Purpose

The purpose of this policy is to establish procedures and requirements for interpretation and use of technical data collected by the Ten Towns Great Swamp Watershed Management Committee.

Background

The Ten Towns Great Swamp Watershed Management Committee is a 501(c)(3) organization formed by intermunicipal agreement among the ten municipalities that have land within the Great Swamp watershed.  The Committee receives funding through contributions from the governing bodies of the participating municipalities, Morris and Somerset Counties and from private, state and federal grants or programs.

General Procedures

All data collected under projects funded or managed by the Ten Towns Committee become the property of the Committee, but the Committee operates by principle and by law under full public disclosure.  It is the intent of the Committee to make all raw data and descriptions of the collection and analytic procedures publicly available through published reports and documents, through archives at libraries, through the Committee’s website and through direct request.

Among the initiatives of the Ten Towns Committee, the major source of technical data is from the monitoring of streams, ponds and other ecosystems within the Great Swamp watershed.  Most of the data collection is conducted by professional consultants and their staff members.  All professional consultants have a primary contractual responsibility to certify the collection procedures and laboratory analyses of the data and to deliver the data to the Ten Towns Committee in a timely manner.  The consultants have a secondary contractual responsibility to provide regular summaries and interpretations of the data collected.  The Ten Towns Committee also has a responsibility for analysis and interpretation of these data.  Upon approval of the Ten Towns Executive Committee, these analyses and interpretations will also be in the public domain, clearly identified as interpreted data with notations of statistical sources for any questions that might arise.  The identity of the primary statistician will “follow” the graphs and interpretations in any publications.

Proprietary Information

All data collected from the Ten Towns water quality monitoring program or other activities is the proprietary information of the Committee.  Accordingly, all published reports or other documents produced by the Committee shall include one or both of the following statements:

• Copyright 200- Ten Towns Committee
• The data compiled herein was collected and prepared by the Ten Towns Committee.  Any other use, interpretation or analysis by any other individual or organization is not an opinion or representation of the Committee.

Use of Ten Towns Data

The Ten Towns Committee also recognizes the desire of other entities to undertake analyses and interpretations of these data.  These interpretations may be published and distributed with the following notation: “The data used herein was collected and prepared by the Ten Towns Committee.  The present use, interpretation or analysis of this data is not an opinion or representation of the Ten Towns Committee.”