Digital Data lands state GIS contract

LONGMONT – Digital Data Services Inc. has been awarded a $98,000 contract from the Colorado Department of Natural Resources to convert historic coal mine drawings to a computerized map format.

Employees in Digital Data Services’ offices in Longmont and Lakewood will create geographic information systems, or GIS, data, using 649 maps of 376 abandoned coal mines. Things like boundaries, outcrops, shafts and underground work areas for eight coal fields in Colorado will be mapped, according to the company.

There’s a possibility that new employees will be hired to help with the project, said Scott Carter, president of Digital Data Services.

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All in all, there are an estimated 23,000 abandoned mine sites in Colorado with a variety of potential environmental and physical hazards, according to Digital Data Services. Once data is converted into the GIS format, miners, engineers and others will be able to plan future development.

“Right now, they don’t know where the mines are at, spatially,” Carter said. “They have hard-copy documents, but once we convert this over, they’ll be able to pull up where things are.”

Digital Data Services handles a variety of clients, doing mapping projects for the oil and gas industries and for environmental and civil engineering projects. The company once put together a demographics map for the Atlanta Falcons football team by plotting ZIP code coordinates of season ticket holders to map where they lived, Carter said.