Charge to Standing Committee

From: Jim Davis (jdaviscfa.harvard.edu)
Subject: PBO Draft Proposal
To: fhwjpl.nasa.gov
Date: Tue, 9 Jul 2002 20:47:43 -0400 (EDT)
Cc: mikejucar.edu, shiverucar.edu, wprescottusgs.gov
Reply-To: jdaviscfa.harvard.edu

Dear Frank,

     As I previously e-mailed, I would like the PBO Standing Committee to 
review the first draft of the PBO proposal on behalf of the broader geosciences 
community and UNAVCO, Inc.  This draft prepared under the lead of Mike Jackson 
and was based on previously developed planning documents including the PBO 
White Paper and EarthScope Project Plan; it has had extensive input from 
scientists working on the existing regional GPS networks in the western US and 
leaders in the strainmeter installation and operation community.  The proposal 
responds to the requirements set forth for PBO implementation in the "PBO 
Strategic Document for UNAVCO, Inc." of May 2002 authored by myself and 
Will Prescott.

     The proposal provides a detailed strategy for installation, operation and 
maintenance of the GPS and strainmeter components of the PBO.  The next step in 
refinement of the proposal, to be conducted while the Standing Committee is 
reviewing this draft, will be to coordinate aspects of the PBO with the 
installation, operation and maintenance of USArray.  Shane Ingate, IRIS 
Director of Operations, will visit the UNAVCO Facility the week of July 22 for 
in-depth discussions on coordination of PBO and USArray, the results of which 
will be factored into the next version of the proposal.

     The draft proposal provided for your review is based on a rigorous budget 
exercise that indicates the original cost projections made in the PBO White 
Paper were optimistic.  Specifically, the cost of borehole strainmeter 
equipment and installation estimated in the White Paper was 20% too low.  Also, 
the annual maintenance costs for both continuous GPS (CGPS) and borehole 
strainmeters was also too low by approximately $4,000 per station per year.  
Accordingly, the number of both GPS and strainmeter stations in this draft 
proposal has been reduced as follows: CGPS stations from 875 to ~760; and 
borehole strainmeters from 200 to ~140 borehole strainmeters plus four long 
baseline strainmeters.  These numbers were arrived at by first reducing the 
number of strainmeters by 20% to account for the original under-budgeting and 
then reducing both GPS and strainmeters proportionately by ~13% until a 
balanced budget was achieved.  Even with these reductions in equipment and 
installation costs, the budget does not retain a management reserve and is 
considered very optimistic regarding the number of full time staff actually 
required to support the PBO facility.
	
     The three proposal documents can be retrieved on-line at

[...Outdated links deleted...]

     I would like the Standing Committee to review the draft PBO proposal 
 with focus on the following specific areas:

1.  Evaluate whether the current PBO facility plan, as outlined in the draft 
proposal, has a high probability of meeting the community's observational and 
science goals for PBO.  If not, then please be specific as to why.

2. Evaluate whether the proposal is targeted to the right audience, including 
geo-scientists but also scientists from other disciplines and educated 
non-scientists (such as members of the National Science Board).  Are there 
technical terms and concepts that need further explanation or that could be 
omitted without loss of meaning?

3. Evaluate whether the PBO plan is flexible enough to allow lessons learned 
from the early years of operation to be factored into later implementation 
plans.

4. Evaluate whether the allocation of resources is optimal for the PBO science 
goals, e.g., number of continuous GPS stations vs. borehole strainmeters, or 
number of backbone GPS stations vs. clusters.  Does the proposed facility 
address the highest priority plate boundary zone questions?

5. Evaluate whether the data archiving and data products plans are adequate to 
meet the needs of individual investigators.  If not, how could it be 
strengthened?

6. Evaluate whether the implementation schedule is realistic and achievable.

7. Evaluate whether the staffing levels are realistic and sufficient to 
accomplish the science goals of the PBO facility.

8. Advise as to whether there should be a further reduction in the number of 
GPS and/or strainmeter stations in order to create a 10% management reserve to 
meet future contingencies.

     Feel free to organize your committee work as you see fit, but the result 
should be a single report.   Due to the tight constraints of time we are 
working under, I'm afraid that I will have to ask you to have this report 
completed by July 24, 2002.  You should assume that we will make your report 
available to the community.
	
     A huge amount of work has been required to get us this far.  The report 
of your committee will be the next important step in the proposal-development 
process.  This report also represents the first of many crucial contributions 
that he Standing Committee will make to the development and operation of PBO.
	
                                    Jim

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