Emily Vail of the Hudson River Estuary Program suggested that this Mapping Working Group could support the Boat Brigade Working Group (and vice versa) by providing maps to the boaters to go test:
“Another idea for this working group is to put together maps to support the boat brigades, and help them look for issues. Dan Shapley from Riverkeeper put together the attached for the boat brigade in Wallkill, mostly using the Hudson River Watershed Alliance outfall mapper. It’s pretty simple, but could be a really helpful resource. The next boat brigade is in New Paltz this weekend, so that might be quick turnaround, but probably not unreasonable. (Although New Paltz doesn’t have outfalls mapped yet, there are other reference maps that could be useful in the field.) And there’s another boat brigade at the end of July in Rosendale. Dan offered to help anyone who wants to do something similar – I’ve cc’ed him on this email.”

We would also be physically exploring the watershed, looking for and mapping problems.

The mission is still vague, and will be defined by those who want to join in.

So, if you’re interested in joining the Mapping Working Group, please email me at jasonwest.mail@gmail.com

Emily also sent out this list of “existing mapping resources that might be useful references:

Cornell Natural Resource Mapper – http://hudson.dnr.cals.cornell.edu/mapper/ I’ve been using this one a lot, because it has excellent detail, especially on smaller streams. Note that as you zoom in, more layers are visible. The Streams tab is especially useful for watershed management, but the others also provide useful information.
Hudson River Watershed Alliance outfall map – http://hudsonwatershed.org/ms4map/
This is map of stormwater outfalls (and sometimes other stormwater infrastructure) that was compiled by MS4 communities. New Paltz could add to this map once they do their MS4 mapping.
The Watershed Alliance also has an atlas, which has layers you can click on and off if you download the PDFs (Save As). http://hudsonwatershed.org/…/125-t…/106-map-panel-index.html (I think John worked on this project? It was from a 2007 Estuary Grant that was wrapping up when I was hired.)
Priority Waterbodies List/Waterbody Inventory – https://data.ny.gov/…/Waterbody-Inventory-Priorit…/uctu-y9hj
There are lots of other maps available now on https://data.ny.gov, but this one shows the stream segments and their impairments according to the DEC’s Priority Waterbodies List/Waterbody Inventory. (You can click on the segments for more information.)
Ulster County maps – http://ulstercountyny.gov/ucis/maps