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Easement Program Data Migration

Submitted by Dave Brown, ASTC - Programs

NRCS is about to enter a new age in easement management.  Without the benefit of a national contracting program for easements such as Protracts, each state maintained and managed easement contracts and associated data with a stand alone Access database.  The Washington database has been maintained over the years primarily by Amy Smith, utilizing information provided by the field office contacts for each easement along with assistance from area and state specialists.  At the end of each quarter the state information was sent to National Headquarters where it was incorporated into a national database.  This national database was utilized for responding to requests about WRP and other easement programs from Congress, the Office of Management and Budget and various special interest groups.

An agency wide National Easement Program Management System will be deployed in FY 2008.  It will help NRCS at the national, state and local level to streamline program administration, provide improved access to easement data for use in program management and provide an up-to-date source of data for responding to requests from Congress or others.

Washington currently has 178 Wetland Reserve Program contracts that will be the first to migrate into the national system.  Shelly Lassiter, Chad Dunnahoo and Dave Brown are making the necessary preparations for the migration and will complete the migration once the system software is online.  A special software application has been developed that will transfer data from the old state database to the new national system.  All data will be checked and updated during this migration process.  National training on the new program was scheduled in November, 2007.  The migration process will start immediately and must be completed by December 31, 2007.

Although the WRP database is the only database that will migrate into the new system at this time, all easement program databases will be transferred to the national system in the near future.  After the migration is complete, all new WRP, FRPP and GRP contracts will be developed using the Easement Program Management System and will be tracked on a national level similar to the way Protracts is now operated.

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