The recent NGS press release for the conference states:
"Huge benefits are associated with the adoption of the new datums. The new vertical reference system alone is estimated to produce $522 million in annual economic benefits to the nation, with approximately $240 million saved from improved floodplain management."
Seriously? I must be missing something...
Hmmmmmm me to...do they back that claim up with any information??
Unfortunately even these large amounts are usually thought to be not worth consideration by the "powers that be." Small agencies like NGS face extinction by larger entities uninterested in their mission and looking to save the small sums they need to survive.
I have no doubt that the number represents a calculation. Given the costs associated with fixing the existing vertical network (NAVD 88), the costs of dealing with a vertical network that is not actively maintained and whose relationship to the geoid is not as good as it could be, users incur costs trying to get valid NAVD 88 heights using GPS and find checking between NAVD 88 heights problematic and in many areas impossible given the decimation of the benchmark network.
As for the politics, I recollect the old saw:
"A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you're talking real money." Attributed to Illinois Republican Representative Everett Dirksen.
From Wikipedia we have this...
Although often quoted, it seems Dirksen never actually said this. The Dirksen Congressional Research Center made an extensive search when fully 25% of enquiries to them were about the quotation. They could find Dirksen did say "a billion here, a billion there", and things close to that, but not the "pretty soon you're talking real money" part. They had one gentleman report to them he had asked Dirksen about it on an airflight and received the reply: "Oh, I never said that. A newspaper fella misquoted me once, and I thought it sounded so good that I never bothered to deny it."
DMM
Floodplain management? You've got to be kidding me!!!! Imagine the horrible mess about to come......
The OPUS cowboys are going to have fun when they are unable to match the BFEs by two feet......
It's bad enough that they are using it now being a few tenths off.......that's assuming they have a clue even where to measure the HI of their antenna.