Future Challenges for the U.S. Geological Survey's Mineral Resources Program (2003) / Chapter Skim
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3 The 1996 National Research Council Review of the USGS Mineral Resource Surveys Program and the USGS Response
3 The 1996 National Research Council Review of the USGS Mineral Resource Surveys Program and the USGS Response
Pages 51-78
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From page 51... ...
Evaluate the plan of the Mineral Resource Surveys Program (MRSP) in terms of the nation's long-term needs for minerals research and information; the completeness and balance of the program; and the scientific significance, credibility, and relevance of the overall program.
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From page 52... ...
The 1996 committee was aware that, to be useful, specific recommendations on changes to the plan would need to be supplemented with a broader view of the program. For example, the 1996 committee considered the long-term view of mineral resources investigations and their importance
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From page 53... ...
planning, prioritization, and performance. The current committee examined the 1996 recommendations and the corresponding responses by the MRP prepared by the program coordinator and her staff (Kathleen Johnson, USGS, personal communication, 2002~.
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From page 54... ...
Support land management and the nation. To achieve its vision and mission, the MRP has developed a set of scientific goals and operational objectives (see Sidebar 2.1 and Sidebar 3.1~.
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From page 55... ...
The committee believes that the lack of clarity in organization and goals adversely affects the MRP's ability to plan and communicate the value of its work to others. The vision, mission, operational objectives, and goals themselves are confusing and do not provide the guiding light they should for the program.
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From page 56... ...
With respect to collaboration with users, the 1996 NRC report expresses the committee's doubts on whether the MRSP understood the needs of its clients or how its information was being used. On the other hand, the 1996 committee also determined that land management agencies did not understand the true value of resource assessment provided by the program.
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From page 57... ...
The Abandoned Mine Lands Initiative, whose goal is to develop a watershed-based approach for cost-effective cleanup of legacy mining activities, is another successful collaborative effort with the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and other land management agencies (USGS, l999c)
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From page 58... ...
However, there is still some need for improvement in communication and co1/~1/laboration with some users. Maintaining and Increasing Core Competence The third general recommendation states: "The MRSP should place more emphasis on maintaining and continuing to develop its core competence in mineral deposits research and minerals-related environmental research in order to anticipate and respond to national needs for mineral resource information" (NRC, 1996~.
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From page 59... ...
Possible criteria that could be used to determine whether core competency is being maintained include the number of projects per year categorized as mineral deposits research, the number of publications per year in refereed journals and professional papers, and the breakdown of staff per year by technical background (e.g., number of Ph.D.s)
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From page 60... ...
, it must build new core competence in selected new disciplines that address important issues the organization and its stakeholders think should be addressed. Planning, Prioritization, and Performance The fourth and final general recommendation states: "The MRSP and its plan should place greater emphasis on improving mechanisms and procedures for comprehensive planning, setting priorities, and evaluating and enhancing performance, particularly through external reviews or advisory panels.
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From page 61... ...
The 1996 committee believed that employee exchanges would have many benefits, such as helping MRSP staff learn more about users' needs, providing an opportunity for other agencies to learn more about the uses and limitations of MRSP information, and supplementing MRSP employee expertise.
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From page 62... ...
, and over time the involvement of stakeholders in program planning is limited. Some MRP staff at the team level indicated that the program planning process is not well understood and expressed concern that there appears to be no overarching plan.
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From page 63... ...
1996 NRC Review of Mineral Resource Surveys Program 63 ......................................
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From page 64... ...
These documents, which do not reiterate the five-year plan, provide an opportunity for the USGS science leaders to collaborate on high-level strategic science opportunities, revise annual goals of the five-year plans because of funding changes or congressional mandates, and initiate development of new out-year or longterm science initiatives. Annual project planning and decisions are to be
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From page 65... ...
However, based on discussions committee members had with MRP staff, it appears that the new procedures are not working. In addition, the committee notes with alarm that the new procedures, even if implemented flawlessly, appear to have no aspect of external review.
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From page 66... ...
a program that adheres to predefined USGS and MRP operational objectives set out in the f~ve-year plan and addresses the highest-priority research areas and national needs (Kathleen Johnson, USGS, personal communication, 2002~. In discussions with MRP stakeholders and staff at the team level committee members heard that the project development and selection process is haphazard.
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From page 67... ...
The committee is concerned that if there is too little input from the user community in project development, this could lead to projects producing products for which there is no customer or user. The lack of external review of new project proposals and systematic external reviews of ongoing multiyear projects may lead to erosion of technical credibility of MRP science and scientists.
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From page 68... ...
Assessment Subprogram Estimates of the quantity of undiscovered mineral resources expected to occur within a designated area were developed in the assessment subprogram. The 1996 NRC report notes that assessments are useful for land management decisions, stimulation of the domestic economy, understanding of strategic and critical minerals, providing data for consideration of environmental impacts, and ensuring an adequate domestic supply.
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From page 69... ...
1996 NRC Review of Mineral Resource Surveys Program TABLE 3.2 1996 Mineral Resource Surveys Program Organization 69 Subprograms Components Elements Assessments Resource and environmental National and regional asassessments sessments, requested and special-purpose assessments Assessment protocols and Assessment protocols, as methods sessment methods Mitigation studies Geochemical backgrounds Background and baseline and baselines mapping, discrimination between natural and mining related distributions Studies in support of reme diation Environmental behavior of mineral deposits Resource Investigations Mineral resources frontiers Mineral deposits studies Cooperative industry and international investigations Information and Technology Databases and information Transfer analysis Information and technology transfer Processes affecting remediation, field-oriented monitoring techniques Geoenvironmental models of mineral deposits, release transport, and fixation of metals Unconventional deposit types, regional frontier investigations Ore-forming processes, mineral deposits models Cooperative industry investigations, cooperative international investigations Database development and management, information analysis, mineral resource specialists Minerals information offices, Center for Environmental Geochemistry and Geophysics, international centers, training SOURCE: Modified from USGS (1995)
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From page 70... ...
Specific Recommendation B "The MRSP should rigorously document the specific contributions and impacts of past resource assessments related to land-management decisions. The panel strongly recommends that the MRSP publish a single document, written for the lay audience, which documents, explains, and discusses the usefulness of mineral resource assessments and their applications in land management" (NRC, 1996~.
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From page 71... ...
Specific Recommendation C "Mineral resource assessments should be performed more efficiently, and the cost-savings should be directed to more fundamental investigations in other subprograms of the MRSP" (NRC, 1996~. The MRP approach to implementing this recommendation has been to terminate mineral resource assessments for individual national forests or BLM resource areas (Kathleen Johnson, USGS, personal communication, 2002~.
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From page 72... ...
Specific Recommendation D "Merge two components of the Mitigation Studies Subprogram, namely, (1) Studies in Support of Remediation, and (2)
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From page 73... ...
staff to address such issues as chemical releases from mineral deposits, acid drainage prediction, and metal leaching" (NRC, 1996~. The MRP works with WRD staff on a variety of projects including abandoned mine lands.
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From page 74... ...
Issues associated with core competence were discussed under general recommendation 3 above. Specific Recommendation K "Continue basic research conducted under two components in the Resource Investigations Subprogram Mineral-Resource Frontiers and Mineral-Deposit Studies such as low-temperature chemistry of waterrock interaction, timing of ore-forming processes, origin of giant ore deposits, and ore deposit evolution as related to continental reconstruction" (NRC, 1996~.
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From page 75... ...
, and a newly established project looking at secular variation and ore deposit formation (beginning fiscal year 2003~. Specific Recommendation L "Evaluate the feasibility of replacing the Cooperative Industry and International Investigations element with a CRADA system, whereby industrial and foreign government users would provide funding toward needed MRSP research" (NRC, 1996~.
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From page 76... ...
Technology now enables the MRP to serve spatial data through a single Website. All MRP databases are required to be Federal Geographic Data Committee compliant (Kathleen Johnson, USGS, personal communication, 2002~.
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From page 77... ...
In addition, the committee is concerned about the lack of clear channels of responsibility, fragmentation of staff effort, failure to demonstrate satisfactory accomplishments or significance of outcomes of work, lack of established performance goals, lack of evidence that core competencies are in place, and an inability on the part of MRP leadership to answer basic questions on staffing and productivity. The committee conc1/~des that the MRP wow/ benefit significant1/ly by having a highly focused centra1/t organization, which is objective driven and possesses c1/tear 1/tines of responsibility for each project.
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From page 78... ...
78 Future Challenges for the USGS's Mineral Resources Program interdisciplinary training excellence, such as from National Science Foundation-funded Integrative Graduate Education Research and Traineeship programs.
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