Existing State and USGS 1619 Data Sharing Agreements

Description

Maryland, New York, Virginia and West Virginia as well as the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) currently have signed 1619 data sharing agreements with U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and Farm Services Agency (FSA). As part of the collaborative work on larger BMP Verification Framework, the jurisdictional partners are working closely with NRCS and FSA to ensure all six states have consistent, comprehensive data sharing agreements in place. The objective is to ensure each jurisdiction has equal and full access to all federally cost shared data needed to fully credit producers for their implementation conservation practices. These agreements ensure that full access to data while maintaining the business confidentiality of the individual producers information and data. The USGS’s 1619 data sharing agreements with NRCS and FSA were put into place to assist the six states in: getting full access to the federal cost shared data; enhancing their existing tracking and reporting systems; and developing and fully implementing procedures to eliminate any double counting of individual practices funded by two (or more) state/federal cost share programs.