Putting local geographic and street maps online would help emergency responders move faster, and would make it easier for municipalities to plan for the future.

That's why townships and boroughs are asking Carbon County to make the information accessible via the Internet.The move came to light when Towamensing Township sent a letter to Lansford Borough Mayor Ron Hood.In the letter, Supervisors Chairman Penny Kleintop asked the borough to join Towamensing in its quest to persuade the county to provide online GIS/mapping."Towamensing Township would like for your municipality to show your support by asking the Carbon County commissioners to make the county GIS (Geographic Information Services) system and these records available online to each municipality. Having password-protected online access to county records would greatly increase the efficiency of each municipality's ability to respond more readily to local issues," she wrote.Kleintop did return a telephone call seeking more information.Online GIS/mapping for local municipalities is an idea whose time has come, said Carbon County Commissioners Chairman Wayne Nothstein."We've heard from several local communities," he said. "This is something we are working on. We would have to upgrade our computer system and website and mapping systems to make that available, so it's a work in progress."The benefits, Nothstein said, are endless.For example, online GIS/mapping would allow firefighters to know the locations of rural water sources, such as lakes or ponds. It would allow them to see where water lines run in a borough, the size of those lines, and the location of hydrants.The online maps would be "layered" to include different information, he said.Nothstein said the initial costs of putting the records online would include the software upgrades, and then obtaining the information that would be shown.Carbon County GIS Coordinator Larry Stawiarski believes making the information accessible online via the county's website is a good plan."The municipalities would benefit immensely," he said. "It is directed to the municipalities that don't have the funds to purchase the software outright. They could use it in their daily operations in finding out property ownership, road work planning, zoning" and other tasks.Stawiarski said the information would at first "be on a secure server, only for municipality use. After we get our feet wet, then possibly for the public."Schuylkill County GIS Coordinator Susan A. Smith said her county offers an "online Parcel Locator (www.co.schuylkill.pa.us/parcelviewer), which, indicative of its name, allows the end user to view and search, in part, the county-wide parcels and associated assessment information.""In addition, we about 1 years ago, we also added the ability to view the zoning for the 33 municipalities where the county governs the zoning," she said."We do not, however, at this time, provide an online GIS solution specific to the needs of the municipalities and other data (such as water sources and water lines). We do, however, through a sharing agreement, share data with the municipalities at no cost. We often receive requests for this data for municipal projects such as updates to a Comprehensive Plan, and Act 537 plans."Smith said Schuylkill is "in the process of updating the versions of the software that we use for the Parcel Viewer, and one of the benefits of that will be the ability to share more efficiently data via the web."