WV Court Rules Wind Farm Map Didn't Have to be Perfect

The West Virginia Supreme Court has ruled that the state's Public Service Commission (PSC) acted properly when it approved a plan to build 124 giant wind-power turbines in Greenbrier County. The court rejected arguments by the project's opponents that the map submitted to the PSC by Beech Ridge Energy LLC was inadequate.

More of the court's opinion from the Charleston Gazette:

Justices conceded that Beech Ridge did not submit the size map required by PSC regulations and left some churches, cemeteries, roads and springs off the map it submitted.

The court agreed with the PSC that "the significance of local cemeteries, and whether local roads constitute major transportation routes, are matters upon which reasonable minds can differ."

"We believe that the commission properly determined that Beech Ridge's map did not warrant dismissal of the project as it substantially complied with the siting rules," the court ruling said. ridges, the state Supreme Court ruled Monday.

The unanimous opinion would appear to allow the $300 million project to go forward.

Mapping Errors Make News

It's been a tough week for mapmakers it seems.

First the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported that flood maps issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contained a elevation error of five feet.

The error resulted from a misplaced minus sign. That means that instead of reducing floodwaters by 5-1/2 feet, the Corps' new gates and levee repairs in the Lakeview and Old Metairie area will only reduce flooding by 1/2 of a foot.

The Corps discovered the error after a public even, held on the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landing on the Gulf Coast, to announce the release of the maps:

Federal Gulf Coast Recovery Chief Donald Powell had called the reduced flood risk one of the most important events in the state's recovery. "If I were in the real estate business, or if I were anticipating coming to live in New Orleans, the first thing I would look at are these maps we're releasing today," he said at a June 21 news conference.

Meanwhile, the Delmarva Daily Times says that Snow Hill, Maryland officials met to change the zoning of a piece of property back to residential from business. That same body had just recently changed the zoning to business when the planning department determined early maps zoned the area for business. Unfortunately, there were some streets that was misnamed in those previous zoning maps.

Map Error Allows Beauty Shop in Middle of Residential Street

The City of Collinsville, Illinois is being threatened by lawsuits after discovering an error in their zoning map.

More from the Belleville News-Democrat:

...the developer sought zoning information about 102 Gaylord Drive before buying it, and was told that it was commercial. The developer later was issued a building permit.

The problem: The zoning map was in error, and the building was in a residential zone.

Now the residents of Gaylord Drive are asking the City Council to stop the construction of a beauty salon in the middle of their residential street.

The would-be salon owner is threatening to sue if construction is not allowed to proceed. The neighbors are threatening to sue if construction isn't halted permanently.

I predict that the ultimate winners will be......The Lawyers.

Lost: Short Field Trip Becomes 7-Hour Excursion

Sixty schoolchildren spent seven hours driving all over London when their bus driver entered the wrong name into his satellite navigation device. The Evening Standard reports that the children, aged eight and nine, were supposed to go on a field trip to Hampton Court Palace in south west London.

However, the bus driver entered "Hampton Court" into his onboard navigation device and drove the kids to the street of the same name, 18 miles away in Islington, north London. Upon arriving at Hampton Court (the street, not the palace) the driver realized they were in the wrong place. The driver, along with a driver trainee following in a second bus, attempted to find the palace on their own, but became hopelessly lost. At one point a teacher got off the bus and purchased a paper map in an attempt to find the palace.

In a last ditch effort to locate the Tudor palace, a teacher called a staffmember back at the school to look on the Internet and find directions for them. When that failed, the teachers gave up and returned to the school, having never seen the palace.

Zenith Coach Travel, the bus company, has apologized for the error and pledged to reimburse the school and take the children on another trip, free of charge. A spokesman for the bus company also told the Standard, "Our drivers are now being banned from using sat-navs, which are brilliant but rely on what info is put in, and must use our maps."

Faulty Map Leads to Blame Game in Scotland

A mistake in an Ordnance Survey map has been blamed for a three-story housing development being built in the wrong place the Edinburgh News reported.

Residents Blame Local Planning Officials
Angry residents claim their views have been ruined because the new building has been built 3 meters out of place. They blame local planning officials. "We've been on at planning about this for a long time now. As soon as this became apparent building control should have been out here and telling them to stop." nieghbor Caroline Gerard, told the News.

Local Officials Blame the Developer
Not so says planning leader Trevor Davies. He blames the developer telling the News, "A responsible developer would have come back to the committee with this. They are within their legal rights but it is not socially responsible to do what they did."

Developer Blames Local Officials
Developer Gregor Properties says it was simply following map references on plans approved by the council. a spokesman said, "What we did was build exactly the building in exactly the place we had planning permission for."

Local Officials Blame Ordinance Survey Maps
A spokeswoman for the council says it relied on Ordinance Survey maps saying such maps, "...represents the gold standard of mapping within the UK was a reasonable way for the council to proceed in the circumstances."

Ordinance Survey Says They Should have had it Surveyed.
A spokesman for Ordnance Survey said: "Ordnance Survey has the capability to capture detail to a very high accuracy using state of the art surveying technology. However, over the years data has been captured using less accurate methods. Ordnance Survey would not expect a customer to use our data in such a context in lieu of a localised engineering survey."

Inaccurate Maps One of "Small Gaps" That Led to Crash

Inaccurate maps were among the "small gaps" that doomed Comair Flight 5191 when it crashed August 27, in Lexington, Kentucky, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported today.

After reviewing the 650 pages of information National Transportation Safety Board investigators have gathered thus far in their investigation into the cause of the crash, the Enquirer cites two main factors in the crash; pilot error and maps which failed to show which runways were under construction, and which were open.

The vendor supplying Comair with airport maps didn't know about the construction in Lexington. Comair pilots had maps that still showed the pre-construction.

Map company Jeppesen Sanderson said a computer error caused it to not receive the notice of construction, which in turn prevented it from providing up-to-date information. Jeppesen flight safety manager "Rich Fosnot stated that Jeppesen staff had 'no idea there was ongoing construction' at LEX at the time of the accident," investigators said. "Jeppesen discovered that a software error was responsible for the data not being reported out."

The crash has already prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to ask airports to begin providing diagrams of ongoing construction projects instead of just text descriptions.

While applauding the new procedure, Terry McVenes, chairman of the Air Line Pilots Association said all airline cockpits should be equipped with a moving map display similar to global positions systems available in automobiles."The technology is already there" he said, "newer airplanes already come equipped."

See also: Airports' Digital Maps Get Failing Grade.

NZ Man Seeks to Right Mapping Wrongs

George Holmes, a retired public servant in Wellington, New Zealand, is passionate about things being correct, especially maps. According to The New Zealand Herald, he recently submitted his 60th successful case to the Geographic Board to correct wrong spellings of place names throughout country.

Mr. Holmes discovers the misspelled names by meticulously researching old documents. Among the cartographic changes that have come about as a result of Mr. Holmes' work:

• Mt Eggeling - previously Mt Eggelling
• Mt Norriss - previously Mt Norris
• Gros stream - previously Le Gos stream
• Williams Stream - previously William Stream

Despite his successes, there is one big change Mr. Holmes has not been able to convince government authorities to make; changing New Zealand to New Zeeland, after the province in the Netherlands.

Wales Wiped Off Map

All news network CNN recently published a map of the United Kingdom in connection with a story it was doing on a serial killer. On the map, Wales was lumped in as part of England.

The Welsh are upset about it.

A spokesperson for Cymuned told icWales the incident showed that the Welsh Assembly had not done enough to raise its profile around the world. An Assembly spokesman said of the map, "This seems to be a badly drawn map by someone with a very tenuous grasp of geography."

A spokesperson for CNN told icWales that they didn't know why their artist had eliminated Wales. and apologized for the mistake.

As if to add insult to the injury, Scotland was distinguished from the England on the offending map. For Wales, it's not the first time the Principality has been overlooked. In 2004 it was omitted from a map of Europe on the cover of The Eurostat Yearbook published by the European Union.