In an effort to help us transition (hopefully) to our NACD Forums as a way to streamline and categorize our discussions, I’m plugging in our Drone Policy discussion here in the Executive Directors’ Forum. I’m guilty of just facilitating discussion through email, but I want to do better at getting this going. Please feel free to add new posts to this topic as hopefully this compilation in this post will help us get caught up.
-Beth Mason, NACD North Central Region
Blanche Hurlbutt (NY)
Hi Folks,
We have some Districts here in New York that have drones and they were
wondering if anyone of you might use drones & have a policy in place.
If you do and would be willing to share the policy with me I could forward
it on to them.
Dan Meyerhoff (KS)
We have several districts interested in purchasing drones but have been reluctant without some type of agreement with NRCS since most of our districts are co-located with NRCS. So I would be interested in learning about any policies or agreements that are in place as well.
Jill Arace (VT)
VT ACD is about to begin a small drone pilot project with NRCS VT. We have two cartographic technicians working with NRCS who took the initiative to learn all about drones and become FAA UAV certified pilots. NRCS will be covering the cost of the drone and paying for the staff time, so we won’t be charging them a fee for drone services, but we’ll be learning everything we can through this pilot project to consider what would be relevant a fee for service delivery model.
We don’t have a drone policy per se yet, but our Cart Techs have gathered sample protocols and such, some of which are required by the FAA. Once we get a bit further along in this activity, we’ll be happy to share.
I too would be interested in any drone policies that districts or state associations have developed. Also drone service delivery pricing structures.
John Whitaker (IA)
In Iowa, we looked at purchasing drones for some of the NRCS wetland easement inspections that we contract to do for NRCS. The drones were cheap compared to the insurance. Our insurance carrier estimated that it could cost close to $1,000 per year for liability insurance to cover a drone which would cost us $900 to purchase. We dropped the idea due to the insurance cost.
Brenda Shambaugh (PA)
Attached is the proposed PA drone policy, but it has not been approved by the State Conservation Commission, which is PA’s governing entity.
A few of our districts do have drones and use them for non-regulatory purposes.
PA Draft Drone Policy