** 1 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA CASE NO. 88-1886-CIV-HOEVELER UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, et al., ) ) Plaintiffs, ) ) VS. ) ) SOUTH FLORIDA WATER MANAGEMENT ) DISTRICT; JOHN R. WODRASKA, ) EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SOUTH FLORIDA ) WATER MANAGEMENT DISTRICT; ) FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL ) REGULATION; AND DALE TWACHTMANN, ) SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF ) ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION, et. al., ) ) Defendants. ) / DEPOSITION OF RONALD MIERAU TAKEN ON BEHALF OF THE PLAINTIFF *** DATE: August 29, 1990 PROFESSIONAL REPORTING SERVICE Commerce Center 324 Datura Street, Suite 303 West Palm Beach, Florida 33401 (407) 659-4046 ** 2 INDEX August 29, 1990 DIRECT CROSS REDIRECT RECROSS DOUG RONALD MIERAU By Ms. Beverly Nash 5 By Mr. Joe Richards 28 ** 3 The deposition of Ronald Mierau, in the above-entitled and numbered cause, was taken before me, KAREN BAUER FRY, C.S.R., Court Reporter and Notary Public for the State of Florida at Large, at Professional Reporting Service, Commerce Center, 324 Datura Street, in the City of West Palm Beach, Palm Beach County, in the State of Florida, beginning at the hour of 10:55 o'clock a.m., on August 29, 1990, pursuant to the Notice in said cause for the taking of said deposition, which is annexed to the Court file herein, on behalf of the Plaintiff in the above-entitled action pending in the above-named court. The appearances at said time and place were as follows: Beverly Sherman Nash, Esquire U.S. Department of Justice Environmental and Natural Resources Division P. O. Box 663 Washington, D.C. 20044-0663 Attorney for Plaintiff Joseph Richards, Esquire Peeples, Earl & Blank, P.A. Two South Biscayne Blvd. One Biscayne Tower, Suite 3636 Miami, Florida 33131 Attorney for Cities of Belle Glade and Clewiston ** 4 Katharine Stollman, Esquire Allison Burdette Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher, & Flom 1440 New York Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20005 Attorney for South Florida Water Management District Jackie Waters, Esquire So. Florida Water Management District Box 24680 3301 Gun Club Road West Palm Beach, FL 33416 ALSO PRESENT: Toni Lafuente Mike Rose David Buker Robert Johnson Ray Roberts ** 5 THEREUPON, RONALD MIERAU being by me first duly sworn to tell the whole truth, as hereinafter certified, testified as follows: DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MS. NASH: Q. Mr. Mierau, I'm Beverly Nash. I'm counsel for the United States in this litigation. We're here to find out about the Water Management District's computers, and the data that's on the computers, and how it's formatted. You were selected by the district as a representative having knowledge concerning one or more of the categories of inquiry which we're interested relating to the computers. Have you been shown that list of categories? A. Yes, I have. Q. Do you know which ones you're able to respond? A. I believe it's 2, 3, and 6. Q. What is your present title or position? A. I'm the director of the operations ** 6 division. Q. And that's in which department? A. The operations and maintenance department. Q. And what are your responsibilities as the director? A. I'm responsible for physically moving the water around to balance flood control, water supply, and environmental needs. We do that through operation of gates and pump stations. Q. And how long have you been director of the operations division? A. Since April 1990. Q. Have you had other positions at the Water Management District? A. Yes. Q. What positions? A. Previous to that, I was interim director of the water quality division for a period of approximately six to nine months. Prior to that, I was the director of the data management division. Q. What were your responsibilities as the director of the water quality division? A. Essentially, I was performing administrative tasks to fill-in while they were recruiting a qualified person with both ** 7 administrative and water quality skills. Q. How long were you director of the data management division? A. I don't recall the exact length of time. I know it was several years. Q. And what were your responsibilities in the data management division? A. To coordinate the data acquisition and archival of hydrologic information. Q. What's your educational background? A. I have got a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from the University of Nebraska; and a master's degree from Colorado State University in water resources engineering. Q. To whom do you report in the operations and maintenance department? A. Alan Hall. Q. Do you have employees that work for you? A. Yes. Q. How many? A. Approximately 20. Q. What is the general nature of the positions that work for you? A. I have got some control room personnel which are technicians and supervisors. We have a ** 8 24-hour shift that monitors the real time information to determine hydrologic conditions at any time and operate the gates under emergency conditions, that's the majority of the staff. I have currently two computer programers and one supervisor. Then, I've got a meteorologist and a temporary meteorologist, and one person that's working currently on artificial intelligence systems. Q. What computers are utilized by the operations division? A. We have got a pair of Modcomp computers, which do our real time data acquisition and control. We have got several PCs, personal computer type equipment. That's currently all that -- the only types that we use directly. We access also the information on our Cyber in our system for historical information, historical hydrologic information. We had a prototype artificial intelligence system developed on Symbolics equipment, and we are not using that anymore. We will be looking for some other type of computer equipment to put that platform on, but that hasn't been decided yet. ** 9 Q. What software is utilized on the Modcomps? A. That's custom software plus the Modcomp operating system. Q. Is that developed by Modcomp or within the Water Management District? A. The software applications were developed within the Water Management District and on contract to -- by a contractor for the Water Management District. Q. Do you know who within the Water Management District developed the software? A. Rudi Vyhnanek was in charge of supervising that. I believe that was -- the original system was developed considerably before I got involved with the operations department. Q. And do you know who the outside contractor was? A. I don't recall. Q. What's the software packages utilized on the PCs? A. The PCs routinely use Word Perfect, Symphony, Picture Perfect, some communication packages. There may be other less prominently used ones. Most of those are standard software packages. Q. Does the division utilize any in-house ** 10 software packages? A. I don't believe that's the case. There is an application that we use fairly frequently that's written on a GEM system that was done in-house several years ago. It wasn't done within the division, but we utilized it frequently. That application accesses data from both our Modcomp -- our -- a summary of the information on Modcomp, which is stored on Micro VAX computer. I'm sorry. I neglected that one -- and there we have an Oracle data base established as an interim type thing until we get a better data base system developed to handle that. They had also linked up the Cyber computer, so we can get merge historic and current hydrologic information and plot that up through the graphics package that was -- that application for that graphics package was developed in-house. Q. Do you know who developed it? A. Paul Wright. Q. Are reports or analyses done of the data that comes in to the operations division? A. We routinely make reports that our board of directors use, our governing board uses, for informational purposes on a monthly basis called a water conditions report. ** 11 Q. And what's the data base that's utilized to do the water conditions report? A. It comes from a combination of a set of paper files, which we log our daily water readings on from our Cyber data base, which is DB Hydro, again, the historical hydrologic information and the summary of our Modcomp information, which is kept on our Micro VAX. Q. The summary of information you're talking about being kept on Micro VAX, is that data that's been processed in some fashion? A. It's processed through the Modcomp and gives us information, like, water levels -- the most critical ones that we use for that report are water levels, we use gate openings and -- to compute the flow with. Gate openings aren't reported directly in the reports. We do compute the flow, which is used -- indirectly requires the gate openings, pump rpms, and water levels, in conjunction with rating curves. Q. You indicated that you have an employee working with artificial intelligence systems? A. Yes. Q. What is the nature of those systems? MS. STOLLMAN: This will be the ** 12 computer systems. A. The computer system, right now we are still in the process of selecting a computer system for this to work on. We have originated a contract. We call this artificial intelligence system OASIS. And I'm not sure exactly what the acronym means right now. It's something like -- well, I'm not sure exactly what it means. Q. (By Ms. Nash) Who developed OASIS? A. That was originally started under Gary Goforth, who is no longer with the division. We had a consultant at that time who did some prototype work for us. Paul Ryan, which is currently a programer with our system, did some work on it; and it's been devaluated as a prototype model for our next phase, which we are getting in to now, by two different consultants. Q. Do you know who the consultant was that did the prototype work? A. I don't recall. Q. You indicated that part of the responsibilities of the division is to look at environmental needs or the operation of the gates in the pumping stations? A. We try to balance -- ** 13 MS. STOLLMAN: Is your question limited to his work that he does on the computer systems? MS. NASH: Well, the computer systems are utilized to operate these. And I'm trying to find out the perimeters that they consider when they're doing the operation. MS. STOLLMAN: And what was your question again? Could you read it back for me? (WHEREUPON, the requested testimony was read back by the court reporter.) MS. STOLLMAN: To the extent that this is work on the computer system, you can answer that. A. We don't establish the environmental criteria. There are times when, within our operational policy, that it's necessary to balance environmental concerns with flood protection and water supply needs. Q. (By Ms. Nash) Who establishes the environmental criteria? A. That's generally done in coordination with -- ** 14 MS. STOLLMAN: I would object to that question unless you're asking about the environmental criteria done on the computer. MS. NASH: They may well be, but let him answer the question, so I can find that out. MS. STOLLMAN: Well, I'd like to -- MS. NASH: This is a background question, Katharine. It is a background question that I am entitled to have asked to find out who establishes the criteria. MS. STOLLMAN: To the extent the criteria are established on the computer systems, you may answer the question. A. The criteria aren't currently established on the computer systems. They're done through operational rules that haven't currently been computerized. Q. (By Ms. Nash) And who's developed the operational rules? What office or division? A. These operational rules are based on Corps of Engineers criteria, first of all, for operation of structures and the original project design. There have been modifications in the past that have gone through a series of multiagency review, and regulation schedules have been developed on that ** 15 basis and modified on that basis. Q. When you were talking about the artificial intelligence project, do you know what environmental considerations are taken into account in that project? A. That's not currently a function of the artificial intelligence system. The phase of the artificial intelligence system we're working on currently is an intelligence warning system. This conceptually will give us active warnings on whether we have information that makes sense hydrologically, first of all, to apply some sort of intelligence criteria to the incoming data stream to verify that this is reasonably accurate information coming back there. There are times when senses malfunction and we need to know that. In addition to that -- MS. STOLLMAN: I think this is nonresponsive to your question. If we could have the question read back. MS. NASH: He's explaining what the artificial intelligence project considerations are. It is responsive to the question. He can finish the answer. MS. STOLLMAN: I would like to have ** 16 the question read. (WHEREUPON, the requested testimony was read back by the court reporter.) MS. STOLLMAN: The question has been asked and answered. MS. NASH: He was finishing -- yes, I want him to finish the answer he was giving. He was explaining what the system is currently considered. MS. STOLLMAN: Well, he answered your question that's not currently a part of it. If you have another question, please ask it. MS. NASH: Fine. Q. (By Ms. Nash) What is the current phase of the system looking at? A. The current phase of the system is providing an intelligence warning system to help detect sensory malfunctions and to project whether our current operations are going to meet our -- our current objective is for maintaining water levels in the areas over which we have control. Q. Is the operations division the one that actually receives the raw data from the remote ** 17 sensing locations? A. Through our telemetry system, we do receive directly those sensory readings. In addition, we receive reports from our field stations on sensors that aren't currently accessible through the computer. They come in over radio or paper forms. Q. And where is that data stored that comes in? A. Which data? Q. The telemetry data initially? A. The telemetry data is initially stored on Modcomp computer system then is transferred to our Micro VAX Oracle data base, which I described previously as a temporary situation, and nightly is moved to the preprocessing system under data management where it goes through further verification process; and finally, ends up residing in some reform on DB Hydro, which is also on the Cyber system at the current time. Q. What is the further verifications that's done in the preprocessing system? A. They check -- the data management division checks -- at least during the time where I was actively involved with this process, they ** 18 check for continuity in data sets, continuity of transmissions to verify whether we really had continuous information as was indicated on the files to apply a rate of change checks and to apply a limit checks in terms of exceeding reasonable maximum minimums. In addition to that, a cross station performance was checked manually through plots of this data. Q. Is the data that was received in paper form or over radio put into the computer? A. I don't believe all of it was put into the computer, but the more critical ones that people use all the time are. Q. When you say, "more critical," are you referring to more critical field stations or more critical types of data? A. More critical types of data. There are some types of data that -- some locations in which data is needed periodically, not on a continuous basis -- that information hasn't currently been in access. Particularly those that are incurred in very infrequent intervals simply haven't been provided for in our electronic system. Q. Do you know the nature of the data that's not being computerized? ** 19 A. In general it's what we call staff gauge readings in very remote sites that we have very little operational control over. By "staff gauge readings," I mean readings that are manually observed from some -- you might say, "ruler," some way of measuring water levels someplace. Generally they're very remote and are taken manually. We don't have any electronic means of acquiring that information now. Q. You indicated that incoming data is checked for rate of change or limit checks. What procedure is followed if the data exceeds the limits? MS. STOLLMAN: Is your question finished? MS. NASH: Yes. MS. STOLLMAN: This would be limited to computer procedures which are followed. A. Again, I'm not directly involved in that process at the current time. That process is being carried on in the data management division. Q. (By Ms. Nash) What was the process when you were in data management? A. When I was in the data management division, we looked for a physical cause for that. ** 20 If a physical cause -- if it was determined that that rate of change really was realistic -- because our estimates of rate of change are based on previous experience -- if our professional hydrologist determined that these rate of changes were really reasonable, then, we'd change the limits under which these flags would be made. If it was determined that it was an instrument malfunction, which caused the rate of change problem, then, a probable cause for that was sought and values were estimated, if possible, to correct that situation. If it wasn't possible to correct that rate of change situation with reasonable confidence, then, those values were flagged as missing or unavailable. Q. Are there back-up procedures for the incoming data? A. You're referring to which data now? Q. The raw data that comes in, is there a -- A. From which source? Q. From any source? A. The raw data that comes in through the Modcomp system is backed up on tape on a daily basis and then goes through the additional procedures that I mentioned earlier. ** 21 MS. STOLLMAN: Can we go off the record for a moment? (WHEREUPON, there was a discussion held off the record.) (WHEREUPON, the requested testimony was read back by the court reporter.) Q. (By Ms. Nash) Do you know the retention period for these back-ups tapes? A. No. Q. Do you know who would know? A. Rudi Vyhnanek. Q. When the data winds up in DB Hydro, do you know whether that's also backed up? A. That is backed up. Q. Do you know the procedure for that back-up? A. I don't recall specifically. Q. Do you know who would know? A. Bill Hall. Q. Do you know the retention period for that back-up? A. To my knowledge, that was to be retained ** 22 permanently. Q. Do you know the period of record for the data in DB Hydro? A. Yes. Q. What is that? A. It dates back to, in some cases, the early 1900's. Q. Is there a listing of which locations the data goes back that far? A. There is a listing available of the dates for all information. It's not -- to my knowledge, there is not a list chronologic or sorted by period of record available. Q. Where is that list available? A. From data management. Q. Does the list have a name? A. I don't recall what the name of the list is. Q. Who would know? A. Rob Startzman. Q. When you were in data management, what computers were utilized? A. We utilized the Modcomp, some PCs, and we did access the Modcomp -- or I'm sorry -- the Micro VAX, which has the Modcomp data summaries on it, as ** 23 through the procedure I mentioned earlier. Q. And data management is the keeper of the archive of hydrologic data? A. That's correct. Q. And that's in DB Hydro? A. That's correct. Q. Is there other hydrologic data that data management maintains? A. Would you clarify that question? Q. Is there hydrologic data maintained by data management that's not in DB Hydro? A. Not to my knowledge. I'm sorry. The DB Hydro does not contain a summary of gate information. Q. Where is that summary of gate information? A. There is another source of files within data management called Breakpoint Archive System. The gate information is stored in that area. Q. What else or what is contained in this summary of data information that's not in DB Hydro? A. Gate opening information. Q. Anything else? A. And pump rpm information. Q. I'm sorry? A. Pump rpm. ** 24 Q. While you were in data management, were analyses done in that division on the data in DB Hydro? A. The primary function of data management was to maintain accurate archives of that information and the collection? A. It was required to do some analysis on that historical information to further this validation process. Q. Can you elaborate on what that analysis was? A. Things like comparing mean values from year to year, reasonable ranges in fluctuation. Q. Anything else? A. Some -- it was necessary to develop some feel for intrastation correlations, if not statistically, at least, qualitatively. Q. Are these analyses that were done stored anywhere? A. What's that? Q. Are the analyses that were done stored anywhere? A. Not to my knowledge. Q. Were the analyses provided to anyone outside the data management division? A. Not to my knowledge. ** 25 Q. Are you aware of any computer water quality analyses being done as part of the SWIM Plan? MS. STOLLMAN: Again, it would be analyses done on the computer systems. MS. NASH: That's what my question asked. A. There was some work -- some analysis done in the water quality division on water quality perimeters for the SWIM Plan. Q. (By Ms. Nash) Do you know who did that analysis? A. I believe Dave Soballe did at least part of it. Q. Do you know what water quality perimeters were looked at? A. Phosphorus was one. Q. Do you know of any others? A. I believe nitrogen was also analyzed, but I'm not certain about that. Q. Do you know where the results of these water quality analyses are? A. Of the analyses or of the records? Would you clarify the question, please? Q. Yes. You indicated that Dave Soballe did ** 26 some analyses as part of the SWIM, and my question was, where are the results or where are these analysis stored and located? MS. STOLLMAN: Are you asking what computer system they're stored and located on? MS. NASH: If that's where they are. A. I don't know that the analyses are stored on a computer. The results were incorporated in to the SWIM Plan. Q. (By Ms. Nash) Who would know? A. Dave Soballe. Q. Do you know whether any computer water quality analyses were done for the Nutrient Removal Project? MS. STOLLMAN: You can answer if you know. A. I don't know that answer to that one. Q. (By Ms. Nash) Do you know whether any computer water quality analyses were done for Everglades National Park outstanding natural resource water standards? A. I'm not aware of the analyses that went on in that process. Q. Do you know who would know? A. Tom Fontaine. ** 27 Q. Do you know whether any computer water quality analyses were done for state water quality violations? A. I don't know. Q. Do you know whether any nutrient budget analyses have been done for the Everglades Agricultural Areas? A. I'm not aware of any. Q. Do you know whether any nutrient budget analyses have been done to the Water Conservation Areas? A. I don't know. Q. Do you know whether any nutrient budget analyses have been done for Everglades National Park? A. I don't know. Q. Do you know whether any water quality trend analyses have been done for the Everglades Agricultural Area? MS. STOLLMAN: I don't want you to speculate. You can answer if you know. A. No, I don't know. Q. (By Ms. Nash) Do you know whether any water quality trend analyses have been done for the Water Conservation Areas? ** 28 A. I don't know. Q. Do you know whether any water quality trend analyses have been done for Everglades National Park? A. I don't know. Q. Do you know whether any computerized water quality analyses have been done for establishing best management practices in the Everglades Agricultural Areas? A. No, not that I know of. Q. Do you know who might know? A. I presume Tom Fontaine may know. Tony Federico is probably a better source than Tom Fontaine. MS. NASH: I have no further questions. CROSS-EXAMINATION QUESTION BY MR. RICHARDS: Q. Mr. Mierau, my name is Joe Richards. I represent the cities of Belle Glade and Clewiston. You talked about the Breakpoint Archive System? A. Uh-huh. ** 29 Q. How does one access this system? A. To my knowledge -- MS. STOLLMAN: I don't want you to speculate. If you know how the system is accessed, you may answer. A. At the time that I last accessed it, when I was involved in that system, most people in your position would request a period of record from data management in the form of a listing. Q. (By Mr. Richards) Pardon me? A. In the form of a listing for specific station and period of record. There is a lot of information on that within that system, so to -- you have to get fairly -- it was necessary to get fairly specific in the request, otherwise, you'd simply be overwhelmed with the amount of information that would come back. Q. Is it possible to obtain information from this system in the ASCII format? A. Yes. At the time that I was involved in it, there was. Q. And you can access the information by a specific structure or period of time? A. By a specific sensored name and time. Q. Is there a listing of sensored names? ** 30 A. Yes. Q. Where would that listing be? A. In the data management division. Q. Does it not have a name? A. There's a computer procedure that can be used to develop this list of names and that procedure is called STGPOR. Q. Do you know who is responsible for maintaining this Breakpoint Archive System? A. Data management division. Rob Startzman is the director of the data management division. Q. Do you know what computer it's contained on? A. It's currently on the Cyber system. Q. And you mentioned that the data management division performs some annual mean comparisons and some other analysis. Do you know if these analysis are used to change data values? A. Normally, they're not used to change data values. They're used to form a picture for the hydrologist on what is reasonable for reviewing the data for accuracy. Q. And these hydrologist would then make a decision on whether to change data values? MS. STOLLMAN: I object to that ** 31 question. I don't think that's relevant. I don't think that's part of this witness' knowledge what he's here to testify about today. MR. RICHARDS: He was director of data management. He's testified about these analyses and the purpose they're used for, and I'm just trying to find out, you know, what effect that has on what is contained in their computers. MS. STOLLMAN: Could you repeat your question, please? MR. RICHARDS: Would you read it back? (WHEREUPON, the requested testimony was read back by the court reporter.) MS. STOLLMAN: Mr. Mierau is not currently in that department. He can answer to the extent that he would be aware of the computer procedures at the time he was there, but that may not be the case now. Q. (By Mr. Richards) Please answer to the best of your knowledge. A. There -- occasionally, it was possible to make fairly reliable estimates to change numbers so ** 32 that they were more realistic. One way, as an example, that this could occur was through ASCII transmission of data, you could gain digits. Let's say, the water levels were in the range of 14 or 15, all of a sudden you get one value that reads 114 or 115. There is a good possibility that in the transmission of this data, you picked up an erroneous bid coming in, which caused this type of an error. In that instance, the number would be changed from the 114 down to the 14 and tagged with an estimated value. Q. (By Mr. Richards) Are these estimated values indicated in some way on the data base? A. Yes, they are. Q. How are these estimated values flagged? A. Each value has a quality -- each value has a time value and a quality tag associated with it. Q. And who at the district would be presently most knowledgeable as to this process you just described? A. Rob Startzman is in charge of that procedure. He may have delegated some people that are more knowledgeable to do the actual procedure. Q. Do you know whether there is any written guidelines or policies on this process? ** 33 A. Not to my knowledge. Q. Are there any informal policies or guidelines? A. During the time I was involved with this process, that type of information had to be -- when changes were made to actual data values, those changes had to be cleared through myself or another qualified professional hydrologist. Q. When it was cleared through yourself, you were director of data management at that time? A. That's correct. Q. Do you know how frequently those changes are needed to be made? A. Changes were made to data values very infrequently. If the data values were totally unreasonable, it was much more likely that those values would be tagged with another type of field, which means -- which was an "M" for missing information. Q. In regard to the artificial intelligence system you described earlier, you mentioned that the system is designed to detect if the operations meet the objectives. What objectives would this be? A. That is still under a development process. ** 34 Q. What objectives will there be? MS. STOLLMAN: I would object to this question. He can answer what objectives there are currently in development, but the answer may not be complete as to all objectives that could be developed in the future. Q. (By Mr. Richards) To your knowledge. A. One of the objectives that we're looking at implementing is to have target water levels, which meet our expectations, and compare those against trends which are currently developing from our current operational decisions. Q. Any others? A. That's the primary mode right now. Q. Do you know whether there are computer records of the regulation schedules for the water conservation areas? A. Computerized regulation schedules, is that what's -- Q. Yes. A. Are those available? MS. STOLLMAN: What was your question? Could you repeat it back, please? Q. (By Mr. Richards) Does the district possess a computerized regulation schedule for the ** 35 Water Conservation Areas? A. I would have to speculate on that. MS. STOLLMAN: I don't want you to speculate. If you know, you can answer the question. A. I'm not positive. Q. (By Mr. Richards) Who would know whether their regulation schedules are contained on computer? A. If they are contained on the computer, Jorge Marban would be the most probable source for knowing that. Q. Do you know whether there are computer records of how a particular regulation schedule was followed for a particular year? MS. STOLLMAN: Again, you can answer if you know. I don't want you to speculate. A. Well, would you rephrase that, please? Q. (By Mr. Richards) Are there computer records of how a regulation schedule was followed for a particular year? A. There are historical archives which indicate what actual water levels were. Q. Where would those historical archives be contained? ** 36 A. They're contained in DB Hydro and in detailed form within the Breakpoint Archive System. Q. Do you know whether the operation and maintenance manuals prepared by the Corps of Engineers are obtained in a computer format? A. Not to my knowledge. Q. Do you know, does the district possess discharge ratings curves for the different structures? A. The district possesses computerized discharge ratings curves for some structures. Q. Which structures? A. I don't recall the names of all those structures. There is quite a few. There is a considerable number. Q. Do you have computerized discharge ratings curves for the S5A structure? A. Yes. Q. S6? A. Yes. Q. S7? A. Yes. Q. S8? A. Yes. ** 37 Q. S2? A. I believe the USGS has computerized discharge equations for S2. Q. How about S3? A. The same situation on S3. The district also has -- on the case of S3, the district also has a computerized discharge equation, but that's not used for official records. The USGS maintains the official records at that station. Q. And S4? A. I'm not positive about S4. Q. S150? A. The district has computerized equations for S50 -- S150. I'm sorry. Q. How about S9? A. The district has a computerized equation for S9. Q. And where are these maintained? A. At the time I was in data management, they were maintained in a production program called E034, E034. Q. Do you know whether these discharge rating curves are verified for accuracy? A. Yes. Q. Do you know how often? ** 38 A. There is currently an effort to verify all of these equations through stream gauging. Q. That is an ongoing process right now? A. That is an ongoing process right now. Q. Do you know when the last time that the discharge rating curves were verified? A. For which structures? Q. S5A. A. S5A has some recent measurements -- I believe last month, maybe some this month. Q. And before that, do you know when it was verified? A. There was some question posed as to the reliability of the discharge equations at that structure earlier this year, and I believe the ratings were -- stream flow measurements were started as soon as the water was available this year, which, I believe, was in late May or early June. Q. And for structure S6, when was the last time? A. Also, I know there is at least one -- at least one measurement and perhaps several measurements since water was available between June and the current date. ** 39 Q. And S7? A. Same situation on S7. Q. S8? A. Same situation on S8. Q. S150? A. I'm not sure when the last stream flow measurement was made on S50. Q. S150? A. S150, I'm sorry. I don't believe there was any made this year. Q. What about S9? A. There has been at least one discharge measurement made at S9, during this same period, since water was available this year. Q. In the past were these verified on any kind of routine basis? A. The USGS -- on the stations that the USGS was involved in, they made measurements on a frequency which they felt was adequate to maintain confidence in the rating curves. The Water Management District did not follow procedure where they routinely verified the rating curves. There was substantial effort, after the structures were initially established to develop ** 40 rating curves and flow measurements. Once those were verified, it was assumed that these curves wouldn't change substantially. This was verified periodically by spot measurements at stations -- at some stations. Q. Do you know which stations? A. I don't know. Q. Besides the S3 and S2, what other stations are USGS responsible for? MS. STOLLMAN: You can answer if you know. I don't want you to guess. A. Would you be more specific in terms of area or -- I may be able to help someone there. Q. (By Mr. Richards) In the Everglades area? A. In the Everglades Agricultural Area? Q. Okay. Let's start there. A. The USGS is responsible for the official records on S5A, S2 and S3, and the associated revenue flow structures. Q. What about the S10 structures? A. The S10 structures are the responsibility of the Corps of Engineers. I'm not positive, but the USGS may be involved in that procedure through contract with the Corps of Engineers, but I'm not positive on that. ** 41 Q. How about the S11 structures? A. The same situation with S11. Q. And the S12? A. The S12, the USGS computes the flow for the Corps of Engineers. They also give us access to that information. I think the National Park Services is also involved in funding that station. Q. When you were the data base management director, were you aware of any data files lost from the system? A. No. Q. Are you aware of any data lost from the operations division computers? A. No. I am sorry. There is times when our communication system breaks down and we have no provision at the current time for on site storage of the telemetry system information. And during the times that our transmission facilities don't work, data is lost. Q. Is that lost data somehow indicated in the historical archive? A. That is one of the functions of the data management division to insure that all those periods when we weren't receiving information from ** 42 the Modcomp system that those are flagged as missing periods. Q. Do you know what individual would be most knowledgeable as to the discharge rating curves and where they're maintained? A. "Most knowledgeable," is sometimes difficult to put a handle on. As for myself, I have some knowledge of that. I'm sure Rob Startzman would have some knowledge of that. Q. Do you know who performs the verifications? A. Data management division. Q. Do you know who in the data management division? A. I believe that the assignment for verification of information is distributed among several peoples. Q. Do you know who those people are? A. I would suggest talking -- I would suggest Rob Startzman is the source for those personnel assignments. Q. Do you know at what points or steps in the transfer of data between computers the transfer is done by ASCII transfer? A. Would you repeat the question, please? ** 43 Q. At what points or steps in the transfer of data between computers is the transfer done by an ASCII transfer? A. To my knowledge, all the transfers between computer systems are done in ASCII mode. Q. Are transfers ever performed by using what is known as an "error free protocol"? A. I'm not sure what an "error free protocol" is. Q. Are the transfers done over the network? A. The transfers are done over the network. MR. RICHARDS: Thank you. I have no further questions. (The deposition was concluded at 12:15 o'clock p.m.)