, the strategies in this plan include reachable scientific goals and the most effective means for implementing them.

This plan, which you can download on this website, pinpoints conservation goals and the strategies needed to accomplish those goals. The plan also depicts how much each strategy will cost, who will be responsible for implementing it, and a timetable for implementation of each strategy. An Implementation and Finance Plan shows how each strategy will be funded.

Community support has created this plan and will drive it in the future. Ultimately it is the residents of this estuary who are the arbiters of its prosperity.
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Now a little bit about what I'm doing:
I've been tasked with developing an application designed to run on a GPS enabled handheld Windows Mobile barcode scanner
<http://www.motorola.com/statichtml/MC75.html?vgnextoid=237def1a5113a110VgnVCM1000008406b00aRCRD&amp;vgnextchannel=08987b103d175110VgnVCM1000008406b00aRCRD> http://www.motorola.com/statichtml/MC75.html?vgnextoid=237def1a5113a110VgnVCM1000008406b00aRCRD&vgnextchannel=08987b103d175110VgnVCM1000008406b00aRCRD
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With this handheld unit and my application their field personnel will be able to track plant, fish, and animal life with exact GPS coordinates and quantities, *upload all the data to a server and organize all this information it into a flowing report.
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As it stands now most of this data collection is done manually…………….. by hand, a time consuming process indeed. Hopefully with my application they will now be able to record more information, more accurately and much faster.
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Anyone interested in learning more about this project or possibly volunteering please check out their website.
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Thanks for looking!
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Posted via Mobile Device
 
With the data collected with this application, we will be able to more thouroughly see the long term impact of development and population growth on the local plant, fish, animal and bird life in the monitored areas :)

Posted via Mobile Device
 
sounds awesome, keeps us update! way more exciting than my job lol
 
Thats great Frosty... and your job is so exciting and interesting.. no wonder your traveling around alot...always learning... could you give us a few pics of what you actually do.. just to see ... :D
 
Yea, I'd love to join!

And just a note, our company is doing this for the CBP for free! Even supplying the hardware free of charge. I'm actually pretty excited to see how this develops and what other organizations could benefit from the program.
 
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