With the eye of an eagle and the speed to match, DNR’s scope varies far off the ground and to the atmosphere beyond.
By Miriam Hardyway, DNR Communications
From determining vegetation heights, detecting changes, and even helping someone have a new view of their home, the Photogrammetry team has provided its ariel expertise across Washington since the establishment of the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) in 1957.
The most common responses to the word ‘photogrammetry’ end up being “Photo-what?” People can easily guess it has to do with pictures, but what does grammar have anything to do with natural resources? After some brainstorming, a conclusion was reached; what better way to understand and learn about such a crucial department but to talk with an expert in the field?
Meet Ben Johnson, who has been a Photogrammetrist since 2018.
Ben began working at DNR as a communications intern under the wing of Dena Scroggie, DNR’s Agency Webmaster.
“Dena was my DNR mom and helped me pick up on-call shifts through connections with the wildfire department,” Ben says. “I then shifted into working as an Office Assistant for 7-8 months before being laid off due to someone coming back into the job and essentially snatching it back up. I was extremely bummed about this, but as an HR person was retiring, she contacted me and scooped me up and I was an HR generalist until the Photogrammetry team had a position open.”
Ben explained that the Photogrammetry team was created with DNR and has been capturing data from the air for a very long time. In the beginning -when most of the resource mapping was cartography dependent – the photogrammetry team employed over 30 people. But after paper maps went out of fashion amid the digitization of the 21st Century, the team was slowly whittled down to just four employees.
As it stands now, the unit serves to continue digitizing and preserving the remaining aerial film records through means of archivalization – cataloging vast tubs of sealed giant film rolls that date back all the way to the 1960’s.
The aerial photography helps support DNR’s Wildfire and Forestry divisions, allowing professionals to examine landscapes before and after wildfires and gain deeper insight into fire damage and spread prediction.
Outside of film preservation, Ben explained that the department also works to provide employees and the general public with assistance retrieving information held in their photos and prints.
Just last year, the department received a request to pull a photo that ended up saving millions of dollars.
“There were folks in the area claiming that DNR had built an old road that locals long used as an easement,” Ben explains. “If that had been true, DNR would have had to foot the bill to replace two entire bridges on the route. In the historical photo, one could clearly see that there was engineering and excavation actively preparing to add an extension to the road stretch which locals claimed already existed. So, the plaintiffs got dunked on by a single photo and we saved the state a bunch of money.”
The department prides itself on the public requests that they complete.
“With Tony Aulds, our Senior Photogrammetrist, we’ve worked with Aquatics for a multitude of things,” Ben says. “From distribution around the Puget Sound, flight projects along the coast of Whatcom, and in the Snohomish northern counties, we had infrared aerial photography looking specifically for overgrowths of kelp. The infrared causes the kelp to turn bright red to be easily located and removed.”
After having a few interviews and pleasant discussions with Ben, it was very clear he loves the importance behind the work he does.
“Recently I helped serve a huge PDR to a UW student looking at the Chehalis Creek flood plain,” he said. “With historical records, you can see how the flooding is going to happen, so when comparing between projects flown during past floods, you can project what’s going to happen in the future and see when a place will be dangerous.”
Always working hard on behalf of his team, Ben reached out to us shortly before publication of this piece with one last request:
“If you haven’t finalized for publishing yet,” Ben wrote. “Could you please include a little blurb asking folks to reach out to us if they ever run into aerial photos they don’t know what to do with, or no longer have use for? Those are gold to us! It would be awesome if they let us know at: rms@dnr.wa.gov.”
