CHATTANOOGA ENGINEERS CLUB http://www.chattanooga.net/engineers/CEC.htm Volume LI September 25, 2000 12:00 noon The Cellar at Union Square THIS WEEK__________________________________________________________________ Bill Allen, Transportation Planner with the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Agency (RPA), will informed the members on "ITS, Intelligent Traffic System, and TDOT's HELP program - Incident Management System". Mr. Allen will also discuss briefly the proposed I-75 interchange that would provide access to the 940 acre Volunteer Army Ammunition Plant site. Thanks to Terry Reynolds for the series of presentations on various aspects of Volunteer Site. LAST WEEK___________________________________________________________________ Maurice Bandy, Vice President of ARCADIS Geraghty & Miller, talked about the advance in surveying technology in recent years. GPS, global positioning system, has improved the accuracy of surveying data. Mr. Bandy provided some history lessons as well. George Washington began his career at age 16 as a surveying technician. Surveying was actually his entry ticket to the military and later leadership roles. The tools of the trade, chain, compass, transit, and rod did not change much for many years. In 1950's, the chain was replaced by the use of steel tape. During the 1988 Gulf War, GPS became widely used. The new tools, such as the ones used in obtaining the boundary data for the Volunteer Site, prismless EDM, GPS, robotic EDM, CADD, and Eaglepoint software are costly investments. Due to the expense, GPS is usually used in large projects, such as highway, pipeline, large tracts, precision engineering, and high order surveys. There are 24 satellites available, minimum of four is used to obtain the time measurements necessary to produce the relative positioning. Volunteer Site contract required the survey to obtain one to 50,000 accuracy. Claude Ramsey, Hamilton County Executive, also spoke to the members on plans to utilize the Volunteer Site as a key component of the local economic development strategy. Hamilton County has missed many past opportunities due to the lack of large parcels of land. 500 acres is the typical amounts of land most large manufacturing companies require in production sites. The county is pursuing other land purchases, but sees 940 acres, after clean-up, as a great resource. The deed signing could be completed as early as October 3. With ownership of the land, the county could make available 15 to 20 acres immediately. The county will need to refrain from dividing the land into small pieces. The attractiveness of Volunteer Site is the amount of land at one place. The environmental clean up required would be the time constraint. The cost, time and money, required for the clean-up is a big unknown, but the responsibility does lie with the Army. With the amount of attention received, it likely to be on some of the political priority lists. COMING PROGRAM________________________________________________________ October 2 - Gene Shatlock, COMCAST October 16 - Shannon Boss, Tennessee Donor Services October 23 - Steve Leach, "Volunteer Army Ammunition Plant site, its history, and its road access to the community." Fred Lupton is October Program Chair. --- Chattanooga Technology Council Mailing List | A free service provided by To unsubscribe, e-mail: ctc-unsubscribe@cdc.net | CDC Internet, Inc. For additional commands, e-mail: ctc-help@cdc.net | http://www.cdc.net "