# Presentation: 910495

## A reformatted text-only version of the brochure 

## Troubled Waters

**Troubled Waters**

- Every day huge shipments move through major ports
- Throughout the U.S.—shipments such as time-critical
- container cargoes through the port of Seattle, as
- shown here, and vital petroleum supplies through east
- coast ports.  NOAA recently withdrew its tide and tidal
- current charts from the port of New York and new
- Jersey because they had become seriously outdated and
- misleading.

- The S.S. Normandie arriving in New
- York harbor circa 1936.  In those days,
- the average steamship was 460 feet
- long and 63 feet wide, with a draft of
- 26 feet.  Today, modern ships are over
- 900 feet long and 100 feet wide, and
- have drafts of up to 60 feet.  Their
- normal clearance from the bottom is
- often as small as 2 feet.

- Port of Seattle

- Library  of Congress

-      Our nation’s waters may not be as safe as most Americans think they are.  In and
- surrounding many of our busiest ports, uncharted wrecks and obstructions silently wait
- to be discovered by hapless mariners.  U.S. maritime laws and international agreements
- require our government to provide charts and related information “adequate to ensure
- safe navigation in U.S. waters.”  Yet U.S. coastal waters have never been completely
- surveyed, and about 60 percent of NOAA’s nautical charts are based on pre-1940 data
- collected with obsolete technologies.  Tidal predictions for many locations are also
- unreliable:  two-thirds are based on data over forty years old, another 10 percent are over
- sixty years old, and a few even date from the turn of the century.  And because dredging
- and filling change circulation patterns, even recently published data for some of our major
- ports are outdated.

##      Compounding these navigational hazards is the rapid, widespread growth of traffic

- on U.S. waters.  Waterborne commerce has tripled since 1947, and the U.S. Department
- of Transportation projects that it will triple again over the next three decades.  The
- number of recreational boaters has nearly doubled since 1970, crowding already over-
- flowing harbors.  Economics of scale have driven the shipping industry toward investing
- in larger ships, and they’re carrying more oil and hazardous materials than ever before.
-      These factors and others—most notably, human error—contribute to nearly 3,500
- commercial shipping accidents every year in U.S. waters, and 6,400 recreational
- boating accidents.
-      NOAA is the only producer of nautical charts for U.S. waters, although many other
- organizations reproduce these charts.  NOAA charts are mandatory aboard all ships
- larger than 1,600 tons and are expected to be accurate and complete.  The recent groundings
- of the *Queen Elizabeth 2* in Vineyard Sound, Massachusetts, and the *Glacier Bay *in
- Cook Inlet, Alaska, have resulted in lawsuits against NOAA challenging its charts and
- survey methods.
-      Under the current system, NOAA is barely treading water.  Groundings, collisions, and
- spills are damaging and polluting our coastal environments, the backlogs of requests for
- new surveys and charts are growing relentlessly, and NOAA’s charting budgets are steadly
- eroding.  As the steward of safety on our nation’s waters, NOAA must thoroughly
- modernize its navigational services to safeguard lives, preserve the environment, and
- enhance the growth of commerce at sea.

## The Risky Business of Maritime Commerce

-      Although maritime accidents aren’t as frequent as accidents on our roads, when they do
- happen, their toll is substantial:  loss of lives and cargo, damage to species and sensitive
- ecosystems, shutdowns of ports and fisheries, rising insurance premiums and costly public
- relations to repair tarnished corporate images.  Below are some examples of groundings
- in which the adequacy of charts, tide tables, or current tables was at issue.

- On March 24, 1989, heading out from the port of Valdez,
- the EXXON Valdez left the channel and struck
- Bligh Reef, spilling 11 million gallons of crude oil
- into Prince William Sound.

- “From 1980 to 1988, tankers
- in the United States were
- involved in 468 groundings,
- 371 collisions, 97 rammings,
- 55 fires and explosions, and
- 95 deaths.”

*--Natural Resources*
*   **Defense Council,*
-    *No Safe Harbor*

## Ship

- When

- Where

- Damages

*Queen Elizabeth 2*
- (passenger liner)
*American Trader*
- (tanker)
*Hyundai 12*
- (cargo vessel)
*Northumberland*
- (fishing vessel)
*Glacier Bay*
- (tanker)

- 1992
- 1990
- 1991
- 1989
- 1987

- Vineyard Sound, MA
- Huntington Beach, CA
- Twelve Fathom Straits, AK
- Sabine Pass, TX
- Cook Inlet, AK

- $45 million,
- litigation pending
- $30 million,
- litigation pending
- $994,000,
- litigation pending
- 11 fishermen dead
- $50 million,
- litigation pending

##      Eighty percent of the nation’s top ten ports need extensive resurveying.  For example,

- in Galveston Bay, which hasn’t been surveyed since 1937, large volumes of petrochemicals
- and coal products were spilled in the 1,240 groundings that occurred there between 1986
- and 1991.  Most of the groundings were caused by adverse tide and wind conditions.
- (NOAA’s tide and tidal current tables for the Bay may be off by as much as two hours.)

- Lower Mississippi, LA*
- Houston/Texas City.Galveston, TX
- New York and New Jersey
- Delaware Bay and River
- Valdez, AK
- Long Beach/Los Angeles, CA
- Norfolk/Newport News, VA
- Beaumont/Port Arthur, TX
- Corpus Christi, TX
- Tampa, FL

- 409
- 193
- 115
- 108
- 94
- 92
- 77
- 66
- 61
- 46

-  70
- 522
- 112
- 256
-   0
- 15
- 15
- 238
-   0
-  70

**Top Ten**
**U.S. Ports**

**        ****1992**
**     ****Commerce**
- (millions of tons)

**Critical Survey Needs:**
**Ports and Approaches**
-      (square miles)

- *includes ports along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and the Gulf of Mexico

## The Wave of the Future

- entails thousands of hours of manual labor; double
- checking information, and manually engraving color
- separations.  “New” charts roll of the press as long
- as ten months after compilation, during which many
- changes may have taken place in the area charted.

*Electronic Navigation*

**The Wave of the Future**

-      Rapid advances in navigation technologies
- have opened a window of opportunity for
- promoting the sustainable economic growth
- of U.S. maritime trade and ensuring the
- protection of mariners and coastal ecosystems.
- State-of-the-art chart production, surveying,
- and navigational technologies can be
- integrated to create highly efficient, reliable
- navigational systems that promise to
- significantly reduce the risk of accidents
- while increasing the profitability of maritime
- commerce.  Prototypes of these electronic
- systems are being used today on military,
- commercial, and recreational vessels.

## Automated Nautical Charts

**Automated Nautical Charts**

-       The increasing use of advanced technologies for navigation and piloting is creating
- a growing demand for digital nautical charts.  NOAA is developing and testing a second-
- generation automated nautical charting system to enable production of its paper charts
- from a centralized digital nautical data base.

-      Once the master data base is loaded, the
- automated system will allow for new editions
- of nautical charts and products to be issued
- more efficiently. It will enable NOAA to
- provide digital navigation products that can
- be customized with electronic chart systems.
- This flexibility will be integral to the success
- of NOAA’s modernization efforts.

-      International regulations and U.S. law require commercial vessels over 1,600 tons to
- carry complete official charts or their approved equivalents.  NOAA and the U.S.
- Coast Guard are closely working with the International Hydrographic Organization,
- the International Maritime Organization and other maritime nations to develop
- international performance standards for exchanging digital data.  These standards will
- greatly facilitate the transition from paper charts to electronic chart systems.

## State-of-the-Art Survey Technologies

- Before 1930, oceanographers surveyed
- the ocean floor by throwing a knotted
- lead line over the side of the ship,
- recording the measured depth, and
- then taking another measurement a few
- meters farther along. Although this
- technology was surprisingly accurate,
- it was extremely time consuming and
- missed large and potentially hazardous
- areas of the ocean floor.  About 60
- percent of NOAA’s current nautical
- charts are based on data collected with
- a lead line or primitive echo sounders.

-      The value of any chart—either digital or paper—lies
- in the accuracy of its information.  Part of NOAA’s
- mission is to chart and update some 95,000 miles of
- coastline and 3.5 million square nautical miles of oceans.
- Every year NOAA receives hundreds of  requests for
- surveys of perceived navigational hazards.  As the number
- of NOAA survey vessels and days at sea has declined
- because of budgetary constraints, the backlog of survey
- requests has grown to more than 1,000 since 1984, driving
- home the need for highly cost-effective, efficient, and
- accurate surveying technologies.
-      Using state-of-the-art technologies, NOAA is finding
- significant navigational hazards in waters previously
- surveyed with conventional methods.  For example, in

- April 1994, the NOAA ship RUDE, using a prototype shallow-water multibeam echo sounder, discovered an uncharted fifteen-foot shoal near the entrance to New Bedford harbor, where the current chart shows a depth of twenty-seven feet.  In June 1994, the NOAA ship WHITING found nine uncharted wrecks and obstructions in Delaware Bay’s
- proposed traffic-separation lanes.  And in June 1995, a survey done for NOAA discovered
- an obstruction in the shipping lanes of Long Island Sound rising from charted depths of
- nearly sixty feet to just eighteen feet below the surface.

## Differential Global Positioning System

- Using a side-scan sonar, the NOAA ship
- WHITING recently detected  thirteen
- dangerous rocks (circled) in Nantucket
- Sound that were previously missed by
- less accurate survey methods.  The
- Sound is heavily trafficked by recreational
- boaters, large passenger ferries,
- commercial fishing boats and fuel  oil barges
- supplying Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.

-      For centuries, determining a vessel’s precise posi-
- tion has been a major challenge for surveyors and
- navigators.  Using the old sextant and triangulation
- techniques, by the time a navigator fixed a plot on a
- chart, the vessel may have sailed several minutes
- beyond the plotted position.  At sea, knowing where
- you *were *is not good enough, particularly in adverse
- weather conditions, when visibility is limited.
-      This problem was overcome in 1993, when the
- Global Positioning System (GPS) became operational.
- Although initially designed for military use, GPS has
- proven invaluable for civil use as well.  A far cry from
- traditional plotting methods, GPS satellites beam
- their signals from a fixed point on shore—such as a
- U.S. Coast Guard radio beacon—enable a ship to
- pinpoint its location within three to five meters.  By
- 1996, the majority of U.S. waters should have
- differential GPS coverage.  NOAA is working closely
- with the U.S. Coast Guard to ensure that the differen-
- tial GPS locations are accurately connected to charts
- through the National Spatial Reference System.

## Multibeam echo

- sounders collect wide
- swaths of precise depth
- data.  (2) Side-scan sonar
- detects hazards by producing
- images of strips of the sea
- floor.  (3) Airborne laser
- systems can provide an
- accurate, cost-effective
- alternative to sonar surveys
- in many areas.  (4) Satellite
- signals are received simul-
- taneously at the survey

- vessel and helicopter and a known point on shore.  (5) Corrections to the satellite signals
- are instantaneously transmitted from shore to the survey vessel and helicopter, providing
- accurate positioning within three to five meters.

## Real-Time Tide and Current Systems

- Mechanical tidal gauges were first used in
- the U.S. in the 1850’s.  This old wooden station,
- used in 1897 in Fort Hamilton, NY, is one of
- the earliest examples of a real-time, tide-
- measuring mechanism.  On entering or leaving
- the port, mariners would view this station
- through binoculars to check the water level.

- Half of the tidal stations in the
- country today are based on a system
- that requires going to the station and
- physically collecting tidal measure-
- ments recorded every six minutes on
- tape.  The data are used to develop
- tidal datums and tidal prediction
- tables for the area.

-      A port’s maritime mission is to maximize both the
- efficient movement of ocean-borne cargo and the safety
- of the vessels visiting its shores.  Whether channels are
- dredged through soft sediment or carved in granite,
- deepening or widening them is very difficult and costly.
- As the average size of today’s commercial ships continues
- to grow, the margins between their bottoms and the floors

- of the channels they sail through are shrinking.  Maneuverability is increasingly restricted,
- raising the risk of oil spills and accidents involving other hazardous materials.
-      The growing unacceptability of this risk can be seen in today’s soaring cleanup and liti-
- gation costs.  Yet, accompanying the demand for enhanced environmental protection is
- industry’s shift to “just-in-time” manufacturing, along with strong consumer demand for
- competitive prices.  Because of uncertainty about tides and currents, large commercial
- carriers and tankers are delayed at ports and offshore as they wait for optimal transit conditions.

## 1

**2**

**4**

**3**

**         ****Keeping**
**Current With**
**     ****Real-Time**
** ****Technologies**

- Physical Oceanographic Real-
- Time Systems allow ships to
- access real-time nautical data
- from a variety of instruments
- at several locations in ports and
- harbors.  (1) The Acoustic Dop-
- pler Current Profiler (ADCP)
- measures the speed and direction
- of the current at various depths
- between the surface of the water
- and the sea floor.  (2) A receiver
- near the ADCP transmits the
- information to a central receiving

- station, which may be many miles away.  (3) NOAA water-level stations throughout the area
- automatically relay to computers at the central receiving station information on water levels,
- winds, and water temperatures.  (4) The central receiving station makes this information avail-
- able to the public via telephone using a voice data system, via PC/modem dial-up systems, and
- via Internet.  The National Weather Service also accesses this information for broadcast over
- NOAA Weather Radio.

##      With accurate, real-time information and modern forecasts, newer, deeper-draft ships can

- predicted tide and current information is available by
- telephone or computer. This data plot from Baltimore
- Harbor shows the great disparity between the
- predicted astronomical tides (blue), which do not
- include the effects of winds and river flows, and the
- actual tides (red), which can be predicted by
- modern techniques.

-      With accurate, real-time information and modern forecasts, newer, deeper-draft ships can
- safely adjust loads to use the available draft margins.  Physical Oceanographic Real-Time
- Systems (PORTS) allow ships—berthed or under way—to access real-time data from a
- variety of instruments that measure currents, winds, and waves, along with water levels (tides),
- depths, temperatures, and salinity.  These data enable much more accurate tide and current
- predictions, reducing travel delays and increasing traffic-handling capabilities.  They are also
- instrumental in preventing and responding to spills of hazardous materials and oil, predicting
- coastal floods, and conducting scientific research.  The success of PORTS in Tampa Bay, FL,
- is fueling support for the establishment of these systems at other ports around the country.

## Electronic Chart Systems

- This close-up of an electronic
- chart system displays precise
- information on the ship’s
- position, course, speed, draft,
- soundings, way points, and
- warning system.  The circles
- show the ship’s distance from
- various fixed points and
- other vessels.  The dotted red
- line shows the ship’s planned
- route; the solid white line, the
- actual course taken; and the
- dotted yellow line, the pro-
- jected course of the ship if it
- doesn’t turn at the specified
- point.

-      Electronic chart systems will
- radically change the face of maritime
- navigation.  They can accurately
- display a vessel’s real-time location,
- automatically update that information
- every one to two seconds, and
- distinguish among floating aids to navigation, vessels,
- and points of land.  Radar images can be superimposed
- on thse “smart charts,” along with data from real-time tide,
- current, and marine weather-forecasting systems.  And by
- analyzing a vessel’s course and speed and the nautical chart
- data, these systems can instantaneously detect hazards,
- estimate how long it would take torun into them, and automatically sound an alarm.
-      The simplest electronic chart system can be run on an inexpensive laptop computer,
- while fully functional systems require more sophisticated computer interfaces and displays.
- The former are already being used by yachtsmen and small fishing vessels, and the latter
- by large ships, such as tankers, freighters, and ferries.

- Although the simplest electronic chart systems don’t support all the functions
- of their more sophisticated counterparts, they meet the safety needs of many
- small vessels and can cost less than a thousand dollars.

## A joint U.S.—Canadian study of West

- since the advent of radar, electronic charts can
- provide mariners with all the information they
- need for safe and efficientnavigation.  This
- electronic system aboard the Clipper Cruise
- Lines’ NANTUCKET CLIPPER” gives the
- captain both a broad overview and detailed
- close-ups of navigational aids and hazards in the
- surrounding area.

- Coast shipping completed in July 1990
- found that electronic chart systems
- could reduce the total number of acci-
- dents by 15-19 percent.  Recent analysis
- by the Marine Policy Center in Woods

- Hole, MA,  produced similar estimates of preventable accidents and indicated that using
- electronic charts could avert losses averaging $3 million a day.
-      The U.S. Coast Guard and NOAA are participating in a joint government—industry pro-
- ject to demonstrate, test, and evaluate the Electronic Chart Display and Information System
- (ECDIS).  By dramatically increasing the speed, ease, and accuracy of performing navi-
- gational tasks and help navigators concentrate on avoiding collisions and groundings.
-      Today’s most sophisticated systems incorporate artificial intelligence.  A prototype system
- is in use in tanker operations on the West Coast.  If no one aboard responds to the automatic
- alarm built into the electronic chart system, the system gives the ship a rudder command and
- the ship automatically turns away from the hazard.

## “If an electronic charting system

- underwater rock in Glacier Bay.  Although the 175 passengers and crew
- members escaped injury, and the pristine environment of Glacier Bay
- National Park remained unspoiled, the ship’s hull was ruptured in
- several places, with damages amounting to about $3 million.  The
- National Transportation Safety Board found that the accident’s probable

- causes were failure to plot the ship’s courses and positions and inadequate oversight of the ship’s navigation.  It noted
- that an electronic chart system would reduce the risk of groundings by providing watch officers a continuous, accurate
- display of their position and by giving them “more time and better information for projecting any proposed maneuver
- and judging its consequences.”  The repaired *Yorktown Clipper *now has an electronic chart system, even though full
- approval and availability of certified digital data are yet to come.

- In September 1993, in a dense fog near Mobile, Alabama, the tug Mauville and its
- barge rammed into a railroad bridge, causing the subsequent derailment of an
- Amtrack train.  Of the 210 passengers, 47 were killed and numerous others were
- injured.

**“****If an electronic charting system**
**and the DGPS (differential global**
**positioning system) had been **
**available and installed on inland**
**towing vessels such as the **
**Mauvilla, the accident at the**
**Big Bayou Canot railroad**
**bridge could have been avoided.”**
*--National Transportation Safety*
*   **Board*

## Potential Losses of Natural Resources From Spills of Hazardous

- Commodities

- S.C.Delaney/U.S.EPA

-      Every day ships carry hazardous
- commodities into U.S. ports.  A spill
- the size of the *Exxon Valdez* spill,
- shown along the East and West Coasts
- of the United States, would have
- devastating consequences for our
- nation’s marine sanctuaries and estuarine
- reserves—not to mention the millions of
- tourist dollars lost from beach closings.

## The table that follows estimates (in 1990

- dollars) damages from spills of hazardous
- cargo as they relate to fourteen categories
- of fish, sea birds, and marine mammals.
- It accounts for lost revenue from the closing
- of shellfish beds, decreases in the size and
- productivity of fisheries, changes in fish
- market prices, and effects on seafood pro-
- cessors and other supporting businesses.

## Zone

**Commodity**

**Spill Size**

**Small**

**Catastrophic**

- (8,000 gal.)

- (4,000,000 gal.)

- Mobile, AL
- Anchorage/Cook Inlet, AK
- San Francisco, CA
- Tampa, FL
- Chesapeake North/Baltimore, MD
- Wilmington, NC
- Philadelphia/Delaware Bay, PA
- Providence, RI
- Houston/Galveston, TX
- Puget Sound, WA

-   Gasoline
-     Crude
-   Gasoline
- #1 Fuel Oil
-   Gasoline
-   Alcohol
- #6 Fuel Oil
-   Gasoline
-    Alcohol
-   Gasoline

-   $435,000
-     432,000
-     134,000
-     153,000
-       16,000
-     841,000
-     127,000
-       84,000
- 10,339,000
-       26,000

- $1,818,032,000
-        20,920,000
-      232,032,000
-        47,486,000
-       764,636,000
-       258,592,000
-         63,712,000
-       459,760,000
-    1,055,704,000
-         75,984,000

*Sources:  Alaska Fish and Game, vol.21, no.4, U.S. Coast Guard,* Port Needs Study.

## In the Race for Modernization

**In the Race for Modernization**

*     *Historically, the shipping industry and the military have been the primary users of
- NOAA’s navigational services.  Over the years, their demand for accurate, reliable navi-
- gational information and services has grown steadily with the nation’s economic and
- military strength.  Many other users – commercial fishermen, tug’ and barge operators,
- recreational boaters, the survey community, and coastal zone managers, engineers, and
- scientist – have benefited as well, along with society at large.
-      NOAA’s modernization program is essential to the efficient provision of today’s and
- tomorrow’s navigational services.  All of these groups will be winners in safer, more
- predictable waters.*    *

**Commercial Shipping**

*     *The health of maritime commerce is critical to the health of the U.S. economy.  More
- than 98 percent of our nation’s foreign trade by weight is carried by sea.  In 1990, 850
- million tons of cargo valued at $500 billion moved through our waterways and in 1991 the
- commercial shipping industry supported 1.5 million jobs, provided personal income of
- $52 billion, and generated $14 billion in federal taxes and $5.3 billion in state and local
- taxes.  While foreign trade accounts for more than 20 percent of our national’s gross
- domestic product today, it is expected to climb to 30 percent by the year 2000.

##      Efficiency and safety dictate the bottom line of today’s intensely competitive shipping

- industry.  Shipping delays caused by taking longer routes around poorly charted areas or
- waiting for confirmation of uncertain tides can cost the industry as much as $3,000 an
- hour.  Inches matter.  The coal industry, for example, can be seriously damaged if ships
- can’t be fully loaded or if smaller vessels have to be used.  And the cleanup and environ-
- mental costs of an oil spill continue to rise.
-      The potential for environmental damage from future oil spills is significant, given that
- petroleum and petroleum-related products account for over half of the total ton-miles of
- all waterborne commodities, and our nation’s dependence on imported oil continues to
- grow.  Largly in response to the *EXXON Valdez *grounding, Congress enacted the Oil
- Spill Prevention Act in 1990, requiring all oil tankers to have double hulls by 2015.  The
- incremental cost of this retrofitting is estimated to be $10-$20 billion.  Although double
- hulls should reduce the volume of spills by about 70 percent, they won’t prevent
- accidents and about 30 percent of the oil carried by the ships in those accidents will still
- escape into our waters.
-      Analysis of the *Valdez *voyage has shown four distinct points at which an alarm would
- have sounded if an electronic chart system had been in use.  When compared to EXXON’s
- estimated $3 billion cleanup cost, the $100,000 price tag for the most sophisticated
- electronic chart system (or even the $160 million cost for modernizing NOAA’s navi-
- gational services) might be viewed as a mere drop in the ocean.

## “...had it (ECDIS) been installed on

**Real-Time Technologies**

- The international trend in commercial shipping is toward
- fewer but larger vessels.  With better information about water
- levels, currents, and obstructions, the newer deeper-draft ships
- can enter U.S. harbors and carry more cargo for export.
-      The Association of Maryland Pilots recently raised Baltimore’s
- maximum draft from 39.5 feet to 41 feet—a direct result of the
- pilots’ use of real-time water-level data from NOAA gauges in
- Chesapeake Bay.  Similar impacts have been seen in the
- Delaware River and Bay System, in Portland, Oregon, and in
- Tampa, Florida.  Estimated revenue increases range from
- $36,000 to $288,000 for each additional foot of draft for
- large bulk and container ships.
-      National economic models indicate that if port shoaling or
- uncertainty about water levels added one percent to the cost of
- crude petroleum imports, $3.1 billion would be lost from our
- gross domestic product, alone with 61,000 jobs.

- “***...*****had it (ECDIS) been installed on**
**the *****EXXON Valdez, *****that ill-fated tanker likely would **
**never have run aground.”            **

*--Technology Review, *October 1994

## National Defense

*U.S. Navy*

- The U.S. Navy is committed to outfitting
- the bridges on all of its ships with
- electronic chart systems over the next
- four to five years.

*     *Because of its ongoing need to maintain sea power,
- the U.S. military will be a primary beneficiary of
- NOAA’s modernization program.  Over 40 percent of
- the charts NOAA publishes are purchased by the U.S.
- military.  Charts and data necessary to submarine and
- surface navigation are used by the Navy in training
- exercises and are essential to military preparedness.
- During Operation Desert Storm/Desert Shield, the
- most intensive buildup of American forces in history,
- U.S. ports handled two-thirds of the military cargo.

-      The navigational information the military depends on today is incomplete, and six of
- the Navy’s home ports critically need more accurate and reliable data.  For example,
- Norfolk naval base, the largest naval port in the world, houses a vast fleet of deep-draft
- ships and is a major thoroughfare for large commercial ships and barge traffic.  Numerous
- obstructions throughout the area need investigation, and the port’s sandy, silty bottom is
- constantly changing.  With contemporary surveys, a fully operational real-time marine
- forecasting system, and electronic charts on the bridges of all of its ships, the U.S. Navy
- will be in a far better position to respond quickly and efficiently to military emergencies.

## Commercial Fishing

-      Commercial fishing is one of the most dangerous occupations in the United States.
- Each year an average of 250 fishing vessels are lost along the Atlantic, Gulf, Pacific, and
- Alaskan coasts, and over 100 fisherman lose their lives at sea.  Alarmed by these statistics,
- Congress passed the Commercial Fishing Industry Vessel Safety Act of 1988, including
- a requirement that fishing vessels on the high seas carry nautical charts and a full set of
- navigational equipment.
-      Many fishing accidents are caused by human error and occur in remote areas that are
- poorly charted.  Electronic chart systems with accurate data can help fishermen reduce
- groundings by 80 percent.  Besides making navigation safer for commercial fisherman,

- Commercial fishing is a major national
- industry. In 1992, about 9.6 billion
- pounds of fish, valued at about $3.7
- billion, were landed at U.S. ports.
- Today, commercial fishing operations
- employ over 364,000 people and supply
- thousands of supermarkets,  speciality stores
- and restaurants throughout the country.

- modernizing NOAA’s navigational services will increase
- their operational efficiency by reducing gear damage and
- losses from accidents and will boost their productivity by
- facilitating their search for fishing grounds.
-      Commercial fishermen will also reap benefits from the
- environmental protection that modernized navigation
- affords.  When the *Glacier Bay *grounded in Cook Inlet
- in 1987, spilling 130,000 gallons of oil, the local fishery
- was closed for the entire year, resulting in $50 million in
- damages and lost revenues, and decreases in the size and
- productivity of the fishery.  By making navigation safer

## for commercial shippers, electronic technologies will reduce the risk of spills of oil and

- hazardous materials and thus will protect national fishing grounds and nurseries.

**Recreational Boating and Tourism**

-      Between 1970 and 1993, the number of
- recreational boats owned by Americans nearly
- doubled—from 8.8 million to 16.5 million.  This
- increase in the number of mariners who navigate
- in areas not frequented by commercial shippers
- or the military has heightened the need for
- modern navigational services and new charts.
-      Because recreational boaters have limited
- storage space, they often navigate without
- information and tools critical to their safety.  With
- electronic chart software that can run on laptop
- computers, all the necessary navigational infor-
- mation is available in one easy-to-use, compact
- format that shows shoreside features and
- services.

- Although the number of fatalities from
- recreational boating has decreased over the last
- thirty years, accidents and injuries have steadily
- climbed and the reported property damages
- have increased sevenfold to $35 million.
- Electronic navigational technologies will
- help yachtsmen safeguard their lives and their
- investments.

## Private Value-Added Sectors

-      Products developed by the U.S. government are not copyrighted.  They can be freely
- reproduced or modified to fit particular applications.  About a dozen U.S. companies copy
- NOAA charts and repackage them in a variety of formats for resale.  If NOAA were
- unable to conduct the surveys and construct the charts on which these off-shoots are
- based, these companies wouldn’t have the resources to produce the products they do
- today.
-      The strong demand for modern navigational systems and the clear opportunities for
- exploiting leading-edge technologies have prompted several companies to test the waters.
- The new industries that will result from the continued demand will create skilled jobs,
- personal income and tax revenue.

## Coastal Management and Research

-     The increasing use of geographic information systems by government agencies,  coastal
- managers, engineers, and scientists is fueling the demand for digital data from nautical
- charts and marine-forecasting systems that they can customize to meet their diverse needs.
-      Tidal datums, which define all legal boundaries along coastal areas, are becoming
- essential to all legislators and decision makers for coastal resource development and
- management, transportation, recreation, public works projects and emergency planning
- and evacuation.  By analyzing digital chart data, coastal managers can calculate how

- Photogrammetric mapping of coastlines can provide
- information for managing cleanup activities, characterizing
- benthic communities and marine habitats, measuring
- nearshore topography, assessing environmental damage,
- and delineating shorelines.

- far from the high-tide line real estate developers
- should construct new buildings and accom-
- panying infrastructure to protect them against
- erosion and floods.  Or they can develop maps
- that identify wetlands, local sources of pol-
- lution, and other data critical for the sustained
- vitality of the area’s natural resources.

## Reinventing NOAA’s Navigational Mission

**Reinventing NOAA’s Navigational Mission**

- Steadily decreasing resource levels have forced
- severe cutbacks in NOAA’s navigational services.
- At the present level of effort and using current
- techniques, surveying today’s critical areas
- would take forty years.  NOAA’s modernization
- strategy would more than double productivity,
- with only a 50 percent increase in resources.

##      Over the past decade, NOAA’s resources for performing its basic ongoing mission 

-      Over the past decade, NOAA’s resources for performing its basic ongoing mission
- have been steadily eroding.  As electronic chart systems become standard equipment
- on commercial vessels and as local, national, and international authorities certify their
- use, the demand for NOAA to modernize its navigational services will rise dramatically.
- The challenge for NOAA will be to increase the quantity, quality and speed of delivering
- these services for the same amount of money or less than it is spending today.
-      NOAA has devised a five-year modernization strategy that could achieve this vision
- and at the same time eliminate the backlogs that are inundating its staff.  NOAA’s
- current annual budget for providing navigational services and products is approximately
- $50 million.  Modernization would cost an additional $30 million a year over five years.
- Beyond that point, the efficiencies of a thoroughly electronic operation would kick in,
- and NOAA’s current resource levels should be sufficient to fully respond to future
- demand.
-      Federal funding will constitute a major portion of NOAA’s modernization investment
- portfolio.  NOAA will also explore the potential for sharing costs with other federal,
- state, and local agencies; entering into public-private partnerships; using Cooperative
- Research and Development Agreements; contracting for services; and commercializing
- its products.  In the true spirit of reinventing government, this modernization will pave
- the way for entrepreneurs to transform the business of providing navigational products
- and services.

## NOAA’s Five-Year Modernization Strategy

- Modernize surveying services - $40 M
- Accelerate surveying of areas of critical need around major harbors and their approaches.
- Use state-of-the-art sonar and laser survey technologies and platforms to obtain more
-   extensive coverage with greater detail.
- Ensure the quality of survey data from NOAA ships and a wide range of other sources,
-   including contracts, cooperative projects, and partnerships.

- Modernize nautical charting services - $30 M
- Fully load the automated charting system data base.
- Convert to digital production of paper charts and electronic chart data.
- Accelerate publication of new and revised chart products.

- Modernize marine forecasting services - $30 M
- Develop PORTS capability in ten major U.S. ports.
- Complete modernization of the National Water Level Observation Network with the
-   Next Generation Water Level Measurement System.
- Modernize tidal prediction products.
- Maintain a National Water Level and Coastal Circulation Data Center.

- Modernize survey fleet - $60 M
- Replace the three remaining survey ships.

## Collecting Survey and Real-Time Data

-      State and local coastal resource managers are seeking more complete and more
- current digital data for nautical charts in their areas and for other applications related to
- coastal management.  NOAA has begun to form alliances with these managers to support
- the collection of local navigational and survey data.
-      For example, NOAA recently arranged a partnership with the New York-New Jersey
- Port Authority, the Sandy Hook Pilot’s Association, and the Coast Guard to provide
- real-time observations and forecasting at Bergen Point, the most hazardous turn in the
- New York-New Jersey harbor.  And through cooperative efforts with local interest groups,
- real-time data are now available on the water levels of the Columbia River and the
- Chesapeake and Delaware Canal.  Other ports and shipping lanes can be similarly served
- through arrangements for joint operation and maintenance.
-      NOAA will take advantage of is authority to retain private contractors to conduct
- hydrographic surveys to NOAA specifications.  NOAA will also work closely with the
- U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Navy, and the U.S. Geological Survey to share
- data and to avoid duplication of efforts.  The goal will be to ensure that all of the most
- critical areas in the contiguous United States are surveyed within five years of imple-
- menting the modernization strategy (ten years for Alaska).  At the same time, NOAA
- will maintain an in-house, state-of-the-art capability for collecting hydrographic data
- to enable it to set standards, train personnel, develop and test advanced technology, and
- meet national requirements.

## “The key to successfully responding to these challenges is for

-      To satisfy user demands better and more efficiently, NOAA will explore partnerships
- with private companies that will print, publish, and distribute its nautical charts and
- information products.  By using market forces and creating new business opportunities,
- NOAA will ensure that the public’s needs for navigational products are met efficiently.

- “The key to successfully responding to these challenges is for
- NOAA to focus its nautical charting program activities on the tasks
- associated with building and managing the nautical information data
- base and to seek partnerships with the private sector and other
- federal and state agencies in fulfilling the other components of the
- nautical charting mission:  collection of survey data and product
- dissemination.”  *--National Research Council*

-      Fully developing partnerships for disseminating NOAA’s nautical products will most
- likely require new tools to protect intellectual property rights.  Because NOAA may lack
- the legal authority to license its data, in most cases legislation would have to be enacted
- to encourage the private-sector investments needed to produce new products by giving
- them exclusivity or protection.  NOAA would also need to develop processes for certifying
- data products for navigational uses.  Several possible complementary routes exist within
- this broad approach, including:

## Copyrighting nautical charts.

- Supplying raw digital data to private printing ventures, and collecting royalties or
-   license fees based on privately copyrighted product sales.
- Changing the cost recovery law to allow NOAA to retain the funds recovered from the
-   sale of charts and other products and invest them in program development.
- Obtaining royalties from the dissemination of products developed through Cooperative
-   Research and Development Agreements.

-  NOAA has signed an agreement with BSB
- Electronic Charts to perform cooperative
- research on the development of electronic
- nautical charts, systems, software, and other
- related matters. Shown here is a prototype
- for the raster chart image that BSB expects to
- commercialize upon completion of joint
- NOAA/BSB research and development work.

**Managing the Nautical Information**
**Data Base**

-      The keystone of NOAA’s modernization
- strategy will be the design, construction, and
- maintenance of NOAA’s master nautical data
- base.  With additional resources, this job can be
- completed within five years.  After that point,
- the data base can be maintained with existing
- resource levels by using the automated systems
- now being developed.
-      The data base will support the efficient and
- timely production of new and revised charts

## and data products that are fully consistent with international units, standards, and quality

- levels.  Water-level and current sensors around the nation will be connected through
- networks to a National Water Level and Coastal Circulation Data Center.  This will
- ensure the consistency and quality of data and forecasts that are vital to today’s and
- tomorrow’s marine commerce.

- Digitizing nautical survey data
- for incorporation into the charting
- data base is highly labor intensive.
- To date, only 5 percent of the data
- for NOAA’s suite of 1,000
- nautical charts has been loaded
- into the data base.

## Through Modernization

**Through Modernization**

-      NOAA’s mission to provide navigational services began in 1807, when Thomas
- Jefferson formed the Survey of the Coast.  As technological break-throughs have
- revolutionized marine navigation over the years, NOAA’s strategy for fulfilling this
- mission has simultaneously evolved.
-      While maritime navigation will always be hazardous, new electronic technologies
- promise to help mariners significantly reduce the risk of accidents and spills.  By over-
- hauling America’s marine transportation infrastructure, these technologies will heighten
- the competitiveness of U.S. ports and the shipping industry and will inject new vitality
- into the nation’s economy.  And they will be critical in supporting the environmental

- Photo Inset: American President Lines

## A clean and safe environment, together with

- they work to ensure the safe, sustainable, and efficient development of our coastal
- and ocean resources.

- sustained economic security, are the most
- concrete manifestations of what all Americans
- deserve.  They are the goals of sustainable
- development.

##     This brochure was prepared by the National Ocean Service (NOS), the primary

- federal civilian agency responsible for the observation, measurement, assessment
- and management of the nation’s coastal and ocean areas.  NOS serves as the trustee
- for these resources and provides products and services that protect millions of lives,
- billions of dollars in property, and irreplaceable natural resources.