0001
 1   
 2   NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION
 3   HYDROGRAPHIC SERVICES REVIEW PANEL
 4   
 5   Volume II
 6   
 7   Anchorage, Alaska
 8   August 15, 2006 
 9   
10   Attendees:
11   
12   Voting HSRP Members
13   
14   Jon Dasler
15   Elaine L. Dickinson
16   William Gray
17   Captain Sherri Hickman
18   Dr. Lewis Lapine
19   Adam McBride
20   Captain Andrew McGovern
21   Captain Minas Myrtidis
22   John Oswald
23   Scott Rainey
24   Tom Skinner
25   Rear Admiral Richard West (telephonic)
0002
 1   Larry Whiting
 2   
 3   Non-voting Members
 4   
 5   Captain Andrew Armstrong
 6   Dave Zilkoski
 7   Michael Szabados
 8   
 9   Designated Federal Officer
10   
11   Captain Steven R. Barnum
12   
13   HSRP Decision Maker
14   
15   John H. Dunnigan
16   P R O C E E D I N G S
17    (On record at 8:03 a.m.)
18    MR. RAINEY:  We've got several forms that you had in the 
19   back flap of the three ring binder, there are a couple travel 
20   forms and also in the folder, I also found two other forms in my 
21   folder.  So in the back of the binder in here we need to sign 
22   where they're highlighted and then get these forms back to 
23   Barbara, Steve and Virginia.  
24    I'd like to take just a second and do a quick overview of 
25   where we are today.  Before we start I wanted to again thank our 
0003
 1   sponsors for last night's reception and special thanks to Mr. 
 2   Taylor Morrison who came and showed his artwork and book and 
 3   talked about the coast mappers and -- I came back to the hotel 
 4   room and read it last night and it's just a terrific work, I 
 5   really -- really impressed.  And I just wanted to read the 
 6   opening paragraph of it.  Since the beginning America is 
 7   dependent on commerce to grow into a powerful nation.  
 8   Successful commerce relies on the safe passage of ships in and 
 9   out of harbors.  Almost all things people use everyday have 
10   traveled over water at some time.  Clothes, food, cars and oil 
11   are just a few of the millions of tons of goods that are carried 
12   into U.S. ports.  However, storms, fogs and collisions have 
13   claimed many victims at sea.  Ship captains, passengers and 
14   merchants have always entrusted their lives and precious cargo 
15   to maps of American waterways.  Who has been making these 
16   nautical charts for almost 200 years?  And then if you go 
17   through -- it's just a fantastic work and a really interesting 
18   story and we really appreciate having Taylor with us at the 
19   meeting, made that a special occasion.  So thanks again to the 
20   sponsors for last night, John Oswald and Associates, Tenix, 
21   TerraSond and David Evans and very much appreciate all the help 
22   you guys did to help set up this meeting.
23    I'll turn it over to Captain Barnum here in just a second.  
24   If the public could do us the favor of signing in again.  We 
25   have a public sheet for each day and if you could make a mark if 
0004
 1   you have some public comments that you'd like to make.  That'll 
 2   help us in our scheduling for the meeting.  We took some public 
 3   comments yesterday, we have a panel of some stakeholders from 
 4   Alaska here today and then we have some more opportunity for 
 5   public comment and we very much value your input.  
 6    Just taking a look ahead what we're going to accomplish 
 7   today, we have a couple of presentations and briefings.  Glenn 
 8   Boledovich from NOAA will talk about the reauthorization of the 
 9   Hydrographic Services Improvement Act.  Following Glenn's 
10   presentation we'll resume work on our special report.  I 
11   mentioned that we have an Alaska stakeholder panel, Molly 
12   McCammon from the Alaska Ocean Observing System will moderate 
13   that for us and then Commander Baird will talk to us about the 
14   Hydrographic Survey Priorities Plan and we all had a copy of 
15   that before the meeting and hopefully we'll have some comments 
16   or recommendations for Commander Baird.
17    I talked with Ann and Tom Skinner and we have I think a 
18   good plan and approach for working on the special report.  And 
19   I'll -- what I'll do is I'll talk to about that more in detail, 
20   how I think we can best proceed there when we get to that.  So 
21   I'd like at this point then to turn it over to Captain Steve 
22   Barnum.
23    CAPTAIN BARNUM:  Thank you, Scott.  I'd like to also echo 
24   your appreciation for the reception last night, that was very 
25   nice and certainly to Taylor Morrison for the very fine 
0005
 1   presentation he gave us and the beautiful book that he has done. 
 2    I'd like to -- just to give a quick Hydrographic Surveys 
 3   Review Panel mission overview.  So to remind the panel members 
 4   as well as the members of the public, the mission and the goals 
 5   of the Hydrographic Services Review Panel.  The Hydrographic 
 6   Services Review Panel, HSRP, is governed by the Federal Advisory 
 7   Committee Act and was established by the Hydrographic Services 
 8   Improvement Act Amendment of 2002.  This panel is charged with 
 9   advising the NOAA Administrator on matters specified in the 
10   Hydrographic Services Improvement Act specifically related to 
11   hydrographic services.  Hydrographic services are those services 
12   provided by three programs within NOAA, the National Geodetic 
13   Survey, the Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and 
14   Services and the Office of Coast Survey.  The panel membership 
15   consists of 15 voting members.  These are non-government 
16   employees appointed based on their particular expertise.  
17   Members of the panel do not represent the organizations or the 
18   entities that they are employed by but again they are on the 
19   panel by mere fact of their particular expertise.  There are 
20   three non-voting members consisting of government employees, one 
21   being Andy Armstrong, the Co-Director of the Joint Hydrographic 
22   Center, and there are provisions for two additional government 
23   employees.  These are currently the Director of the National 
24   Geodetic Survey, Dave Zilkoski, and the Director CO-OPS, Mike 
25   Szabados.  Our meetings are held minimally twice a year, 
0006
 1   although this panel has established a pattern of approximately 
 2   four per year.  With that I'll turn it back to Scott.
 3    MR. RAINEY:  Thanks, Steve.  As Steve gave us the outline 
 4   of the membership and things and we do have a piece of business 
 5   that I'd like to take care of now.  We talked about it yesterday 
 6   and we deferred till today but what I'd like to do is open the 
 7   floor for nominations to fill our Vice Chairman vacancy.  The 
 8   mechanics, what I propose is we have a written list of names and 
 9   if we could have nominations made or ask individuals that are 
10   interested to make it known then we can take a vote, just circle 
11   the name of the person you'd like to vote for and then we can 
12   give it to Barbara and she can let us know the results of that.  
13   That's how I'd like to proceed.  So at this time could I open 
14   the floor then for nominations for Vice Chairman.
15    MR. DASLER:  Yeah, I would like to nominate Admiral West.
16    MR. RAINEY:  That's an easy one.  Is there a second?
17    CAPTAIN HICKMAN:  I was thinking we could nominate Helen's 
18   replacement.
19    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
20   microphone).
21    MR. RAINEY:  Yeah.  I know that there -- the process has 
22   been undertaken to -- and there's been, you know, some 
23   discussions but I don't have a timeframe on how soon that person 
24   would be announced and go through the process of clearance for 
25   the special government employee.  So I don't really know if 
0007
 1   that's a -- if that would be a feasible option.  I make the job 
 2   look harder than it is, it's really not a big deal.  
 3    CAPTAIN HICKMAN:  Scott, I really think the problem is -- 
 4   I voiced to you last night, is that there is so much time 
 5   involved in it.  And I don't really know how you accomplish what 
 6   you accomplish and -- although I'm sure that there's some that 
 7   would be involve -- would like to be involved, it's just so time 
 8   consuming that I think anybody that might even entertain the 
 9   thought knows that they don't have the time to do what you do 
10   for this panel.
11    MR. RAINEY:  Well, I appreciate that and I have -- I have 
12   enjoyed being Chair and I'm real excited, terrifically excited 
13   about what we're working on, the special report, and the new 
14   synergies or partnership and the support with Jack Dunnigan and 
15   Steve Barnum and the continued excellent support from Barbara.  
16   So I really think that we've kind of hit our stride a little bit 
17   here and I think that we're going to make good on the intent of 
18   Congress when they chartered this group.  So it's been a real 
19   privilege for me to work with you guys so far and -- I think it 
20   would be helpful to have a Vice Chair, and we can again kind of 
21   figure out on the fly how -- you know, what we can do.  But just 
22   as far as having some -- you know, some extra help and some -- 
23   you know, some continuity as we move forward.  But -- you know, 
24   it's a voluntary sort of position so -- I don't know, if there's 
25   no new interest here we can table it until we can do some more 
0008
 1   arm twisting.  Lou, did you have a comment?
 2    DR. LAPINE:  Yes.  I know we're all busy and we've done a 
 3   lot of productive work already.  We all fear that we're going to 
 4   have to work as hard as you have, which I don't know how you've 
 5   done it.  But there is someone in the room for fear of 
 6   retribution that I'll be nominating.  I think that Tom Skinner 
 7   would do an outstanding job in helping you and so with his 
 8   permission I would nominate Tom.
 9    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
10   microphone).
11    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  I'll second that.
12    MR. RAINEY:  All right.  Tom, do you -- is that -- do you 
13   accept the nomination?
14    MR. SKINNER:  Sure.
15    MR. RAINEY:  Okay.  
16    MR. SKINNER:  Oh, mic.  Sorry.  I thought it was like, my 
17   name's Tom.  
18    MR. RAINEY:  Can you spell that?  Yeah.
19    MR. SKINNER:  Sorry.  I need another cup of coffee.  
20    MR. RAINEY:  All right.  Well, are there -- is there a 
21   need for any further nominations or should we call the vote?  
22   Seriously, are there other folks that would be interested?  Or 
23   we can -- all right.  Well, I think Tom would be a great -- 
24   excellent choice and why don't we move the -- move it to a vote.  
25   Let's go ahead, since Tom is running virtually unopposed then 
0009
 1   why don't we just get a -- is that?
 2    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  If you need a motion I'll -- Andrew 
 3   McGovern, I'll motion to close the nominations and 
 4   (indiscernible).
 5    MR. RAINEY:  Okay.  I'm not trying to rush it.  I mean 
 6   seriously if there's other people interested please let me know.  
 7   But -- okay.  All right, so we have a motion to close the 
 8   nominations then.
 9    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Second.
10    MR. RAINEY:  All right.  In favor of closing say aye.
11    SIMULTANEOUS:  Aye.
12    MR. RAINEY:  Okay.  All right.  Let's just take a vote 
13   then.  In the interest of time I don't think we'll have to write 
14   it down.  Could I have a showing of hands of those -- for Tom.  
15   Okay.  Okay.  All right.  Was everybody in on that?  Is there 
16   any opposed?  Okay, I didn't see everybody's hand, but all 
17   right.  Okay, then I think we have elected Tom Skinner as our 
18   new Vice Chairman.  Thanks very much.  Tom, if you want we got a 
19   seat for you.
20    All right, well thanks very much.  And again, I appreciate 
21   everybody's efforts and I know that this is a big undertaking 
22   and, you know, what we're trying to accomplish and, you know, 
23   really welcome Tom's, you know, help and everybody's continued 
24   support.  And let me turn it over then to Glenn if he's here.  
25   Yeah.  Oh, right behind me.  Okay.  And we'll go ahead and start 
0010
 1   our -- going on our agenda here.  Glenn's going to talk to us 
 2   about some issues on the Hydrograph Services Improvement Act 
 3   reauthorization.
 4    MR. BOLEDOVICH:  Good morning.  Can you hear me okay?  
 5   Okay.  Mr. Chairman, Mr. Vice Chairman, that'd be you Tom.  
 6   Pleasure to be here.  I was here just about exactly a year ago 
 7   to talk to you folks about the contracting policy and get your 
 8   input on that.  As Captain Barnum reported yesterday, that 
 9   policy is now actually I think at the Federal Register, it's 
10   completed, I thank you for your contributions there.  And I'm 
11   back once again to talk to you about another pretty important 
12   matter, it's the reauthorization of the Hydrographic Services 
13   Improvement Act.
14    As you know, this panel is authorized under that Act and 
15   it's our primary conduit to the public and constituencies, at 
16   least for an initial entree and the HSIA is the primary statute 
17   for these programs so your contributions are very important and 
18   valued and I think I speak for Jack and myself, I do work for 
19   Jack in the policy shop of the headquarters of the Ocean 
20   Service.  I have a member of my staff here, Bruce, and kind of 
21   our commitment to work through this reauthorization process and 
22   work through you and get your input is high, we value your input 
23   and your comment.  Kind of the key procedural question for you 
24   today is how do you -- how I work with you throughout this 
25   process.  So I'm going to kind of give some background, then we 
0011
 1   have a few minutes to discuss at the end.
 2    And -- we can go to the next slide please.  So the -- kind 
 3   of the entree question there is what role does the panel seek to 
 4   play in the reauthorization and then kind of the bigger 
 5   substantive questions are, you know, what changes might we make 
 6   to advance NOAA's abilities in these areas.  Obviously to 
 7   improve them and deliver better products and services.  Another 
 8   question is what about the bigger world out there, is there 
 9   anything in the reauthorization that can -- we can use to 
10   augment the role of these programs and the bigger issues of the 
11   Marine Transportation System, which was discussed yesterday with 
12   Helen Brohl taking over that group, kind of big areas of marine 
13   ecosystem and resource area management, certainly Admiral 
14   Lautenbacher's priority for the Earth Observing System and the 
15   Integrated Ocean Observing System and then the whole notion 
16   that's kind of emerged since the commission reports on 
17   integrated ocean and coastal mapping.  There's been some 
18   independent legislation on those issues, obviously of interest 
19   to these programs, and then the whole role of these programs in 
20   science and technology for the country in general.  
21    So those are kind of some of the bigger scale issues.  In 
22   terms of in general, you know, the Hydrographic Services 
23   Improvement Act is -- really authorizes, as you know, services 
24   programs, there's not a lot of controversy, it's not a highly 
25   regulatory mission and -- I don't want to underplay the 
0012
 1   importance of reauthorization but it's not a major point of 
 2   controversy.  I talked to John Rayfield about his views on 
 3   reauthorization yesterday of course since he was here and I'll 
 4   talk about that a little bit more later.  I think ultimately for 
 5   these programs, as I heard from you folks yesterday, that really 
 6   what it comes down to is the annual appropriations for them.  
 7   The nation's commitment to these programs is authorizing them in 
 8   law but then following through and actually funding the services 
 9   that are authorized. So I'm going to provide a little historical 
10   context for you here this morning and my real goal is to 
11   initiate some conversations with you folks and determine how 
12   we're going to interact kind of going into this process.  As you 
13   know, the Act, the authorization lapses a year from September so 
14   we do have some time here.  
15    Next slide please.  The primary legal authorities for 
16   these programs are the Coast and Geodetic Survey Act of 1947, 
17   the HSIA itself as amended in 2002 and kind of a little known 
18   Statute, the Chart Pricing Statute, as well.
19    Next slide please.  Kind of the brief history as you folks 
20   know is, like certainly we learned last evening, again we were 
21   reminded last evening again, these programs have been around a 
22   long time.  First authorized by Congress and supported by 
23   President Thomas Jefferson in 1907.  Changes over time kind of 
24   culminating in the Statute of 1947.  The programs were then 
25   merged, the Coast and Geodetic Survey were merged into NOAA when 
0013
 1   it was -- when NOAA was created in 1970 and at that time NOAA 
 2   took on a lot of other major missions.  And as John Rayfield 
 3   pointed out kind of from that time as NOAA was kind of being 
 4   formed and took on all these new programs, these programs got a 
 5   little bit lost and they kind of reemerged here in the 1990's 
 6   culminating the passage of the HSIA and then ultimately 
 7   reauthorization in 2002.  
 8    Next slide please.  Kind of some of the factors leading to 
 9   that renewed interest, this is major expansion of maritime 
10   commerce in virtually all areas, geographically, the size and 
11   nature of the vessels and the draft especially.  And of course 
12   technologies have changed rapidly.  All of a sudden how are 
13   these programs going to move into the digital age, a question 
14   still before this group.  And then of course the big event, the 
15   Exxon Valdez, certainly triggering some interest from the Alaska 
16   delegation.  As John pointed out yesterday, it was Congressman 
17   Young who first introduced the HSIA and introduced the 
18   reauthorization and at that time he was Chairman of House 
19   Resources Committee.  And of course the big issue that was 
20   presented back then was this backlog of surveying requirements 
21   and how to implement new bottom -- full bottom coverage surveys 
22   to help reduce that backlog.  These was also an economic 
23   analysis done by Woods Hole Institute and, you know, one of its 
24   conclusions was that the implementation of modern charting, 
25   surveys and digital charting could have benefits equal to double 
0014
 1   hull tankers for oil tanker traffic in terms of reducing risk.  
 2   So those are some of the factors that kind of led to this 
 3   renewed interest.
 4    Next slide please.  In terms of passage itself, there were 
 5   hearings held in 1997, a lot of members of the maritime 
 6   community testified, certainly NOAA did, kind of the scope of 
 7   the backlog kind of came before Congress and the benefits of 
 8   modernizing these services.  The Bill was drafted in committee, 
 9   it was not drafted by the administration or by NOAA.  And the 
10   clear intent of the Bill was to augment and update the Act of 
11   1947.  The Bill was appended to a package of ocean Bills at the 
12   end of the 105th Congress and enacted.  
13    Next slide please.  Kind of the major provisions which are 
14   define what they meant by hydrographic data and hydrographic 
15   services, those were defined separately in the Act.  It listed 
16   the responsibilities of the administration.  These were kind of 
17   the shall provisions of things that we shall do.  Then it had a 
18   list of authorities, things that we could do, kind of the may 
19   provisions and those are two key words in statutes that you 
20   always want to look out for, whether they say you shall which is 
21   a mandate from Congress or may which is Congress giving you 
22   discretion to go forward with something.  And of course the Act, 
23   one of the big things it did was require use of the Brooks Act 
24   for contracting for acquisition of hydrographic data and it 
25   supported increased contracting in general.  It authorized a 
0015
 1   quality assurance program, it had several reporting requirements 
 2   and of course the authorization of appropriations, kind of the 
 3   authorizing committee in Congress saying what these programs 
 4   optimally will be funded at, and it authorized the number of 
 5   NOAA Corps officers.  
 6    Next slide please.  The amendments in 2002, it broadened 
 7   the scope of PORTS to include more real time, just real time 
 8   systems in general, and it said we shall to the extent that 
 9   there's funds available fund these types of activities.  It also 
10   promoted the use of these products in support of marine 
11   conservation in other matters, a topic which was discussed 
12   briefly yesterday, how do these programs fit in with other NOAA 
13   missions.  It made the quality assurance program mandatory, that 
14   we create that program, which we did.  And probably most 
15   important for this group, it established this panel, I think an 
16   important point for us.  And it authorized the program to 2007.  
17   Another little known thing, at the end of the authorization of 
18   appropriations, this was the first reauthorization after 9/11, 
19   it specifically added an authorization for appropriations in 
20   support of homeland security over and above the other 
21   authorization levels.  And that's a topic that's come up in our 
22   early discussions for reauthorization, you might want to expand 
23   that language in light of the work that we did in response to 
24   natural disasters so that there's kind of a message there that 
25   these programs are programs that will and should be called upon 
0016
 1   in those times.  
 2    Next slide please.  Kind of our goals for reauthorization 
 3   is obviously to develop the best Bill possible.  I've talked 
 4   with Jack Dunnigan about this, we do intend to work on 
 5   developing an administration Bill in a proposal and we intend to 
 6   work through this panel and kind of vetting and getting ideas to 
 7   do so.  Kind of our goal is looking at a little bit more than -- 
 8   less than a year from now of having a Bill ready for 
 9   introduction, getting it cleared through the process.  I'll talk 
10   about that just a little bit.  The process for getting a Bill is 
11   we'll work with our programs to develop it and it'll be cleared 
12   by Jack Dunnigan and it needs to go and be cleared by NOAA, by 
13   the Department of Commerce, it needs to be sent to OMB at the 
14   Whitehouse at which point they will send it to every other 
15   agency for review.  That would include the Coast Guard, the Army 
16   Corps, USGS and any agency that may be interested, the Navy 
17   certainly, and they'll have their comments come in and all that 
18   needs to be concluded before the administration will submit a 
19   Bill to the Hill.  Kind of our goal is to get reauthorization 
20   during the next Congress.  I realize that that is a year longer, 
21   after the authorization technically expires.  We could have a 
22   little bit of discussion about that but just that is not a fatal 
23   issue.  The Clean Water Act has not been reauthorized since I've 
24   been in Washington in 11 years and certainly Congress continues 
25   to fund those programs.  And also the Act of 1947 provides 
0017
 1   permanent authority for these programs.  Its authorization of 
 2   appropriations is not by a set number of years, it just says 
 3   such sums as may be necessary.  So it kind of provides an 
 4   underlying permanent authority.  Technically unauthorized 
 5   programs where their authorization ends are subject to a point 
 6   of order in Congress.  This issue comes up once in awhile more 
 7   as a threat than anything.  It's -- I've never seen it invoked 
 8   as a reason for not supporting programs with funding.  So that's 
 9   kind of our take on that.
10    Next slide please.  Kind of what I'm here to kind of get 
11   an initial view from you folks on is what kind of scale do we 
12   want to think about, what's your advice on that.  Here it says 
13   three kind of obvious simple proposals, kind of go with the 
14   status quo.  This is kind of the if it isn't broke don't fix it 
15   approach.  Kind of a middle ground are some things that would be 
16   nice to have but maybe not be real controversial and then to 
17   think big, what -- there are some major revisions that we should 
18   be considering.  I'll talk about each one of those.
19    Go to the next slide please.  You know, there's some -- a 
20   few pros and cons to each of these.  Status quo, obviously make 
21   our job a lot easier to get a proposal cleared through the 
22   process I just described, probably fewer obstacles in Congress, 
23   and it maintains our current authorities.  A con is it doesn't 
24   really reach out and try to broaden and strengthen the HSIA or 
25   the programs under it and it may be a missed opportunity to try 
0018
 1   to work to -- to work these programs into a larger integrated 
 2   picture.  In terms of the status quo, I talked to John 
 3   yesterday.  His initial intent was that's pretty much what he 
 4   intends to pursue.  And whether the administration puts forward 
 5   a Bill or not Congress is certainly free to propose its own 
 6   legislation and John indicated that he's talked with Congressman 
 7   Young and they intend to do so and they tend to go for something 
 8   more along this approach is his initial take.  He did say we 
 9   should talk and certainly when we get back to Washington we will 
10   so I'll be having those discussions with him.  But since 
11   Congressman Young has been kind of the lead on this that 
12   certainly will be a first point of contact on the Hill.
13    Next slide please.  Kind of a middle ground.  This would 
14   allow us to kind of mull over some of the maybe quirks in the 
15   Bill, things that haven't worked well.  Talked to the programs 
16   about this a little bit already, I'll have a list of some ideas 
17   I'll put up.  Obviously anytime you go for opening up issues you 
18   may create some obstacles, more questions, could slow the 
19   clearance and the Congressional process.  And again, by taking a 
20   more modest approach are we taking full advantage of this 
21   opportunity to revisit the Act.  Which is basically what a 
22   reauthorization is.  The programs don't end when these 
23   authorizations expire.  What it is is kind of a signal to 
24   Congress and to the agency that it's time to take another look.  
25   That's pretty much where we're at here.
0019
 1    And finally the think big slide.  This would be an attempt 
 2   to really broaden and strengthen the authorities in the Act, 
 3   probably take advantage of integration into the bigger picture 
 4   some of the things that have emerged like integrated ocean and 
 5   coastal mapping.  This would create a bit of a longer timeline 
 6   to develop those ideas and to vet them.  Certainly it'll lead to 
 7   more questions as we go through clearance and probably some 
 8   significant outreach then to explain our reasoning for these 
 9   provisions.
10    We have -- I've talked to the programs and we've kind of 
11   put together a long list of some ideas.  I didn't intend to go 
12   through them.  I'll let you look at these, folks.  Like I said, 
13   initially I'm just kind of here to kind of -- to get your sense.  
14   We're not committed to any one of these, they're just -- they're 
15   kind of some ideas.  One of the ideas that kind of emerged is 
16   even if we don't change the authorities of the program is there 
17   something we can do in reauthorization to kind of raise the 
18   profile or prestige of these programs.  Which kind of triggered 
19   a thought in me yesterday when you folks were talking, I was 
20   listening to you and I kind of got a sense that there's -- 
21   whether it's in the NOAA process or the Congressional process 
22   that there's a bit of a Rodney Dangerfield thing with these 
23   programs, they don't get the respect and the attention that they 
24   deserve.  And -- so some of the ideas we had with that, things 
25   that are already true.  For example, the Director of the Coast 
0020
 1   Survey is the nation's hydrographer and the rep to the IHO and 
 2   putting something like that in the Statute and just kind of 
 3   raise the prestige of these programs, that these programs are 
 4   important and they're important internationally.  And things 
 5   like that, they're not necessarily controversial but kind of 
 6   pointing out that these programs are the national authority in 
 7   the areas that they exist, whether it's geodesy or tides and 
 8   water levels.  And in fact there's quite a bit of history of 
 9   legal authority from the courts, especially regarding boundary 
10   disputes and when there's issues of boundaries that involve 
11   these programs this is where they turn to.  They don't come to 
12   us and say what's the boundary but what are the baselines, how 
13   do we determine them and using us as the authority.  This is 
14   something we might want to do statutorily to that that would 
15   kind of help raise the prestige of these programs as well.  
16   Sure, please.
17    MR. GRAY:  I see that one that says identify NOAA as the 
18   national authority for hydrography, tides, water levels, 
19   shoreline, geodesy, spatial reference.  We got into quite a 
20   discussion yesterday and we have periodically that there are 
21   various organizations doing more or less the same thing and 
22   coming up with different answers.  I would agree that that's 
23   happening.  It would seem to me that it would be a very sensible 
24   thing to identify one source of authority for all that type of 
25   information within the federal government.  Who is going to 
0021
 1   object to identifying NOAA as the national authority for that 
 2   information?
 3    MR. BOLEDOVICH:  The Army Corps of Engineers, USGS, I 
 4   could think of a few.  These are -- like I said, these are ideas 
 5   that came forward and some of these are -- you know, to some 
 6   extent we are the authority in some very specific areas.  I 
 7   don't think we get a lot of questions like on geodesy for 
 8   example, nav referencing or the tides.  But to put us as the 
 9   authority for mapping or something might be -- have to be very 
10   careful.  And like I said, there's other ideas that have come 
11   forward.  No one's really put together any language or we 
12   haven't even -- kind of even thought about how exactly we would 
13   go about doing this.  But as I did mention, anything we do 
14   propose will -- those agencies will get a chance to review 
15   before this would ever get to the Hill.  And -- so that's 
16   something that we're thinking about in the.....
17    MR. GRAY:  Well, in the context of this committee, going 
18   back about a year and a half ago I suggested that we make a 
19   recommendation that all the federal entities involved with 
20   spending money for marine safety in our harbors should put 
21   together one single list of what the priorities are for spending 
22   money.  And as I said there, I think I could take two-thirds of 
23   the buoys out of Long Island Sound, they're not needed, and the 
24   money that would be saved by doing that would probably overwhelm 
25   what NOAA's doing on the hydrography issues.  I mean to me 
0022
 1   here's the United States, we have over half the legitimate 
 2   navigation aids in the entire world.  Do we need that many?  But 
 3   we pay for them.  And Army Engineers get an enormous amount of 
 4   money.  And I'm hoping, but I don't know whether it will happen, 
 5   that the committee on the MTS at cabinet level will take that 
 6   kind of thing under consideration seriously.  Because I know 
 7   before that was a cabinet level committee there was a national 
 8   committee for about five years and it didn't do a damn thing.  
 9   And I talked with the people that we can't do anything because 
10   we have no money, we have no budget authority, we've each got 
11   our own budgets and we've each got our own boss.  So we're not 
12   going to do much more than listen to what people tell us but 
13   we're not going to rock the boat.  And it is time as far as I'm 
14   concerned that somebody should at least consider rocking the 
15   boat a little bit.  And something like that I think 
16   (indiscernible).  So maybe it's something that the HSRP should 
17   consider, whether we make a recommendation that that be taken 
18   under consideration either in the context of the CMTS or just 
19   another HSRP recommendation.
20    MR. BOLEDOVICH:  Right.  And whether we do it in a 
21   proposal to reauthorize the law is another question because that 
22   opens up the Pandora's Box associated with that.  There may be 
23   some other avenues to address those issues and clearly the CMTS 
24   and its reestablishing that you folks discussed a bit yesterday 
25   is an avenue without having to deal with any kind of a legal or 
0023
 1   Congressional action.  And that's always something you want to 
 2   consider.  The head of NOAA's legislative affairs, we went to 
 3   talk to him about legislation for the Integrated Ocean Observing 
 4   System, he says but what's stopping you from doing that now, do 
 5   you really want Congress to step in here.  And I think as a 
 6   threshold question, because it does open up that whole political 
 7   process up on the Hill and it's always something to consider.  
 8   Even if we have a proposal from this panel to go forward with an 
 9   idea it doesn't mean it has to be done necessarily in the 
10   Statute.  
11    I have another list, kind of continuation of the -- of 
12   some issues for consideration.  Next slide please.  You know, is 
13   there anything about the authorization for this panel we might 
14   want to consider.  I mentioned disaster and emergency response.  
15   Including a finding and purposes section.  John Rayfield is not 
16   a fan of those at all.  I kind of am because they don't -- 
17   they're not legally binding but many laws when you look at they 
18   tell you why Congress is acting this way, we find that marine 
19   commerce is important and the purposes of these Acts and it kind 
20   of creates a rationale or almost a justification for why these 
21   programs exist to underpin the actual statutory provisions that 
22   follow.  But certainly there's a variety of issues on -- that 
23   could be on the table.
24    And that's my initial thing, if -- go back.  I have a -- 
25   go ahead, you can go to the next slide.  This is an example of 
0024
 1   some of the issues here, a few quick slides that I had.  You 
 2   know, one of the issues is should the authorities be merged.  I 
 3   told you we have two Acts authorizing these programs so this 
 4   comes up.  It came up with the last reauthorization, gee, why 
 5   don't you want to create a single authority for these programs 
 6   and isn't it confusing having two statutes.  And we thought 
 7   about it long and hard and kind of at that time -- we have this 
 8   kind of -- this 1947 Act that kind of sits there as a constant.  
 9   It was not the intent of Congress to remove that Act when it 
10   passed the HSIA and we were a little bit concerned about losing 
11   that permanent authority.  And it also contains provisions that 
12   programs well beyond these and NOAA use for a variety of 
13   agreements and it has very broad agreement authority for us to 
14   enter into agreements with all kinds of parties which has proven 
15   vital to NOAA wide because, as you know, NOAA does not have an 
16   organic authority.  That's an issue that's been before Congress 
17   is this Organic Act and that's the kind of Act where you'd say 
18   NOAA has the right to do all these kinds of big things, whether 
19   it's education, in outreach and to work with others.  And 
20   lacking that this Act has this authority for agreements which 
21   people across the agency rely on.  So we've been a little 
22   worried about losing that.
23    Another issue, these are just examples of some of the 
24   issues that were on the slides.  Next slide please.  This is 
25   kind of going back to what I was talking about earlier, do we 
0025
 1   want to make a clear authority, there's no real authority in the 
 2   statute for shoreline for example and making us kind of the 
 3   national authority for these things.  The con is, you know, is 
 4   this really needed.  The programs are functioning, kind of going 
 5   back to the if it isn't broke don't fix it argument.  And like I 
 6   said, the -- we already talked about there may be some 
 7   interagency concerns, we're trying to put NOAA in a lead 
 8   position in some of these areas.
 9    Next slide please.  And I already kind of talked about the 
10   finding and purposes section.  It's kind of a good way to 
11   rationalize the programs and it kind of creates a starting point 
12   for where you might want to go.  
13    So kind of in conclusion I'd like to say there's not a lot 
14   of rush here.  I know you got this -- last slide please.  You've 
15   got another issue on the table today and this is kind of an 
16   entry to you folks to kind of how are we going to participate in 
17   this process, how do you folks want to participate, are there 
18   some big ideas that you have you think we should be considering, 
19   that is obviously a major goal.  And probably also important, 
20   are there other people we should be talking to that -- we look 
21   to the panel kind of only -- not as our only point of contact 
22   but also as a way of saying, hey, make sure you go talk to these 
23   folks over here.  So if you have any ideas about that that would 
24   be very helpful.  One of the ideas, I talked with Scott, is do 
25   you want to create some kind of a subcommittee so that there's a 
0026
 1   smaller group for me and my staff to kind of work through.  
 2   We're going to be clearly working with the three program offices 
 3   here in NOS over the coming months and is there a smaller group 
 4   we can kind of segway into as we develop these ideas for the 
 5   reauthorization.
 6    So that's kind of it.  I certainly am open to some 
 7   questions and I'm looking forward to working with you folks and 
 8   getting this Act reauthorized.
 9    MR. RAINEY:  Glenn, thanks very much.  I'm sure we'll have 
10   a couple questions.  I'd like to just touch on some things.  
11   Great presentation and we'd definitely like to work with you and 
12   provide input as we can.  Kind of to think of what -- the couple 
13   thoughts I had or one of the questions I wanted to ask you is, 
14   you know, you pointed out that -- and we talked a little bit 
15   yesterday about how essentially things are -- at least 
16   heretofore have been sort of appropriations limited rather than 
17   authorization limited.  And as you look at the existing 
18   authorizing levels in the HSIA do those have enough room to 
19   accomplish the 100 percent requirements that you're projecting 
20   in the -- you know, in the five year plan, is there enough room 
21   in the existing -- again, this kind of goes to the idea of 
22   status quo, push it a little or take it, you know, over the top.  
23   And I'm just wondering to the extent you can in a broad sense as 
24   you look at your projections in the PPBES and things for these 
25   programs that your 100 percent requirements are the 
0027
 1   authorization levels in the existing Act sufficient?
 2    MR. BOLEDOVICH:  In terms of the specifics of the 
 3   question, Scott, I'd have to turn to each program and they just 
 4   got done developing those '09 through '13 requirements and what 
 5   their requirements are.  Looking at the numbers, you know, the 
 6   actual funding that we're getting or -- is probably so far short 
 7   of some of these numbers that certainly there's some room, 
 8   plenty of room to grow towards that 100 percent requirement if 
 9   these programs were funded at the level that they're currently 
10   authorized.  Just to clarify, when we put forward a Bill, 
11   administration Bill will never contain numbers like this.  It 
12   will say consistent with the President's budget and so whatever 
13   the President requested for the most recent year, the year 
14   that's pending before Congress, is all that it will say.  
15   Congress will put in these numbers.  Steve, do you want to 
16   address maybe whether these levels?  I mean they're pretty 
17   generous.  I mean there's $70 million for the mapping and 
18   charting line, that's almost close to double I think on the base 
19   for that line.  So.....
20    CAPTAIN BARNUM:  I think if we're looking at 100 percent 
21   requirement I think we're probably looking at a number that's 
22   higher than that.  Certainly with the issue of the supplemental 
23   funding we got this year, the $20 million was something 
24   unexpected and I think it may approach that limit.  So I agree 
25   with you, I would rather not see six numbers in that kind of a 
0028
 1   language.
 2    MR. BOLEDOVICH:  Right.  What -- how these numbers can be 
 3   used, Scott, is certainly when this -- what it is is a statement 
 4   of our authorizing committee, what they think the investment in 
 5   these programs should be.  That's basically what that is is a 
 6   statement.  And so how I've seen these numbers used is more by 
 7   external organizations like our Navigation Safety Coalition, 
 8   when they go to Congress they say fund them at the levels that 
 9   you said these programs should be funded at and it kind of gives 
10   them a high ceiling to shoot for vis a vis the President's 
11   request and then the work of the actual appropriator.  So it 
12   does provide a mark in law from Congress, a statement.  That's 
13   kind of their value.  You know, optimally these programs will be 
14   funded at this level, that's kind of how I view these 
15   statements.
16    MR. RAINEY:  Are there other questions or comments from 
17   the other members?  Okay.  Well, I really appreciate it, Glenn, 
18   and look forward to working on that.  Let me ask, I mean it's 
19   something that we can certainly talk about and find out 
20   afterwards, but I know I'd be interested in, you know, following 
21   and helping out on that and if there's other folks particularly 
22   interested in this that wanted to kind of work on the front end 
23   of this and liaison with Steve and Glenn just let me know and 
24   then we can move forward on that.  Okay.  Jon Dasler.
25    MR. DASLER:  Yeah, Jon Dasler.  I just have another 
0029
 1   question I guess for Glenn or -- if you have a read on it.  
 2   Because it seems like the Hydrographic Services Improvement Act 
 3   should try to cross some of those interagency boundaries and if 
 4   there's been any discussion with Rayfield and Young of any 
 5   thoughts on that.  And probably more specifically getting into 
 6   the intercoastal waterways in the Corps and trying to resolve 
 7   some of those issues.  I mean that could open up a big can of 
 8   worms that may make it more difficult.  Is there any feeling on 
 9   how feasible something like that might be?
10    MR. BOLEDOVICH:  Well, based on my conversation with John 
11   yesterday, he intends to work with Congressman Young who's 
12   chairman of the transportation committee which oversees the 
13   Corps.  He plans to design a Bill that his committee will not 
14   even have jurisdiction over to make sure that when the Bill 
15   comes up in the House there's only one committee of jurisdiction 
16   right now for these programs and that's resources and he does 
17   not want to convolute it and gum up the works by adding things.  
18   That's kind of what his initial comment was.  Those are things 
19   that he'd rather not see done in the Statute, those are things 
20   that the agency should be working on through the MTS and the 
21   CMTS, kind of my initial guidance from him.  So he didn't want 
22   to introduce the prospect of there being multi-committee 
23   jurisdiction over the legislation, that's kind of his initial 
24   thing.
25    MR. RAINEY:  If I could just -- I had -- that was 
0030
 1   something when I worked on the Hill that amazed me but that's a 
 2   -- it's a particular R form in that you're actually selecting 
 3   words and terms so it goes through the parliamentarian and it's 
 4   a really -- it's tricky, you know, just exactly what Glenn said 
 5   in talking with John.  One of the things I personally would 
 6   advocate and like to see is that the HSIA gets picked up and in 
 7   fact even broader than that, that all of NOS is well represented 
 8   in a NOAA Organic Act.  But again, that's the same sort of an 
 9   issue where you have resources, science committee, and you have 
10   multiple jurisdictions.  So just as we're talking very much 
11   about the, you know, Executive Branch and trying to coordinate 
12   through the agencies.  And just one thing, we're talking about 
13   the -- you know, getting NOAA designated, saying they're -- the 
14   OMB has the circular A-16 out and, you know, it's been talked 
15   about very much in the executive -- it's an executive order to 
16   coordinate, you know, all of the data and things and NOAA has 
17   certain lead responsibilities for certain framework data, 
18   geologic survey and all that.  You know, and to try to mesh that 
19   with what the legislation's doing but it's a tremendous 
20   challenge, you know, if you're going to try to meld in HSIA with 
21   Worda (ph) and all of these different Acts.  And that's one of 
22   the very difficult things that we're facing when we -- I think 
23   we should rightly so put one of our most wanted as that we've 
24   got to get full bottom coverage, you know, in these federally 
25   maintained channels.  But the reason that we're not having that 
0031
 1   is because of these jurisdictional difficulties, you know, on 
 2   the Hill and with the agencies.  But I think we're in the -- 
 3   looking at the needs of the nation and all that, I think we can 
 4   make that recommendation and then we just have to, you know, 
 5   hope that the folks that are in a position to cross those 
 6   jurisdictional boundaries will find a way.  But I just wanted to 
 7   underscore what Glenn's saying.  That's the tremendous challenge 
 8   to move these kind of legislations because it's just so 
 9   diversely spread.  I mean this is one of the most recent studies 
10   on the needs for coastal mapping and this is a well known 
11   problem but solving it is huge.  But just to read you just -- at 
12   least 15 federal agencies are involved in the primary collection 
13   or use of coastal geospatial data, you know, often with 
14   responsibility shared among multiple divisions within the same 
15   agency.  And they just -- you know, there's recommendations in 
16   here that have been made in other places about, you know, ways 
17   to get at this.  But that's  -- it's a pervasive issue and it's 
18   something that we're struggling with and seeing in our 
19   recommendation.  Anyway, Bill.
20    MR. GRAY:  Yeah.  I'm a long way from being up to speed on 
21   the niceties of how to get the right kind of laws out from the 
22   Congress.  But from what you said, Glenn, that Mr. Young wants 
23   to try to see that many of these issues are solely the 
24   responsibility of the committee which he chairs or something 
25   like that.  Back in the late 60's and early 70's I did have 
0032
 1   something to do -- at the time we talking about segregated 
 2   ballots, we were talking about what became the Moore poll (ph) 
 3   and things like that.  It was very clear to -- from industry's 
 4   point of view because in the early 70's we got a whole bunch of 
 5   things that had never existed before.  We got ocean, we got CEQ, 
 6   we got EPA, all the rest of these things.  And industry 
 7   uniformly said we don't want anything to do with ocean, we don't 
 8   want anything to do with EPA, give us Coast Guard only to look 
 9   at what's going on with Marine Transportation.  Because as soon 
10   as you get two or three different agencies within the same 
11   government saying we're going to come aboard and do something 
12   about what you're doing, safety, whatever the hell it may be, it 
13   gets to be a terrible morass.  And in that sense what you're 
14   saying, Glenn, is Mr. Young and his staff are trying to sort 
15   some of these things out and try and eliminate overlaps or 
16   conflicts.  I think that keeping us advised of those and what 
17   they may be, maybe that's a way in which we can help him -- 
18   again, as I had said, the less people we have to deal with to 
19   solve a single problem the better.
20    MR. BOLEDOVICH:  Just to respond to Jon.  One approach to 
21   this, rather than opening up the HSIA to these issues is to go 
22   get our programs reauthorized in the HSIA.  There's also pending 
23   legislation right now on integrated ocean and coastal mapping 
24   which is all about creating and interagency group to work on 
25   these issues and trying to address that.  And rather than 
0033
 1   opening up our underlying authority to that have another law 
 2   come along and say and all you programs, you will go play in 
 3   this arena and keeping those separate might be one option.
 4    MR. DASLER:  It seems to me the middle ground of at least 
 5   stating NOAA as the national authority and recognized as the 
 6   national hydrographer seems to be prudent.  And I think there's 
 7   the base -- I mean ultimately it's your charts that, you know, 
 8   MTS is navigating our waterways on even though the data may be 
 9   coming from other sources.  But it seems like it would be 
10   prudent at least I guess to underscore that as the lead 
11   authority.
12    MR. RAINEY:  Okay.  Glenn, thanks very much, appreciate 
13   it.  Well, I'd like to go ahead then and resume work on our 
14   special report and let me go ahead and lay out my vision.  
15   Talked with Ann this morning and sat with Tom yesterday after we 
16   broke for a meeting and Tom has revised the most wanted, 
17   basically regrouped and printed out some things.  This morning I 
18   added just some references I think that could go under those 
19   groups if -- you know, once we approve them and speaking with 
20   Ann this morning on a good process.   What I propose how we 
21   resume to proceed would be to turn it to Tom and he can go 
22   through the listing of the most wanted, approve that, and then 
23   if you recall we -- Ann suggested we split into groups looking 
24   at the existing sections in the draft.  So once we've discussed 
25   and approved the new grouping of the most wanted I'd like to 
0034
 1   suggest that we break into those groups that we discussed 
 2   yesterday on the sections and try to map.  What we would do 
 3   there would be to map back the sections of the draft that would 
 4   go into the new and revised most wanted and then come up with 
 5   examples and, you know, some suggestions of artwork.  So that's 
 6   kind of the basic framework and so I'll turn it over to Tom and 
 7   then Ann and we can kind of see how we proceed.  I've got -- 
 8   this morning again all I had done is typed up some references 
 9   that I think would go with each of these so I've got a different 
10   document here after we get through with Tom's, just where I 
11   think we can pull some of our information from in addition to 
12   the draft.  So, Tom, do you want to take her?
13    MR. SKINNER:  Yeah.
14    UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
15   microphone).
16    MR. RAINEY:  I have one.  But -- oh, did you hand me a 
17   bunch?  Oh.  Okay, here we go.  Too many papers.
18    UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
19   microphone).
20    MR. RAINEY:  There they are.  I can -- you want to -- 
21   okay, they're coming around, the drafts here.
22    (Pause)
23    MR. SKINNER:  See if that's on.  Yep.  Okay.  Yesterday 
24   after we talked about some of the most wanted issues there were 
25   some suggestions from Bill and John and others, Lou I think, 
0035
 1   about combining some of them.  So what we tried to do was take 
 2   some of the suggestions and put those together, see what we came 
 3   up with, and then see what was left over and whether they were 
 4   priorities or could be worked into one of the other most 
 5   wanted's that we'd already developed.  What you have here is a 
 6   list of five and I think the idea was that the report would then 
 7   go into detail on these five things.  In other words this would 
 8   be up front and then there'd be a section on each of the five 
 9   points here as a way to further explain what was needed or 
10   illustrate some of the problems.  
11    Just going through them fairly quickly, you have them 
12   here.  Eliminate the backlog of critical hydrographic -- I guess 
13   I should start first, there's no magic to the number of five.  I 
14   think you have a spectrum of options.  You know, you could go 
15   with one fairly broad recommendation of improving hydrographic 
16   services but that's not very helpful.  On the other hand you 
17   could have a great many recommendations that it may be hard to 
18   get your message across.  So we're trying to strike the balance 
19   there and numbers of ways that you can organize the different 
20   types of things that we've talked about as being very important.  
21   So, you know, there -- what we're only trying to do here is 
22   trying to highlight what we think is the most important.
23    So first one, eliminate the backlog of critical 
24   hydrographic and shoreline surveys.  This would include many of 
25   the things we've talked about in terms of making sure that NOAA 
0036
 1   has a core capability.  We worked in replacing the single 
 2   purpose hydrographic survey fleet with multipurpose vessels and 
 3   implementing new surveying and mapping techniques.  That may 
 4   have to be language adjusted to incorporate what we're trying to 
 5   get at there but we're trying -- that just is a placeholder is 
 6   one -- for one of the bullets.  Expand NOAA's rapid response 
 7   capabilities for emergencies.  This is one that we didn't 
 8   mention yesterday, it didn't come out in a couple of the 
 9   suggestions but we thought it was important enough to have as a 
10   separate bullet.  Number three is pretty much as it was on -- in 
11   the draft booklet.  We did add a reference to the IOOS system.  
12   And four is conduct full bottom hydrographic -- full bottom 
13   coverage hydrographic surveys for all federally maintained 
14   channels, approaches and anchorages.  A little bit abbreviated 
15   from another one of the recommendations in the book, in the 
16   draft.  And then number five is a new one that attempts to get 
17   at taking hydrographic data and developing additional products 
18   to support non-navigational uses, including emergency response, 
19   marine habitat protection and resilient coastal communities.  
20   And again, that gets at the other uses that we I think talked 
21   about yesterday, making sure that they -- or trying to get them 
22   on board to support the work of NOAA's hydrographic services 
23   agencies.
24    So that's pretty much it.  I think if you want to take a 
25   few minutes to go through it or if you have any suggestions, 
0037
 1   really appreciate some feedback.
 2    MR. RAINEY:  Elaine, go ahead.
 3    MR. SKINNER:  Elaine.
 4    MS. DICKINSON:  Elaine Dickinson.  I think this is a good 
 5   redoing of the original list because it's a lot more succinct 
 6   and gets to the heart of the matters that -- I mean I see this 
 7   as basically a call to action, not a review of, you know, 
 8   everything on earth that we would ever want.  On number three, 
 9   we've talked about this a lot in the past where if we're using 
10   this as a -- sort of an advocacy tool, we heard many, many times 
11   that the use of the term PORTS is some sort of like red flag 
12   that -- you know, it's not always received well for whatever 
13   political reasons.  And I'm wondering if you want to name it 
14   specifically or just refer to it as, you know, the real time 
15   data.
16    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Okay.
17    MR. SKINNER:  Other comments.  Bill.  And then Andy.
18    MR. GRAY:  Thank you, Tom.  I think this is an excellent 
19   job.  I think the consideration is what was the last one on the 
20   -- page three most wanted list.  Some of the words there, expand 
21   education and outreach on the critical importance of NOAA 
22   because -- sort of -- or something.  That's -- those kinds of 
23   words and it got what NOAA's already working on would be the 
24   book that we've just gotten last night and so forth like that.  
25   And the publicizing what we do and I think this outreach 
0038
 1   function is something -- it's important and they should work 
 2   some of those words into -- maybe it fits in with your number 
 3   five or something like that.  And I also think of outreach and 
 4   education or so forth like that as -- that's something that 
 5   slides right into the recreational users as well.
 6    MR. SKINNER:  Okay.
 7    MR. GRAY:  The 78,000 -- million, whatever it is.  We need 
 8   education and understanding of what's going on within the 
 9   waterway.  (Indiscernible) education going back to the kids and 
10   everything like that.  So just somehow working some of those 
11   types of words into this concept I think would be helpful on 
12   number five.  Otherwise the rest of it I think for now covers 
13   the -- very well the most wanted that we've been talking about 
14   for a couple of years.
15    MR. SKINNER:  Andy and then John.
16    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  Too -- I would suggest maybe in five 
17   adding develop additional products to support.  Maybe -- I think 
18   throw there in recreational boating and non-navigational uses 
19   maybe.  This way it -- I think the M -- when we talk about MTS I 
20   think the real conversation is commercial, you know, and not 
21   recreational so let's make sure that that's included there.  And 
22   I kind of agree with Bill and I disagree.  I think that to me 
23   the education, you know, and the outreach is number one really.  
24   But I don't know if you want that as the most wanted because 
25   that's basically what the most wanted is is the outreach, 
0039
 1   getting the word out.  I don't know if you want to put that in a 
 2   -- you know what I mean?  It's like to me the only way we're 
 3   going to get any of this is to get John Q. Public and Congress 
 4   aware of what the importance of this really is but do you put 
 5   that in your most wanted or is the reason why you're doing a 
 6   most wanted is because of that.  So it's almost like an unspoken 
 7   number one priority.  I just want to -- I think it's super 
 8   important but I don't know if it's part of that.  
 9    MR. SKINNER:  Yeah, I think that's a good point.  We may 
10   want to think about -- I mean there are a number of ways to do 
11   this.  You can have like an intro paragraph that sort of throws 
12   out the amount of goods that are carried on, you know, maritime 
13   traffic and the importance to the U.S. economy and U.S. citizens 
14   is a way to sort of frame it.  Or you can just sort of lead it 
15   this way.  So I think that's a good point.  I think just we 
16   might want to consider a couple of options of how to get that 
17   message across.
18    MR. RAINEY:  Tom, just -- I guess one thought I had on 
19   that point is one of the things we want to think about is -- and 
20   it was well mentioned yesterday, but, you know, we're going to 
21   give this up -- you know, to Steve and up the chain in -- within 
22   NOAA and in some ways thinking about the notion of, you know, we 
23   can say some things that they can't or we can be providing 
24   guidance and recommendations that they can then take forward and 
25   say, you know -- justify in other words their expenditures or 
0040
 1   increased expenditures or effort on doing education and outreach 
 2   or something, if it's -- I mean it might be worth saying in that 
 3   regard other than obviously it's implied in the nature of doing 
 4   this kind of thing.  But it might be worth special mention 
 5   insofar as NOAA could then take that and show justification for, 
 6   you know, continuing to work on education and outreach.
 7    MR. SKINNER:  Jon.
 8    MR. DASLER:  I think you did a great job, Tom, in 
 9   compiling all this.  Actually it seems to me that this might 
10   also serve as the basic outline for the rest of the document 
11   where now you just take and you start highlighting on specifics 
12   as you work through the rest of the document that really states 
13   the case for everything and it could be simplified in that.  I 
14   think one thing I would add under item three where a lot of 
15   these address point source measurements, I think it would be 
16   prudent to add something about the development of Vdatum to 
17   accurately define the water levels over wide areas and the real 
18   need for doing that.  I know that wasn't really on that list but 
19   I think it goes hand in hand and a lot with what we've been 
20   talking about.  So I guess I would throw that out as well.
21    MR. SKINNER:  Okay.  We may -- maybe there's a group that 
22   can sort of get together on three, there have been a couple 
23   comments on three, we can sort of word smith around.  I think 
24   your point about having this serve as the outline was something 
25   that Andy raised yesterday where he said this doesn't sort of 
0041
 1   relate to what the other sections are.  And I think that one of 
 2   the thoughts that we were doing when we went through this list 
 3   was that that's exactly how this could be used in that manner 
 4   and I think.....
 5    MR. RAINEY:  I think that is the current thinking and what 
 6   Ann and I talked about today is the next step, I mean once we 
 7   kind of go through this, would be to then map back what we have.  
 8   We don't want to lose what we have but we want to reprogram it 
 9   into that as sort of our template.  So I think that's the 
10   proposed way ahead and I think that makes great sense.
11    MR. SKINNER:  Andy had a comment then John.  Andy.
12    CAPTAIN ARMSTRONG:  Andy Armstrong.  I -- one thing that I 
13   perceive as a significant problem and we haven't talked about it 
14   much here, but briefly and that is the topic of getting all of 
15   these critical hydrographic surveys that have been completed 
16   onto the nautical charts, both paper, raster and electronic.  
17   And maybe that could be addressed as another bullet under number 
18   one.  
19    MR. RAINEY:  I mean that's what I was envisioning or 
20   hoping.  We don't -- you know, like you say, you got -- it's 
21   definitely worth bringing up.  But I'm thinking that, you know, 
22   maybe how this would then flow, you have your primary theme and 
23   then each -- you know, have topics.  That would be one of them 
24   and -- there's sort of a marriage or a marrying of that idea in 
25   number one.  I think it needs to be stated there and then you 
0042
 1   can also hit it in -- you know, it kind of comes up again in 
 2   five in a way it seems to me is -- you talk about expanding the 
 3   use and services, it might be some possibly to put some process 
 4   information in there.  But I personally agree and I think we 
 5   want to hit that as a -- certainly as a sub-theme with the issue 
 6   of the ping to chart and we don't -- we've got to balance 
 7   across, you know, the program so you don't end up with just a 
 8   tremendous amount of data in the can and not get the products 
 9   out.  
10    MR. OSWALD:  John Oswald.  I'd like to make a few comments 
11   here.  The -- on number one, it might just be a word change 
12   perhaps, but we don't really want to replace some of the 
13   hydrographic survey fleet, some are pretty new.  We've got 
14   Thomas Jefferson and the Fairweather of course.  So maybe just 
15   consider the use of the word aging where it says current under 
16   bullet item number two there, one -- the second bullet.  In item 
17   two, maybe it's a typo, but is contacts supposed to be 
18   contracts?  Because you had a.....
19    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Yes.
20    MR. OSWALD:  Yeah, okay.  That takes care of that.
21    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
22   microphone).
23    MR. OSWALD:  We -- yesterday we had to supplement this 
24   capacity with contracting and there's -- it's actually been done 
25   last year, I don't know too much of the details on the Hurricane 
0043
 1   Katrina.  They used contractors to support that effort.  And 
 2   then the.....
 3    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
 4   microphone).
 5    MR. OSWALD:  And then on item three maybe just some word 
 6   smithing, but fewer words, water level obser -- or water level 
 7   is the same in my view as tide.  I would just remove that.  And 
 8   this word -- term, bridge air gap confuses everybody in the 
 9   United States.  We in effect do it commercially and -- it's just 
10   a word that's not well known.  And the PORTS, I would contend 
11   that PORTS is sort of a hurdle when you go try to sell things.  
12   As we discussed before.
13    MR. SKINNER:  Other comments.
14    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Lou.
15    MR. SKINNER:  Lou and then John.
16    DR. LAPINE:  I agree with everything that I've heard thus 
17   far.  I just have a small question, it may be in the wording.  
18   But in the first one here, going to eliminate hydrographic and 
19   shoreline backlogs but there's nothing in number one that says 
20   how you're going to eliminate the shoreline backlog.  I mean you 
21   could just add the word shoreline to the first bullet maybe.  
22    MR. DASLER:  I guess my view on these is the more 
23   simplistic we can make this and get into the details in the 
24   report.  I mean I would even -- like John was saying, maybe even 
25   shorten number three and just get it to water levels and 
0044
 1   currents and then really get into the discussion.  If we're 
 2   going to use this as an outline and not really worry about 
 3   getting -- because you're going to start losing people if you 
 4   start getting too complicated.  I had the same concerns Andy did 
 5   under number one and how the whole ping to chart and how that's 
 6   all going to get in there.  But I would think if we just looked 
 7   at that as being implementing new surveying and mapping 
 8   techniques which is also the processing but we get into that 
 9   discussion within the rest of the document I think is really the 
10   place to address those kinds of things and try to really keep 
11   these -- almost like number one where it's just like simple 
12   little bullet items like it's a table of contents almost.
13    MR. SKINNER:  Okay.  So are you -- you're suggesting that 
14   we keep it simple but also keep the bullets or are you 
15   suggesting.....
16    MR. DASLER:  Yeah.  I would keep the bullets.....
17    MR. SKINNER:  Okay.
18    MR. DASLER:  .....like number one and I -- but I think I 
19   would take a lot of -- I mean it looked like number three is 
20   really trying to incorporate a lot too but maybe just simplify 
21   it to water levels and currents and then get into the meat of 
22   that discussion of what that all involves within the document 
23   and not try to capture it all because I think it gets confusing 
24   when you start getting too in depth right at the beginning.
25    MR. SKINNER:  Okay.
0045
 1    MR. DASLER:  Is my view.  If we're going to -- if that's 
 2   the approach we're going to take it seems like those could be 
 3   addressed within the document.
 4    MR. SKINNER:  Lou, the -- Glenn had actually after this 
 5   was -- the original was printed had suggested adding and 
 6   shoreline to what we originally had.  So it was definitely a 
 7   last minute thought and so we can add something there.
 8    DR. LAPINE:  Well -- this is Lou.  I mean just so we cover 
 9   it all in the following chapter, it just -- you know, I don't 
10   say we have to add anything to bullet number one but we get to 
11   talk about it we need to explain how we're going to eliminate 
12   the shoreline backlog.  As Jon said.
13    MR. SKINNER:  Okay.
14    DR. LAPINE:  Expand upon them later in the document.
15    MR. SKINNER:  Okay.  
16    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible).  I think the -- 
17   you're probably right about that, if you're going to put 
18   hydrographic and shoreline surveys in the first -- number one 
19   bullet you can always (indiscernible) contracting.  Just like 
20   the contracting survey capability, take out the word 
21   hydrographic.  (Indiscernible), I can't do much about that.  Can 
22   anybody hear me?  I would take out the word -- you could take 
23   out the word hydrographic on your -- under expand and just in 
24   the sub-bullets don't get so detailed.
25    MR. SKINNER:  Okay.  Other comments.
0046
 1    CAPTAIN BARNUM:  I would just like to see if -- it may be 
 2   splitting hair, but under eliminate the backlog of critical.  
 3   Critical means a lot to different people, I mean it's a fixed 
 4   number.  I think maybe we might consider capturing the emerging 
 5   requirements which captures new requirements at a -- at the 
 6   surface since the original definition of critical and also 
 7   capture the concept that some of these critical areas will need 
 8   to be surveyed in the future, not that we'll be done.  So I put 
 9   that out to the floor.
10    MR. SKINNER:  I'm sorry, so just eliminate the word 
11   critical?
12    MR. RAINEY:  No.  What he was saying, critical has now 
13   become -- critical survey has now become sort of a term of art 
14   so it's been.....
15    MR. SKINNER:  Right.
16    MR. RAINEY:  .....pegged to the 43,000 square miles.  So 
17   as we work on that, the National Survey Plan, is just canning 
18   those down and what Steve's saying is, you know, that was -- 
19   that's a number now, that's sort of a baseline or benchmark 
20   number.  So if we put in eliminate the backlog of critical and 
21   emerging that keeps it to -- it's not simply just enough to 
22   finish off that originally -- that original chunk.
23    MR. SKINNER:  I thought we'd simplified it by removing one 
24   word but we.....
25    MR. RAINEY:  Yeah.
0047
 1    MR. SKINNER:  .....made it more complex by adding two, so.  
 2   But that's fine.
 3    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  Andrew McGovern.  But if you just drop 
 4   that word critical doesn't that cover that -- I mean to me it's 
 5   like trying to make it simpler, not more complex and we want to 
 6   eliminate the backlog of all -- all the backlog, right?  I don't 
 7   know.
 8    MR. GRAY:  Andrew, I disagree with that because critical 
 9   applied at one time the 43,000 square miles out of the 3.5 
10   million square miles that NOAA's responsible for I think.  And 
11   if we leave -- if we eliminate backlog, there may be backlogs in 
12   all kinds of things but if it's -- it's unimportant, I guess we 
13   don't hear that much about them I would think.  I think -- 
14   something that we're really zeroing in on things that are 
15   important.  Navigationally critical was the phrase that we used, 
16   (indiscernible), wasn't it?
17    MR. RAINEY:  Right.  I mean we're -- it's navigationally 
18   significant and then within that subset it's the critical -- 
19   yeah, yeah.  And so -- I mean I think these are all really good 
20   points but, you know, we just I guess have to choose one.  It 
21   seems to me that these would -- you know, we're going to present 
22   these as the most wanted.  That wouldn't mean that we would want 
23   -- we wouldn't want, you know, NOAA to continue, you know, 
24   throughout the EEZ and the -- you know, the WASI (ph) and all of 
25   that.  But anyway, that's the distinction that's there.  Whether 
0048
 1   we want to specify that in the heading or keep the heading 
 2   simple and then sp -- you know, flush that out in the supporting 
 3   section.
 4    MR. SKINNER:  Yes.  Mike.
 5    MR. SZABADOS:  Tom, on number five.  
 6    MR. SKINNER:  Yeah.
 7    MR. SZABADOS:  Talking about products, just non-
 8   navigational.  Maybe to include navigational and non-
 9   navigational uses and you have the examples including, put 
10   recreational boaters there.  Because as -- you want to also 
11   enhance our products to the navigational community too.
12    MR. SKINNER:  Okay.  So that's -- well, so you would say 
13   fully disseminate hydrographic data and develop additional 
14   projects, navigational -- to support other navigational and non-
15   navigational uses including emergency response, recreational 
16   boating, et cetera, et cetera?
17    MR. SZABADOS:  Correct.
18    MR. SKINNER:  Is that -- Andy, you had.....
19    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  (Indiscernible - away from microphone).
20    MR. SKINNER:  Okay.  Elaine.  Okay.  Thanks.  Anyone else?  
21   Bill, were you going to say anything?  All right.  
22    MR. GRAY:  (Indiscernible - away from microphone).
23    MR. SKINNER:  It's closed.  We'll try and figure something 
24   out and get a revised version to you probably around lunchtime.  
25    MR. RAINEY:  Tom, I'm sorry, I -- we were ta -- can you 
0049
 1   say that again?
 2    MR. SKINNER:  I said Scott's paying for lunch and.....
 3    MR. RAINEY:  All right.  What.....
 4    MR. SKINNER:  Come on, you make me Vice Chair and then you 
 5   don't even listen to me.
 6    MR. RAINEY:  No, I wanted to dovetail in with what you're 
 7   doing on the next thing.  But the.....
 8    MR. SKINNER:  All I said was that we would try and -- 
 9   we'll try and rework this and get it back around lunchtime so 
10   people can take another look at it.
11    MR. RAINEY:  Okay.  Could I suggest though that -- I mean 
12   we've got some time left here before the break and our 
13   stakeholders panel.  It might -- Tom, do you -- I mean it sounds 
14   to me like we've got some, you know, agreement on these five 
15   broad things with some tweaking to the language.  Could we take 
16   the next step to break into groups on these five?  You know, if 
17   you have a particular interest in one of these maybe we can just 
18   do a quick break on that and what we could do there would be to 
19   maybe just make a short list of, you know, some examples and, 
20   you know, just some ideas that support those and we have our 
21   copy from the original draft.  Virginia, could you pull up the 
22   one that I did on the references?  It's the same thing and -- 
23   you know, some of the source material for these different 
24   bullets I just, you know, kind of thought we had to round some 
25   things down obviously.  So we have our draft and I think some of 
0050
 1   the original source material, just a suggestion, where we can 
 2   pull some things.  But I thought maybe we could take the time 
 3   that we have here before the scheduled break and maybe split up 
 4   into the groups of the new five categories and kind of start 
 5   jotting in or sketching in some of those building blocks of 
 6   examples of things we want to mention in there.  Would that be 
 7   worth doing here now and then knowing that we'll come back with 
 8   another gloss on the titles for the most wanted?
 9    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
10   microphone).
11    MR. RAINEY:  All I did there is just -- in all of the 
12   material that we've covered or looked at, you know, you can just 
13   pick one.  In other words like -- all I'm doing there is just 
14   some things that I know where I would like to pull from -- on 
15   the sections when we go to write them out.  Like if you pick 
16   number two there, and I just kind of paraphrased the bullets we 
17   were just talking about.  So expand NOAA's rapid response 
18   capabilities.  Some of the things that we talked about in our 
19   past meetings were the National Response Plan and NOAA has a 
20   response plan, the instant command, and we talked about those in 
21   Houston, I'd gone through and some of our recommendations from 
22   Houston and the material and presentations that we got there I 
23   would think would be the material we can draw from.  And so 
24   those were just initial ideas of some of the work that we had 
25   done and where we can, you know, look to pull.....
0051
 1    MR. SKINNER:  Okay.
 2    MR. RAINEY:  .....to flush in the sections that would then 
 3   support this.
 4    MR. GRAY:  Looking at that list, the first one off the 
 5   reference, the MTS report to Congress.  Yeah, that's good and 
 6   put it out with whatever its full name is or something like 
 7   this.  But I think -- I don't see in that list two National 
 8   Academy of Science reports that I can think of.  I don't 
 9   see.....
10    MR. RAINEY:  Yeah, Bill, this is just -- this is five 
11   minutes I had this morning to jot.....
12    MR. GRAY:  Okay.
13    MR. RAINEY:  .....some ideas down.  It's -- it was just 
14   shorthand and -- absolutely.  I mean I've got -- I got six 
15   studies here, you know, with me.  There's lots of things, 
16   there's -- it just was an initial thought on some things that we 
17   can pull from.....
18    MR. GRAY:  Yeah.
19    MR. RAINEY:  .....as well as our own work and our own 
20   recommendations.  I think it would be good and I think we're in 
21   agreement that, you know, we want to set out our recommendations 
22   that are relevant for the sections and I think that there is 
23   some specific work that's gone before that it would be good 
24   citing back to to kind of ground this -- some of the -- you 
25   know, like in the draft we'd included, for example, the MTS 
0052
 1   report on page 84 has I think a very helpful quote basically 
 2   stating that the number one need.....
 3    MR. GRAY:  Yeah.
 4    MR. RAINEY:  .....you know, in the listening sessions was 
 5   this type of thing.  So this is not -- you know, this is just a 
 6   -- kind of a suggested list of some of the (indiscernible).
 7    MR. GRAY:  I think all I'm saying is that in the finished 
 8   document it would be well to have some references.....
 9    MR. RAINEY:  Absolutely.
10    MR. GRAY:  .....that are recognizable as somebody else 
11   than us, like the National Academy of Sciences, like INTERTANKO, 
12   like -- and I know there's a whole bunch of websites back there, 
13   they ought to have this www.shippingfacts.com, you can click in 
14   there and -- I mean the numbers that are in here are all a 
15   little bit wacky, they're low and so forth like that.  But there 
16   are sources of those numbers that come from the International 
17   Energy Agency and from people like the International Chamber of 
18   Shipping and those things are -- people can click on those and 
19   get them right away, find out what the value of the commerce is 
20   and all the rest of that, and we ought to have those where 
21   anybody who reads the report can dig into them.
22    MR. RAINEY:  Absolutely.  I agree and we have a page, I 
23   think we'll have the space to have a robust (indiscernible).
24    MR. GRAY:  I mean I'd rather have that than the hotels 
25   where we've had our meetings.
0053
 1    MR. RAINEY:  Right.  Right.  Okay.  Well, if -- Andrew, 
 2   you had a comment I believe?  Or.....
 3    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  (Indiscernible) on number three that it 
 4   just came out, that economic study done in Tampa on PORTS so 
 5   that's another.....
 6    MR. RAINEY:  Right.
 7    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  .....good reference.
 8    MR. RAINEY:  Right.  Let's -- this may, you know, be more 
 9   of a distraction, we can go back to Tom's, you know, clean 
10   thing.  But I'm just saying that I think these are the kind of 
11   thoughts to kind of pull through as people work them.  So what 
12   I'd like to do then, I think that's excellent step.  And so 
13   maybe if we could flow back to the clean sheet.  We have, by my 
14   watch anyway, about 45 minutes before our -- well, anyway, we've 
15   got a little bit of time here before the break.  We have a 
16   scheduled break at 10:15 and our panel coming and so I'd like to 
17   be on schedule.  But Tom, do.....
18    MR. SKINNER:  This'll take maybe 10 minutes to.....
19    MR. RAINEY:  Yeah.
20    MR. SKINNER:  .....to clean up and then we can 
21   redistribute and at least get that cleared up.
22    MR. RAINEY:  Do you want to take a break while we're doing 
23   that, just let folks go, and then we could come back, take a 
24   look at that and then maybe split up into these, you know, small 
25   groups -- section with -- you know, the -- you know, one through 
0054
 1   five and then try to get some ideas on, you know, either 
 2   references or examples.  Andrew.
 3    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  Yeah, Scott.  I think people know the 
 4   general direction, I don't know if we need to wait for the exact 
 5   word smithing here that we just put together.  People know which 
 6   -- in general what the five categories are and let's 
 7   (indiscernible).
 8    MR. RAINEY:  Okay.  I agree.  Elaine.
 9    MS. DICKINSON:  Oh.  Question.  We had all the sections 
10   that were already drafted from yesterday.  Are you saying that 
11   that's all changed now?
12    MR. RAINEY:  I -- what I would suggest, and this is where 
13   -- you know, this is the critical point I guess.  I like the 
14   idea of the regrouping and it was always my intent that the 
15   report supported the most wanted, that was the whole way I set 
16   it up, and we've had some very quick and very hard work to get 
17   the initial draft.  But what I would suggest based on our 
18   discussions yesterday and, you know, kind of where we're going.  
19   I like this idea of taking it and organizing it in this fashion.  
20   I don't want to lose the work that we have.  So what I was 
21   hoping that we could do in this initial grouping is take a look 
22   at this is the organizational structure, we have the references, 
23   you know, generally that I threw up there but most, you know, 
24   importantly and timely the work that has been done here and I'm 
25   hoping that we can in a sense map back, I mean just, you know, 
0055
 1   kind of make some -- you know, save what we like out of here, 
 2   reorganize it into that format.  That's what I'm proposing.  I 
 3   don't know if that answers it or not, but.....
 4    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
 5   microphone).
 6    MR. RAINEY:  I think in large part we can.  In other words 
 7   -- I mean there was some time spent on pulling from our existing 
 8   recommendations.  Again, let's just take the -- you know, the 
 9   rapid response.  I mean those recommendations I think are 
10   relevant and we can pull those -- you know, I think much of -- 
11   in other words the whole intent here is to capture what we've 
12   got and just, you know, reorganize it and then, you know, build 
13   from there.  There were sections that we do need to build on.  
14   Ann.
15    MS. BOESE:  Yeah, can I make a suggestion?  I think if we 
16   break into groups according to the most wanted one through five 
17   because that will be our organizational template.  And if -- 
18   whatever group you're in, if you -- when you look at your most 
19   wanted eliminate the backlog.  Look at the report, if you can 
20   pull -- just pull the page out, say this goes with this, this 
21   doesn't, this doesn't and we can just reconfigure.  You just 
22   pull what you can from the report, A, and then B, any additional 
23   information that needs to -- that could be added and see any 
24   hard good examples that are going to bring people in to 
25   understand why these most wanted are most wanted.  That would be 
0056
 1   perfect.  Doesn't matter if it becomes messy now, we just are 
 2   like taking cards and reshuffling where it goes.  And hopefully 
 3   they'll be in pretty good shape but I have the feeling that they 
 4   may not.  So that -- you know, it's cut and paste, literally cut 
 5   and paste.  And then I'll take that, I'll take that, whatever it 
 6   looks like, and work with -- work from that and I have some 
 7   other ideas for the afternoon.  But that'll be -- that's I think 
 8   the way you have to do it.
 9    MR. RAINEY:  All right.  Well, let's proceed then.  Could 
10   -- who could work on the -- let's just go one through five and 
11   try to make sure we've got something covered.   But on the 
12   eliminate backlog of critical hydrographic shoreline surveys.  
13   Got a couple folks.  Okay.  I don't know if I need to select and 
14   direct where to go.  But -- let's just -- okay, so John -- both 
15   John's want to work on that.  Expand rapid response capabilities 
16   in emergencies.  
17    UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
18   microphone).
19    MR. RAINEY:  Okay.  That's the real time?  Okay.  Why 
20   don't we do this.  Who -- can we -- let me ask for volunteers to 
21   who could lead this next section on each one.  Could -- who -- 
22   John, can you do number one?  Okay.  Rapid response 
23   capabilities.  Adam, would you be willing to take a look at that 
24   one?  You've had the most recent experience with that with 
25   Katrina and all.  Sherri, you want to take three?  The conduct 
0057
 1   full bottom coverage hydro surveys.  Bill, you want to jump on 
 2   that one, would that be okay?  I mean we can all contribute to 
 3   all of these, I'm just wondering if I could just pick folks or 
 4   folks could volunteer for each of these sections and we get with 
 5   those people.  And then fully disseminate hydrographic data and 
 6   develop additional products.  This is -- in other words the 
 7   expanded uses.  Anyone interested in maybe kind of -- okay.  
 8   Elaine, thanks.  All right.  So why don't we take this time now 
 9   and take a look at that in those groups.  Okay.  So Jon Dasler's 
10   got one, get with him on that one, Adam McBride on two, Sherri 
11   Hickman on three, I guess Bill, is that okay on four?  And 
12   Elaine on five.
13    (Off record at 9:31 a.m.)
14    (On record at 10:01 a.m.)
15    MR. SKINNER:  .....leads on the five areas could just give 
16   a quick summary of where they are.  I didn't ask a yes or no 
17   question because I was afraid of the answer.  
18    (Whispered conversation)
19    MR. SKINNER:  Been asked to make an announcement that if 
20   you have a cell phone on and don't absolutely positively need it 
21   if you turn it off because it's interfering with the recording.  
22    Just wanted to go through in the next 15 minutes or so 
23   some of the changes on the most wanted list that I tried to 
24   incorporate from the earlier session, you should have a copy of 
25   it in front of you.  You can tell -- differentiate it from the 
0058
 1   earlier list in that number five has four bullets.  So try and 
 2   find the list that has the bullets at the bottom of the list.  I 
 3   tried to put one in front of every seat there.  If you don't 
 4   have one let me know.  You don't have one?  Oh god, how did that 
 5   happen.
 6    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  I was too close to you.
 7    MR. SKINNER:  You have one, don't you?
 8    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Yes.
 9    MR. SKINNER:  Okay.  Read through it.  Just list a couple 
10   of changes here.  The -- I switched number two -- what was 
11   number four to number two because I thought it was more closely 
12   related to the first item and added a bullet to try and separate 
13   it from why it was not just doing backlog but a specific issue 
14   that Bill and others have been talking about.  So that's now 
15   number two.  These aren't in order of priority, they're just 
16   trying to -- I tried to group them based on issue.  So rather 
17   than have me go through it, take a couple minutes and then just 
18   any comments let me know.
19    (Pause - background conversations)
20    MR. SZABADOS:  Tom?
21    MR. SKINNER:  Yeah.
22    MR. SZABADOS:  On number four.
23    MR. SKINNER:  Yeah.
24    MR. SZABADOS:  I think Vdatum would fit better in five now 
25   with the way we've defined five.  And -- Dave, would you concur?
0059
 1    MR. ZILKOSKI:  Yeah, Vdatum is actually -- is an 
 2   additional product that brings them all together.  
 3    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
 4   microphone).
 5    MR. SKINNER:  Okay.  
 6    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
 7   microphone).
 8    MR. ZILKOSKI:  Yeah, you know, and it's -- and I guess 
 9   that's something we should probably talk about is how there are 
10   a lot of models that need to be developed so if you're looking 
11   at trying to say I want to fund Vdatum operations in all these 
12   different ports or something maybe you would want to think about 
13   putting it in four from that, I'm not sure.  I mean, Mike, 
14   that's what they're maybe thinking because, you know, you talk 
15   about the modeling that has to go on.  You got the water levels 
16   but you also have to do modeling there.  So is that what people 
17   are meaning?
18    MR. SZABADOS:  Vdatum observations is not a correct way to 
19   say it.  So maybe we want to say modeling in general?
20    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
21   microphone).
22    MR. SZABADOS:  Use the term modeling?
23    MR. ZILKOSKI:  Yeah.  Maybe that's what you want to do.
24    MR. SZABADOS:  Observations and models?
25    MR. ZILKOSKI:  Yeah.  That probably would be better.  
0060
 1   Because that's what it is, that's what costs the money, it's the 
 2   models.
 3    MR. SZABADOS:  It's the models, right.
 4    MR. ZILKOSKI:  It's the models and Vdatum would cost the 
 5   time and money.  So that.....
 6    MR. SKINNER:  So could you tell me what.....
 7    MR. SZABADOS:  Okay.  So fund real time, tide, current, 
 8   observations and -- observation systems and -- well, and 
 9   modeling.  Give me a minute.
10    MR. SKINNER:  Okay.  We'll come back to that one.  Any 
11   other comments on the revised structure?  Well, we can come back 
12   to this if you think of some more things.  Why don't we take 
13   some time and go -- just a quick report from each of the leads 
14   on the five different categories.  And if you're not finished 
15   with your work that's fine, just sort of an update.  Jon, are 
16   you ready to.....
17    MR. DASLER:  We turned it all in.
18    MR. SKINNER:  You turned it all in.  Okay.  So update 
19   number one is you're done.  Do you want to tell us what you did?
20    MR. DASLER:  We basically took pages six and seven and 
21   eight, kind of took the key paragraphs.  And then we also have a 
22   significant amount of things we wanted to add.  Talk about the 
23   ability -- the current ability to navigate on the more accurate 
24   charts and it exceeds the accuracy of the data that's on them 
25   right now.  And also trying to expand on some examples, kind of 
0061
 1   showing some images of recent contacts that have been discovered 
 2   that are uncharted, you know, some examples of wrecks and 
 3   aircraft on the bottom, that kind of thing, that we can add to 
 4   it.  If we can get a list from NOAA adding sort of a hit list of 
 5   uncharted rocks, wrecks and obstructions that are -- have been 
 6   discovered, you know, either on a annual basis, over some 
 7   timeline, but with the use of new technologies just to give some 
 8   indication of the amount of items that are being discovered and 
 9   added to charts over some time interval.  Some examples listing 
10   -- I think first is pretty much stating the case of why the need 
11   for updating it and why it's so critical.  And then expanding on 
12   that is giving examples of some of the -- like the QE-2, the 
13   Athos, some other wrecks where -- that have been involved in it, 
14   uncharted objects that ships have hit.  Glacier Bay again was 
15   another example.  Need to expand the data processing pipeline 
16   from getting data in the field, the whole concept of ping to 
17   chart and some adding to that.  Use of RTK or at least post 
18   process kinematic for running -- maximizing field efforts, 
19   eliminating biases in the field both from a horizontal 
20   positioning aspect and then also trying to minimize total 
21   propagated error just to increase accuracies in the chart and 
22   also increase the turn around time from ping to chart.  So it'll 
23   in -- the more accurate we can make these things and reduce the 
24   error the more automated these systems can become and reduce 
25   total ping to chart.  More dollars from the -- for the program, 
0062
 1   eliminating the backlog to basically double production.  
 2    MR. SKINNER:  Can I just jump in for a second on a 
 3   procedural thing?
 4    MR. DASLER:  Sure.
 5    MR. SKINNER:  Are these going to be sort of -- are the -- 
 6   what the groups produced, are they going to be summarized for 
 7   this afternoon or are we going to talk about these later on?
 8    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  I don't know how -- there's.....
 9    UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
10   microphone).
11    CAPTAIN HICKMAN:  There's no way she can do -- get that 
12   put out.
13    MR. SKINNER:  Okay.  Because, Scott, we have to break 
14   right at 10:15, is that right?
15    MR. RAINEY:  Well, we need to be back by 10:30.  So if we 
16   want to press on and if people have to leave individually we 
17   could go till 10:30 but I want to be able to, you know, start 
18   with our panel at 10:30.  
19    MR. SKINNER:  Okay.  I think we'll have some time to talk 
20   about this this afternoon.  Is that right?
21    MR. RAINEY:  Yes, we should.  Absolutely.
22    MR. SKINNER:  So we can either go on with group one and 
23   then catch the others later or if people want to hear a quick 
24   summary of where the groups are we can do that.  I just -- I 
25   don't want to get -- cut any group short.  
0063
 1    CAPTAIN HICKMAN:  Can I just make a comment?  And I may -- 
 2   Minas brought up a point and I thought I'd put his mind at ease 
 3   but I'm not so sure I was right.  Is there anything in your 
 4   number one that does -- talks to -- about ENC's?
 5    MR. DASLER:  No, not the ENC's.
 6    CAPTAIN HICKMAN:  Because I don't think anything is on our 
 7   actual which is probably not a good thing.
 8    MR. DASLER:  It could be.  I mean I'll.....
 9    CAPTAIN HICKMAN:  In these five points.  So that's just 
10   one critical downfall I see right now.
11    MR. SKINNER:  Right.
12    MR. DASLER:  We can add a section that discusses that.  I 
13   mean all of that is part parcel I think to eliminating -- not 
14   just eliminating the backlog but getting it on the chart and 
15   getting it out to mariners so it could be a section that 
16   discusses that.
17    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  I think that would be covered by number 
18   five.  I mean fully disseminate hydrographic data.  Obviously 
19   that's -- put that on the chart, right?  And getting that chart 
20   out whether it's ENC's or raster.  I mean but I think you can 
21   expand it in number five about the whole ENC program, that it's 
22   -- right now it's dead, right?  If that'll work.
23    CAPTAIN ARMSTRONG:  I had thought that number five was 
24   sort of more appropriately going to be all the other things that 
25   the data was useful for rather than sort of circling back to too 
0064
 1   much on Marine Transportation issues.  But.....
 2    MR. SKINNER:  Can I suggest -- I know we started this, but 
 3   it sounds like we're sort of drilling down on some of the 
 4   details which I think is great but I really don't want to get 
 5   sort of started five minutes into it and then have to break for 
 6   the panel.  So maybe if we can take the break now and then this 
 7   afternoon pick up and go through each of the sections in greater 
 8   detail.  Maybe that's a better way to proceed on this.  
 9    MR. DASLER:  I only have probably a couple other little 
10   items.
11    MR. RAINEY:  Yeah, why don't we let Jon finish and 
12   then.....
13    MR. SKINNER:  All right.
14    MR. RAINEY:  .....that'll -- we can pick it up and be back 
15   at 10:30.  Go ahead, Jon.  Thanks.
16    MR. DASLER:  The other thing we added was in geo -- the 
17   georeferencing section and really kind of combining that with 
18   the shoreline and mapping and then putting in an example of mis-
19   charted shorelines, some of the examples that were presented, 
20   add that in as a figure.  And then applications of emerging 
21   technology to help increase that production, ASV's and AUV's.  
22   And I think that's pretty much it unless anybody else.  John or 
23   Lou, if you had anything to add.
24    MR. SKINNER:  Any other comments on the first group?  I 
25   think maybe in the interim time we can figure out where -- 
0065
 1   Minas, your issue, where it is most appropriately placed.  
 2   Electronic charts.
 3    CAPTAIN MYRTIDIS:  Well, I just think that we have spent 
 4   quite a few time talking about ENC's and the importance for not 
 5   having it included there.
 6    MR. SKINNER:  Okay.  Well, let's work on that between now 
 7   and when we raise this this afternoon.  So we'll pick this up 
 8   sometime this afternoon with the second group which, Bill, is 
 9   now your group.  
10    MR. GRAY:  Okay.  I'm ready.
11    MR. SKINNER:  So, great.  Thanks.
12    MR. RAINEY:  Okay.  Let's try to be back then at 10:30 and 
13   we'll welcome our Alaska stakeholders panel.  Thank you.
14    (Off record at 10:13 a.m.)
15    (On record at 10:34 a.m.)
16    MR. RAINEY:  .....very much appreciate it and like to 
17   introduce Molly McCammon, Executive Director of the -- of AOOS 
18   up here and she helped us pull this panel together.  And Molly's 
19   also on the Executive Board for the National Federation of 
20   Regional Associations.  And I know Tom has had a lot of 
21   work.....
22    MR. SKINNER:  Yeah, I just wanted to welcome the whole 
23   panel to this panel and also a special thanks to Molly.  Molly 
24   had worked with both Helen, me and Josie Quintrel (ph) from the 
25   Gulf of Maine Ocean Observing System on making sure that 
0066
 1   navigation services was seen as a critical part of ocean 
 2   observing systems nationwide and I think we owe her a debt of 
 3   gratitude for that.  And it's also nice to see you again.
 4    MS. MCCAMMON:  Well -- can you hear me okay with this?
 5    MR. RAINEY:  These mics are not too sensitive, you got to 
 6   get kind of close to them.
 7    MS. MCCAMMON:  Okay.  I'll put it a little closer.  Okay, 
 8   is that better?  
 9    THE REPORTER:  Yes.
10    MS. MCCAMMON:  Okay.  Well, welcome to rainy Alaska.  When 
11   I was asked to put this stakeholder panel together I, you know, 
12   blasted out an e-mail to, you know, six, seven people, didn't 
13   get any response, there was a deafening silence because this is 
14   August and people are either out on their boats, they're out 
15   fishing, they're out doing things or else they're on vacation.  
16   So then I blasted out another 30 e-mails and we started making 
17   phone calls and now we have this great group assembled here 
18   which I think will give you a good kind of breath of 
19   perspectives in terms of users of the marine environment.  
20    But I really do appreciate that the panel is here visiting 
21   Alaska during this season.  I've been Director of the Alaska 
22   Ocean Observing System for three years now.  And AOOS is one of 
23   the 11 regional associations being developed as part of the 
24   regional coastal component of IOOS, the Integrated Ocean 
25   Observing System.  We've been doing lots of planning, workshops, 
0067
 1   outreach efforts to various user communities and I can assure 
 2   you that hands down when we talk to user communities, and it 
 3   doesn't matter if it's a whaler in Barrow, if it's a 
 4   recreational boater, if it's the Port of Anchorage, if it's a 
 5   commercial fisherman, what we hear kind of bottom line from 
 6   people is winds, waves, currents, we need more information, we 
 7   need better information there, we need better bathometry, better 
 8   mapping.  Those are kind of just really core elements that 
 9   almost everyone says they need for various purposes.  And when 
10   you start looking at whether it's -- I have fisheries ecosystem 
11   model or shoreline erosion or ocean circulation, it all comes 
12   down to providing those kinds of basic elements that are up to 
13   date, accurate and really ground truth the models that we've 
14   been working from.  So that's kind of an underpinning and I'm 
15   sure you'll hear about this from all of the panelists today, 
16   that that's really basic information that Alaskans are 
17   desperately in need of.  
18    Specifically though I do want to highlight a couple 
19   things.  And I do have written comments here and so you'll have 
20   those in front of you.  So I'm going to go through these very 
21   quickly because I want you to hear from the other panelists 
22   here.  But specifically we do need higher resolution bathometry 
23   throughout state waters.  And I could pick and choose and say 
24   here's my top three priorities but I'm sure people next to me 
25   will say here's my top two or three.  But we really do need 
0068
 1   better bathometry, that is absolutely critical to the work we're 
 2   doing.  We need additional tide gauges.  And if this means 
 3   putting out tide gauges that maybe aren't quite up to snuff, 
 4   maybe a little bit lower level but they're cheaper, maybe a 
 5   little bit easier to maintain, I think we really need to look at 
 6   that because we really need to get that information throughout 
 7   the state on a much broader basis.  And then thirdly we need 
 8   better spatial and temporal resolution of our surface currents 
 9   through use of high frequency radar.  We've been testing this in 
10   two locations, one outside of Prudhoe Bay which is relatively 
11   easy because there's power up there and you just kind of plug it 
12   in and it's actually been working pretty successfully during the 
13   ice free seasons.  The other place we've been testing it most 
14   recently is in Prince William Sound.  And what we found is it's 
15   really difficult operating these systems remotely with 
16   autonomous power.  And we have a couple of proposals into 
17   National Science Foundation that we've been working with some 
18   folks up at the University of Alaska to try to test and develop 
19   a new system that's much more fuel efficient, power efficient 
20   and will give us better capability.  So -- but it shows a lot of 
21   promise for providing the kinds of information that a lot of 
22   folks need.
23    There are also some observing activities that maybe aren't 
24   really around your purview but they definitely relate to 
25   navigation safety and whatever you as a panel can do to promote 
0069
 1   these kinds of cooperative efforts I think would be really 
 2   useful.  One of them is the increased number of river gauges.  
 3   Much of our traffic and movement along the coast through coastal 
 4   currents is driven by freshwater input.  And instead of adding 
 5   river gauges in Alaska right now USGS is removing them due to 
 6   budget cuts.  And this is making it very difficult to get really 
 7   accurate forecasts of what's happening in our coastal currents 
 8   which is directly related to providing important navigation 
 9   safety information to users.  So whatever you can do to 
10   influence USGS budget that would be great.
11    The other thing that we hear a lot from the west coast 
12   folks and the people in the arctic is better information on near 
13   shore inland fast sea ice.  The problem isn't so much where the 
14   ice is at the moment.  The satellite coverage gives us pretty 
15   good coverage for that.  The problem is how thick is that ice 
16   and is it going to break up today, in the next 30 minutes or in 
17   the next week or two.  And this is really critical for not only 
18   subsistence hunters who use the ice as camps for their whaling 
19   activities, but also for all of the tug and barge access to the 
20   west coast of Alaska and to Prudhoe Bay and the north coast.  
21   Trying to figure out when the ice is going to break up, when 
22   will it be safe to ship all of our goods to the North Slope.  So 
23   any additional and improved information on near shore sea ice 
24   thickness in particular is really critical to that.
25    And then the last thing, and I think Dr. Smith is going to 
0070
 1   talk a little bit more about this, is a better survey by NOAA 
 2   and USGS of the sediment literal cells to include sediment 
 3   sources, sinks and transport rates in order to establish an 
 4   Alaska baseline.  That's something we don't have right now and I 
 5   know many of you have probably heard about some of the critical 
 6   places that we have in this state that are literally washing 
 7   away at the moment due to coastal erosion.  So a survey, coast 
 8   wide survey, of that would be very helpful.
 9    There's also kind of four kind of broad recommendations 
10   that AOOS as an organization has been looking at and the first 
11   is having CO-OPS work with us to develop a 10 year plan.  It 
12   would be very helpful to have it laid out exactly what all of 
13   the user communities feel is most important in terms of 
14   developing the navigation services and hydrographic services 
15   products in Alaska and having a really comprehensive plan that 
16   everyone is kind of working off of.  Then we can all look at 
17   that, use that as our baseline and start kind of picking at it 
18   and trying to get it accomplished through various funding 
19   mechanisms.
20    Second, we really would like NOAA to look at Alaska as a 
21   test bed for new equipment and technology.  I think because of 
22   our remoteness, our harsh weather, we face a lot of unique 
23   challenges that other areas in the state -- in the lower 48 
24   don't have.  In fact I gave a slide show in Hawaii and people 
25   were just blown away by the fact that we don't have roads and 
0071
 1   power on most of our coastline, very few miles of our coastline, 
 2   and there's 43,000 miles of it, have power or roads.  So we have 
 3   a lot of challenges and it's a great test bed for different 
 4   kinds of technology.
 5    And then lastly, all of our NDVC buoys right now are 
 6   serviced from Stennis.  And we've talked to Paul Moresdorf (ph) 
 7   about the possibility of establishing a staging center here in 
 8   Alaska, possibly at Seward where the University of Alaska has a 
 9   marine mooring center there and where the new research vessel 
10   hopefully will be located.  It -- as more moorings are placed in 
11   this state, as we start doing more work on the ocean, it's 
12   really important that we have a base of operations here in 
13   Alaska and that we not depend on someplace in the Gulf of 
14   Mexico, subject to hurricanes for god's sake.  That we don't 
15   want to depend on that for providing the kind of support that we 
16   have.
17    So those are kind of the general recommendations that I 
18   have and I'd be happy to answer at the end any questions that 
19   you might have.  But what I'd like to do now is introduce -- and 
20   I'll go one by one and just introduce them one at a time and 
21   they'll give some comments and recommendations to you also.  And 
22   I'd like to start with Captain Jeff Pierce who is President of 
23   the Southwest Alaska Pilots Association from Homer, Alaska.
24    CAPTAIN PIERCE:  Hello.  I am Jeff Pierce, President of 
25   Southwest Alaska Pilots.  I've been an active pilot for over 20 
0072
 1   years up here.  Basically I got the surprise of all surprises 
 2   when I came in the door.  You actually got a regional location 
 3   now for our tides and currents here in Cook Inlet.  We were 
 4   using Wrangell.  Wrangell we were adding five hours, subtracting 
 5   four and a half hours.  That station's in southeast Alaska.  For 
 6   us and our work what we do, we actually cover Southcentral 
 7   Alaska from Icy Bay west, Prince William Sound, the tanker 
 8   traffic in and out of Prince William Sound, cruise ship traffic, 
 9   Kodiak Island and all of Cook Inlet and Seward.  So we have a 
10   real vast area.  And we in our group rely highly upon the 
11   current and tidal predictions and I'll get into that with Cook 
12   Inlet.  That's why I'm really -- thank you.  This is a big one 
13   to us.  Because right now we're transporting tankers in and out 
14   of Cook Inlet, we have a terminal in Nikiski that does L and G 
15   export, we have a refinery there at Nikiski and we also have a 
16   ammonia uria export facility out at Nikiski, and that's about 84 
17   miles up the Inlet.  We do not use tugboats to these facilities.  
18   These are all very large ships, 700 footers.  With no tugboat 
19   use we're dependent upon the tides and currents.  We have 
20   utilized now, a few years back the Coast Guard finally put a 
21   range up for us which kind of indicates deeper water for us.  
22   We're using the tides to float the ships and to get to the docks 
23   because of the shoaling.  Cook Inlet, I don't know if you've 
24   read much on Cook Inlet, but on all the charts they'll have a 
25   disclaimer on them that due to rolling rocks you're not allowed 
0073
 1   to go in the blue, the blue being 10 fathoms.  Recently, i.e, 
 2   I'll put it about six, seven years.  Is that about right?  They 
 3   came up, did some bottom dragging for us and did some soundings 
 4   for us and, well, went oh boy, we found things.  These are very 
 5   much a changing body of water because of the silting and the 
 6   large tides.  Diurnal tide in Anchorage is about 30 feet.  So in 
 7   Anchorage, to get to Anchorage is all of our transport for TOTE, 
 8   Horizon Lines, barges that supply the Anchorage community.  
 9   Recently there's been a lot of dredging in Anchorage itself, 
10   they've been dredging, there's a couple of dredges, for the last 
11   several summers.  Then they drop the spoils in the port area or 
12   outside the port and then we watch.  As mariners we're very 
13   attentive around here to watching -- even though we know where 
14   we are, we're in good water, we always use a bottom sounder 
15   because we start talking, we're seeing spikes, seeing stuff.  
16   And this is very consistent up here.  I would say about every 30 
17   days we'll talk amongst ourselves and we'll talk about the 
18   spikes or boulders or whatever we're seeing.  And this is 
19   constant year around.  So the more input -- like Molly said, the 
20   more input we get the better information we have, the better off 
21   we all are.  I came this morning and listened briefly and 
22   somebody had made the comment, it really stuck with me, that 
23   better soundings and better display of information is better 
24   than a double hull tanker.  I've worked a tanker fleet for a 
25   long time and I cannot concur anymore with you, I agree 110 
0074
 1   percent.  Give us the information and we're better off.  And I 
 2   can go right back to the Glacier Bay spill and probably no one 
 3   remembers it but.....
 4    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
 5   microphone).
 6    CAPTAIN PIERCE:  Okay.  What was that?  That was an 
 7   uncharted rock.  So -- I mean what I'm referring to is these 
 8   things are changing around us and we need to be more aware of 
 9   what great information does to prohibit and exclude accidents 
10   and oil in the water.
11    This Nikiski thing, I want to get back on it real quick.  
12   Because we're dependent upon the currents to dock there, we stem 
13   the current.  So what we do is we look at predictions and we act 
14   accordingly.  Usually we're trying to get in around an hour 
15   after high water or hour after low water, be dependent on what 
16   you're doing.  But basically we're utilizing the current.  Now 
17   in smaller tides we have noticed an error of up to and over an 
18   hour.  The channel we're using here is -- what we'll do is we'll 
19   turn and stem the current and wait for the current to arrive.  
20   It's a safe operation, however, I really don't want to be up 
21   there if I don't know there's current.  I use the current -- use 
22   Mother Nature, not fight it.  So if I get up there and it's ebby 
23   and I want it to be flooding I'm kind of looking at myself going 
24   I'm not going to believe this again next time.  And real frankly 
25   I -- we've all started adding time.  Hopefully this will help.  
0075
 1   I mean it's a very big part of what we do for a living is to 
 2   make sure that the tides and currents are what we -- what is 
 3   published is what we're seeing, you know, on those two different 
 4   things there.  Because we're also playing the tides to get the 
 5   water over the bars and if we get a northerly wind direction and 
 6   we're seeing barometers moving we will -- we all start adding 
 7   time.  And it's just precautionary because -- I don't want to 
 8   say our face, but our trust in numbers is exactly that, it's 
 9   numbers.  You have to make sure you got the water there to do 
10   what we're doing.
11    So I can encourage you on some parts.  I noticed some 
12   priorities.  I went into the website and some of the priorities 
13   listed were level threes.  I don't know what that means, I 
14   really don't.  But one of them is the Nikiski approaches and 
15   that's where the refineries are and that's the body of water we 
16   use.  They are listed at priority level three and also a Drift 
17   River terminal approach was listed at priority level three.  And 
18   that's on the west side of the Inlet and we do the same thing 
19   over there, no tugboats, we're using the tides and currents.  
20   And, you know, we all got our little tricks where we're adding 
21   an hour here, subtracting an hour there and doing things to try 
22   to get it organized.  And hopefully this helps us a lot and I'm 
23   -- we talked earlier and he's going to take some down to my 
24   partners because we're all going to jump up and down for joy.  
25   So something is happening that's good.  
0076
 1    One comment, I did send a pilot down to Kodiak here 
 2   recently on the east side of Kodiak and it's not untypical in 
 3   our area to see this.  Soundings last done 1933.  So what we do 
 4   is we avoid going inside 10 fathoms.  You just can't risk going 
 5   inside 10 fathoms in this environment.  And then the people that 
 6   are wanting the vessel there are saying why aren't you coming in 
 7   closer.  Well, of course being a sailor sometimes you're not too 
 8   explanatory about what you're wanting and saying.  I mean it 
 9   just doesn't come out that well, it really doesn't.  So 
10   basically we've tried to tell our customers that our intent is 
11   to get it there safely and keep it safe.  So the more mapping 
12   and chart information you give us the better that we are at 
13   providing a better service and the better our customers are.  
14   That's all.
15    MS. MCCAMMON:  Thank you, Jeff.  Appreciate that.  We're 
16   going to kind of switch fields a little bit here and to my right 
17   is Margaret Spahn who is a fisheries biologist with the Alaska 
18   Department of Fish and Game.  And Margaret is going to speak to 
19   the importance of bathometry information for fisheries 
20   management.
21    MS. SPAHN:  Is this on?  Yes.  Good morning, my name is 
22   Margaret Spahn, I'm a biologist with the Alaska Department of 
23   Fish and Game, Division of Commercial Fisheries in Homer, 
24   Alaska.  I also provide their GIS mapping in our region two area 
25   which goes from Prince William Sound through Cook Inlet.  And 
0077
 1   there are -- we have been recently using -- well, within the 
 2   last two or three years we've been using NOAA provided multibeam 
 3   bathometry where it's available for survey planning and for 
 4   determining available habitat which brings us into -- you know, 
 5   works toward stock assessments and fisheries management.  I'm 
 6   going to have to move this a little closer.  Sorry.  
 7    So there have been three of us in the Department who have 
 8   been working with NOAA data pretty extensively, one in southeast 
 9   Alaska, myself in southcentral and one in westward region.  And 
10   the fisheries and fisheries surveys, some of the fisheries that 
11   this data has helped informed are ling cod and rockfish, shrimp 
12   trawls, scallop, cod, black cod, king crab.  And in discussing 
13   what we were -- what we wanted to convey to this panel in 
14   talking with my colleagues in southeast and Kodiak, the one 
15   thing we certainly agreed upon was what an extraordinary job 
16   NOAA is doing in making this data available to us.  They are 
17   absolutely bending over backwards and going out of their way and 
18   it -- we really appreciate that.  They have -- the Fairweather 
19   and the Rainier crew have been extraordinary in providing data 
20   even before it's ready for distribution so that we can use it in 
21   upcoming surveys.  And the Sand Point office has been 
22   incredible.  We really appreciate the -- your orientation toward 
23   web based distribution.  That makes it so much easier for us.  
24   You have hydrographic soundings available online through your 
25   map server.  Brook McMahon in Sand Point is doing an incredible 
0078
 1   job with that in getting both current multibeam data and 
 2   historic single beam data there.  The ENC's are available 
 3   online, we appreciate that, and the -- having the raster 
 4   navigation charts, the BSB charts, available free at this point 
 5   to the public is a very welcome change.  
 6    I was a little surprised yesterday to hear comments 
 7   questioning the direction that NOAA has been taking on 
 8   developing the ENC charts and full coverage of ENC's.  From my 
 9   perspective there -- the ENC data is extremely useful in that 
10   it's vector data and layers can be extracted and each layer also 
11   has a series of attributes associates with it.  And that the 
12   raster charts are basically based on the same data that the 
13   ENC's are -- that inform the ENC's.  And I'm curious about the  
14   -- what the problems are in -- on the bridge and in navigation.  
15   It seems like if there are problems with using the ENC's it's 
16   probably software based and training based and not an issue with 
17   the data itself.  And, you know, at this point I believe many of 
18   the electronic charts are proprietary and, you know, different 
19   software packages have their own electronic chart format.  And I 
20   think -- I suspect that when the ENC's are available for a 
21   larger area that the software company that develops a good 
22   product to use the ENC's directly is going to be way ahead of 
23   the game.  
24    I was also really pleased to hear the discussion about 
25   shorelines and vertical datum issues.  When I'm integrating 
0079
 1   datasets from different sources the shorelines are often a very 
 2   big problem.  You know, we have shorelines from USGS, from 
 3   National Wetlands Inventory, ENC charts, U.S. Forest Service, 
 4   DNR and also some non-tidally referenced shorelines where data 
 5   has been collected based on let's say aerial photographs that 
 6   have no tidal reference and no vertical datum associated with 
 7   them.  Vertical datum for us is very important, would be having 
 8   accurate vertical references is terrific for tidelands leases, 
 9   for clam surveys, aquaculture leases, of course flood plain 
10   development.  Glacial retreat and isostatic rebound associated 
11   with it and -- well, this is aside from fisheries, but I believe 
12   with the eruption of Augustine that the -- having accurate GPS 
13   vertical reference certainly helped inform us of impending 
14   eruptions.  And I think there is a role that NOAA or USGS can 
15   certainly play in educating the public and the GIS community in 
16   particular about vertical datums and their importance.  In a way 
17   it's kind of -- we have a converse problem that I was referring 
18   to with ENC's.  With ENC charts you have a competent navigator 
19   that may not be trained with the particular software that uses 
20   ENC charts.  In our case we may have a competent software 
21   operator, a GIS analyst who isn't necessarily a very competent 
22   geographer or cartographer.  
23    We certainly support contracting to cover -- well, to 
24   collect bathometry in areas that are lacking.  I know there are 
25   a lot of areas in Alaska that have none at all that -- you know, 
0080
 1   there's a lot of white spots on those charts.  And I would hope 
 2   that as you develop non-navigational products that the 
 3   deliverables you expect from your contractors are comparable or 
 4   identical to those produced from NOAA vessels so that all our 
 5   datasets are comparable basically.  Also, if we contract with a 
 6   private firm to collect hydrographic data we would like that to 
 7   be useful to NOAA and we need to perhaps open a dialogue on how 
 8   to make that happen.  We -- most of our funding comes from 
 9   grants and so we have to, you know, be very careful in how we 
10   spend money and I expect that -- I would suspect that it would 
11   cost more to produce data to NOAA standards and -- well, that's 
12   something we might be able to discuss in the future.
13    We certainly support NOAA fleet improvements and 
14   maintenance.  The Rainer and Fairweather are very much 
15   appreciated.  As far as ancillary data that's collecting during 
16   hydrographic surveys we're very interested in using the 
17   backscatter that's collected during multibeam surveys.  And to 
18   this point -- the backscatter is useful to us in characterizing 
19   the soft sediments.  The multibeam itself, high resolution 
20   multibeam certainly tells us where the rocky reef areas are.  
21   We'd also like to have more information about the softer 
22   sediments for other fisheries.
23    There are software products that characterize based on 
24   acoustic characteristics, do an automatic characterization 
25   basically.  And we have found that the NOAA data is not -- we 
0081
 1   can't use it with QTC for instance, Quester Tangent, because 
 2   it's optimized for bathometry and the gain settings are changed 
 3   during collection and that makes the backscatter not terribly 
 4   useful is my understanding.  But I -- so I know that NOAA is 
 5   working with Joint Hydrographic Branch, UNH, in developing some 
 6   software to compensate for that and we are very interested in 
 7   that and appreciate that effort.
 8    Other ancillary data, there's CTD tests that are done 
 9   during the collection of hydrographic data and I'm not sure what 
10   happens to that but might be of use to us or other people in the 
11   state.  And bottom grabs and sediment characterizations are of 
12   interest to us.  And one recommendation I might just put out 
13   there is consider the possibility of incorporating a drop camera 
14   when you do those bottom grabs because a bottom image can tell 
15   you so much more about the community and there's something else 
16   to refer to that a geologist or a biologist might find more 
17   interested than a hydrographer would.
18    And lastly, I would like to see more public involvement in 
19   the survey planning process and prioritization.  And it could be 
20   that there is a very effective public participation process that 
21   I'm simply not aware of.  Both the public -- I'd like to see 
22   some kind of public participation or -- well, participation in 
23   both the prioritized areas, setting the priorities for new 
24   surveys or resurveys, and in specific survey design.  There are 
25   -- there have been surveys in the past that have stopped short 
0082
 1   of collecting data on an entire reef system that are -- you 
 2   know, an entire geographic feature, in this case it was a reef 
 3   system.  And had we known that -- you know, had we known that 
 4   when that was being planned we might have jumped up and down a 
 5   little bit and hoped we could get some more -- and also 
 6   sometimes -- well, for instance, the Orca inlet survey in Prince 
 7   William Sound.  My understanding is that that survey will not -- 
 8   that survey does not include the southern approaches to Cordova.  
 9   And that is -- and that's shallower water and that's where our 
10   entire Cooper River gillnet fleet enters and exits from Cordova 
11   harbor.  So, you know, in that case that particular survey isn't 
12   addressing the needs of that fishery fleet.  And -- well, again, 
13   thank you for meeting here in Anchorage and if you have any 
14   questions I'll answer them now or later.
15    MS. MCCAMMON:  Thank you very much, Margaret.  We're going 
16   to continue on with the fisheries theme here and Bob Pawlowski 
17   is Executive Director of the Alaska Fisheries Development 
18   Foundation and he's going to speak to the needs of commercial 
19   fishermen.
20    CAPTAIN PAWLOWSKI:  Thank you, different hat this time 
21   than yesterday.  I'm -- again, I'm Captain Bob Pawlowski, a 
22   retired NOAA officer who spent a career in the fisheries side 
23   commanding the Miller Freeman as my last sea duty so I got to 
24   know very clearly the challenges of fishing Alaska and working 
25   with Alaska on following that and I was the navigation advisor 
0083
 1   during the time that the whole issue with the decision with the 
 2   Glacier Bay came forward and Andy and I worked in planning the 
 3   surveys in Cook Inlet.  
 4    Couple of points.  One, following NOAA I've been involved 
 5   with the Resource Development Council for Alaska and the Alaska 
 6   Miners Association, looking at the challenges with essential 
 7   fish habitat and with maintaining communities in areas where 
 8   endangered species or habitat areas of particular concern come 
 9   up.  So I want to talk on those subjects.  But really quickly, 
10   the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation is a 28 year old 
11   nonprofit foundation based on industry members that represent 
12   the harvesting sector, a group you might know, and that is 
13   American Seafoods.  The processing sector, we've got the 
14   associations but we also have Trident, Orca Bay, Ocean Beauty, 
15   North Pacific as members and the service sector which can 
16   include oil and gas groups like Crowley or the distributors, et 
17   cetera, as well as we have press and we have other associations.  
18   So we really get a good cross section of the industry throughout 
19   as well as their unique things.
20    Alaska is a very well managed fishery and a very 
21   sustainable fishery and there's a lot of effort that's going 
22   into it but it's facing some major challenges that surveying can 
23   really help.  I want to note three areas of dependency that we 
24   have to face.  The first one is clearly the indus -- the fishing 
25   industry has to look at navigation safety.  Hydrographic 
0084
 1   surveys, good accurate weather services, good tides all play 
 2   into getting in and out of the ports, planning your fishery, not 
 3   losing your gear because of excess currents.  There's lots of 
 4   different decisions that go on.  The more information that can 
 5   come together, particularly enhancing the Ocean Observing 
 6   System, at a cost effective way is going to do very well for our 
 7   remote communities.
 8    It's very important to get in this issue of inaccurate 
 9   shorelines.  Everybody's using GPS.  When John talks about I 
10   want to -- is Cherikofs 1,000 meters off or any of our -- some 
11   of our Aleutian Islands are substantially off yet they're still 
12   a navigation reference.  When you're working with GPS you're 
13   counting on it being accurate and you're counting on it being 
14   accurate to the chart.  A substantial error is a high risk and 
15   it's not only a high risk for the operation, it's also a high 
16   risk in enforcement when you're having to stay three miles 
17   outside of stellar sea lion closures, which is a challenge to 
18   the industry based on some of that.  
19    The other thing that's going on in getting that data out 
20   to the fishing industry is Senator Stevens has worked greatly on 
21   getting increased bandwidth in our communities.  But a 10 meg 
22   startup where you have possibly one meg during storms is a non-
23   starter.  Minimizing it down so that navigation, hydrographic 
24   information, tides, meteorology can all be put out in a small 
25   files on the -- can work with cell phones, work with Telex, 
0085
 1   style, has a lot to say for it.  When it's up it's great to get 
 2   a beautiful website home page, when it's down it's going to take 
 3   you an hour to get that home page up before you can even get 
 4   access to the information.  So communication and bandwidth is a 
 5   real challenge facing rural Alaska and the coastal communities 
 6   that support the fishing industry.  
 7    Second point is economic dependency on good solid 
 8   navigation information.  Everything other than fish is barged 
 9   in, freighted in or flown in.  Fish is hauled in on the fishing 
10   vessels and then either barged out, freighted out or flown out.  
11   So navigation and good hydrographic is very important.  It 
12   becomes critical as an economic dependency when you look at 
13   doing operations where you have an endangered species, a habitat 
14   area of particular concern or a marine protected area.  In any 
15   of these cases you've got a community that is dependent on 
16   refined product, bringing refined product, diesel oil, gasoline, 
17   et cetera, into an area where there's an endangered species has 
18   an insurance risk mitigation cost.  When you're a small 
19   community bringing fuel in where you have sea otters or 
20   spectical LIDAR or whatever.  The insurance companies want to 
21   look at a responsible carrier and responsible carriers going to 
22   have to pay the premium that goes directly into the community.  
23   When you're a fishing industry that cost comes directly into 
24   what you have to recover to be able to harvest that fish which 
25   is one of the reasons why you're also seeing the price of fish 
0086
 1   escalating in your local fish markets.  So that economic 
 2   dependency is really critical.  Hydrographic services can 
 3   mitigate a lot of that by clear channels, good weather, good 
 4   tides, accurate timely information.
 5    The third dependency I want to identify is -- before I 
 6   step into that.  I have to say there is a benchmark we live with 
 7   in Alaska post Exxon Valdez and that is best available 
 8   technology.  So when you bring in refined product into these 
 9   communities if there's a question -- if an incident happens the 
10   question's going to come back were they using the best available 
11   technology.  Clearly we use the best available that's available 
12   but it is -- in most of rural Alaska it's very substandard to 
13   the lower 48.  And what can be done to improve our navigation 
14   services we'll do great.
15    The third part is community and cultural has a dependency 
16   on the fishing industry.  People have grown up fishing, families 
17   fish, they own the boats, they run the plants, it's just really 
18   deeply entrenched into all of our communities whether they're 
19   Native or whether they're -- a lot of the ur -- quasi urban 
20   settled communities in southcentral and southeast in particular.  
21   There's business decisions that are going on all the time and 
22   one of those business decisions that can be greatly enhanced is 
23   getting good digital data to dovetail with the data the 
24   fishermen are collecting and putting through their -- either 
25   their globe terrain builders or their ulax (ph) or whatever or 
0087
 1   working with their local CDQ in getting the GIS's out.  So they 
 2   get a good feel on model for the bottom.  They're trying to do 
 3   sustainable fisheries, meet MSC certifications, Marine 
 4   Stewardship Council certifications is a emerging goal, and they 
 5   need good data and terrain models that they can match their 
 6   local data to.  The different formats, there's lots of 
 7   challenges, but recognize there's different sets of data, the 
 8   public that's available and that's being collected by the 
 9   private.  It's leading to opportunities for increasing the catch 
10   per unit effort.  Catch per unit effort is one of the few ways 
11   you can drop your total cost per unit by increasing the catch.  
12   The other thing is it lets you choose what is an effective gear 
13   to use on the bottom or around the bottom so you are sustainable 
14   and you're mitigating the concerns that people have with the 
15   bottom.
16    Finally, in the event of a disaster, much like the 
17   Seladong Iuua (ph) out in western Alaska.  Having good 
18   information to understand where is the trajectories, what is the 
19   storms coming, what is the cartography in the area, what is the 
20   angle of repose on the beach, what is the offshore slopes, all 
21   of these tie into the decisions that are going on.  But to go 
22   one step farther, the people really look at this.  And as Sharon 
23   Siverny-Livingston (ph) said, add the Aleutian life form.  It 
24   may not have been a big event in the grand scheme of things, it 
25   was $85 million for 400,000 gallons of bunker sea plus the 
0088
 1   soybeans, but it was still a disaster to the people.  The native 
 2   people want to have simple clear tools that they can understand 
 3   what is going on when their lands are being impacted.  This was 
 4   four native corporations.  Federal government had the tools, 
 5   they could see it, the Native elders were not seeing information 
 6   that was useful.  Hydrographic services can at least provide 
 7   this is our best cartography we have in the area, this is our 
 8   best meteorology, these are the decisions we're making for 
 9   oceanography, for currents, for spill response, real simple, 
10   real clear, makes a big difference.
11    In conclusion, the fishing industry is facing challenges, 
12   hydrographic services can help to mitigate a lot of those 
13   challenges.  The industry is a huge supporter of NOAA and the 
14   services they receive as well as appreciate playing a key role 
15   in the management of the resources that has been set up.  So 
16   with that I'll conclude and answer any questions towards the end 
17   or after.  Thank you.
18    MS. MCCAMMON:  Thanks Bob, very much.  We're going to 
19   continue a little bit on -- with the theme of at least kind of 
20   state resources and state management.  To my left is Rich 
21   McMahon who's with the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, 
22   Lands Records Group.  And this group is responsible for 
23   basically all the maps and shorelines and information on kind of 
24   the terrestrial and tidelands portion of state owned lands and 
25   also uses of those state owned lands, including tidelands.  And 
0089
 1   so Rich is going to speak to those issues.
 2    MR. MCMAHON:  Thank you, Molly.  Thank you for the 
 3   opportunity to be here.  Our Department, the Department of 
 4   Natural Resources, is the land owner from -- of the tidelands 
 5   from the mean high watermark three miles out.  So I just want to 
 6   first echo the statements from other colleagues up here that any 
 7   near shore bathometry mapping that you can improve upon 
 8   definitely supports the mission of our Department.  But 
 9   primarily what I would like to speak to is the -- I represent 
10   more the upland side, as Molly says, where the land meets the 
11   water and I would like to address some of my comments to that 
12   infrastructure that the hydrographic mapping and the upland 
13   mapping share which is of course the geodetic control issues.  
14   And our group is -- our land records group, the mapping group, 
15   or GIS has been a long term user of NOAA products and the NGS 
16   products.
17    And I guess the first area I'd like to make a comment is 
18   with respect to the state geodetic advisor.  Our shop has worked 
19   with the geodetic advisor for about a year and it's a successful 
20   program.  As everyone in this room knows the world of control is 
21   going through major, major changes and we face big issues 
22   educating policy makers on the implications of those changes.  
23   The state geodetic advisor program is an excellent way to help 
24   communicate these changes.  And one of the challenges we faced 
25   was in working with a commissioned officer we were just getting 
0090
 1   some good traction, some momentum on training, and then we at 
 2   least temporarily lost our geodetic advisor to the duties of the 
 3   Officer of Hydrographic Surveys.  So perhaps there's some things 
 4   we can work on together there to provide some continuity at 
 5   least for states that rely upon officers.
 6    The second area I just want to mention is right now the 
 7   State of Alaska is working to create a statewide mapping 
 8   initiative.  And it's early to tell if this will completely move 
 9   forward but the two themes that the initiative's pursuing is 
10   more detailed digital elevation model and statewide ortho 
11   imagery. Alaska lacks far behind the lower 48 in both of these 
12   key themes.  And in the area of the digital elevation maps, 
13   particularly -- we'll no doubt end up stratifying the state on 
14   high priority areas and lower priority areas.  But certainly for 
15   the high priority areas we would benefit from improved work in 
16   the area of the Alaska Geoid Model.  We again in Alaska do not 
17   share the same level of I guess error limits if you will that 
18   the lower 48 has with the computation of the orthometric 
19   heights.  And with all the changes from the CORS stations and 
20   the other methods of survey control up there it becomes even 
21   more important for Alaska to have a good working model.  So 
22   efforts in that area are appreciated and no doubt help the 
23   bathometric surveyors as well and, as Bob mentioned, the terrain 
24   mapping.
25    The third area that I just want to touch on is make 
0091
 1   members of this committee aware of Alaska is involved in a very 
 2   large land transfer program.  The Bureau of Land Management is 
 3   moving millions of acres to the State of Alaska to fulfill the 
 4   statehood contract and moving millions of acres to the Native 
 5   corporations to fulfill the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.  
 6   And all of that again ties to the common control net that 
 7   hydrographic services and the upland folks share.  The land 
 8   transfer is all being conducted in NAD27.  We do not have a 
 9   backward compatible pathway to find in the survey process to 
10   NAD83 which places the burden of conversion on the next 
11   generation or the next set of users because that transformation 
12   will have to occur.  So I think for the -- some of the folks in 
13   this room help in educating the policymakers of the implications 
14   of these changes and the implications of these changing nature 
15   of survey and control would really help with this decision 
16   making at these operational levels.  
17    I guess I would just like to close, going back a little 
18   bit more to your main theme of the hydrographic surveys.  We do 
19   have a number of dependencies and work products that we rely 
20   upon on NOAA data products.  The sailing point determinations of 
21   the three mile limit are a big area.  The oil spill response and 
22   damage assessment planning and sometimes the actual response 
23   themselves is an area.  The Department of Natural Resources has 
24   recently enacted an Alaska Boater Safety Program.  So there's a 
25   number of areas.  We have a -- I guess my main point here is 
0092
 1   just keep in mind that the users of your products represent a 
 2   very diverse user community besides the navigational folks and 
 3   increasingly those people are getting more and more 
 4   sophisticated in this area of GIS and mapping.  And, as 
 5   Katherine said, we really appreciate all the efforts you've made 
 6   and one recommendation or request would be to continue that web 
 7   posting and if possible to provide the nautical charts which 
 8   many of these GIS users would like to see as background 
 9   information within a web services environment under the open GIS 
10   protocols.  That could be a really useful infrastructure to get 
11   us past this world of downloading and all of that.  So, but we 
12   certainly do appreciate all those efforts made in that area.  So 
13   those are my comments.
14    MS. MCCAMMON:  Thanks very much, Rich.  We're going to go 
15   down to the right on this table to Dr. Orson Smith who is 
16   retired Army Corps of Engineers and is now a professor at 
17   University of Alaska, Anchorage.  And Dr. Smith is kind of the 
18   key person that I turn to and almost anybody in the state turns 
19   to when they speak to issues of coastal erosion.
20    DR. SMITH:  That's a very kind introduction, Molly.
21    MS. MCCAMMON:  And true.
22    DR. SMITH:  Well, I'm a professor and chair the Civil 
23   Engineering Department at UAA here in Anchorage.  And I count 
24   myself a coastal engineering specialist by way of my education 
25   and experience with the Corps and more recently at the 
0093
 1   University.  But I have a lifetime of interest in nautical 
 2   charts, I use them as artwork in my office and home, but I also 
 3   navigate a sailboat and actually am involved with the Coast 
 4   Guard auxiliary on an adopt a chart program in Seward.
 5    I have prepared a written statement and you'll have copies 
 6   provided.  Just in the interest of time I'd like to read that.  
 7   It has some information about University programs and a couple 
 8   ideas I hope you'll discuss.  
 9    I'm pleased to inform the Hydrographic Services Review 
10   Panel that the school of engineering at the University of 
11   Alaska, Anchorage offers a cohesive sequence of courses leading 
12   to a graduate certificate in port and coastal engineering.  This 
13   graduate certificate program was approved by the University of 
14   Alaska Board of Regents in June 2006.  Hydrographic surveying 
15   and coastal measurements and analysis are among the course 
16   requirements of the certificate program which provides 
17   specialized education to enhance a theoretical knowledge and 
18   practical skills of graduate engineers to deal with engineering 
19   problems of the coastal zone.
20    The UAA school of engineering also presents Alaska's only 
21   ABET-accredited four year bachelor of science program in 
22   geomatics.  Hydrographic surveying is a part of this program 
23   already but could be strengthened with additional teaching 
24   resources.  Support from NOAA to more rigorously teach 
25   hydrographic surveying would allow the UAA Geomatics Department 
0094
 1   to build the capacity of Alaska's surveying industry and to 
 2   accomplish -- well, to build the capacity of the industry to 
 3   accomplish NOAA and other contract industry surveys to the 
 4   highest standards.  Student opportunities for challenging field 
 5   experiences, industrial internships and participation in 
 6   relevant research are readily available to an expanded 
 7   hydrographic surveying program at UAA.  Such a program could be 
 8   conducted in collaboration with existing programs in the lower 
 9   48 states to further build the national capacity for 
10   hydrographic surveying excellence.  
11    Concerns for climate change impacts have recently brought 
12   national attention to Alaska's eroding coast.  Comprehensive 
13   review of coastal erosion processes or trends has yet to take 
14   place in Alaska.  I suggest that NOAA could support a program in 
15   Alaska to produce Alaska coastal sediment charts.  These special 
16   charts would provide bathometry superimposed with sediment 
17   characteristics and transport trends that identify sediment 
18   types, sources, sinks and transport rates for major littoral 
19   cells along the Alaska coast.  This compilation could be 
20   accomplished through interagency collaboration, perhaps with the 
21   USGS and the University, as it has in recent years in 
22   California, Oregon and Washington.  These charts and associated 
23   documentation would be useful to coastal residents and managers 
24   of coastal resources to prioritize regional sediment management 
25   needs and opportunities along the Alaska coast and to develop 
0095
 1   strategies to address critical issues such as coastal erosion, 
 2   recreational uses, commercial fishing, aquaculture, navigation, 
 3   dredging and sediment flow through coastal wetlands to ocean 
 4   waters.  I would be glad to assist the panel and NOAA officials 
 5   in formulation of a new program of this nature.
 6    There's many other things I could add but in the interest 
 7   of time I'll conclude my remarks there.
 8    MS. MCCAMMON:  Thanks very much, Orson.  Our next speaker 
 9   is Sue Saupe who is Science Director for the Cook Inlet Regional 
10   Citizens Advisory Council.  And CIRCAC, as it's referred to, is 
11   a product of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 following the 1989 
12   Exxon Valdez oil spill which called for two public advisory 
13   committees in Prince William Sound and Cook Inlet to be kind of 
14   public watchdogs of the oil and gas industry in Alaska.  And for 
15   CIRCAC, I actually serve on that Board as the representative for 
16   the Municipality of Anchorage.  And Sue has been Science 
17   Director there and will speak to some of the issues relating to  
18   oil spill response and preparedness.
19    MS. SAUPE:  Thanks, Molly.  I know you're interested from 
20   a statewide level and most everybody here has discussed it from 
21   Alaska level but I'm going to give you an example of what we've 
22   identified as data needs in a specific area and that's Cook 
23   Inlet and surrounding areas.
24    Molly mentioned that we're related -- or formed under the 
25   Oil Pollution Act of 1990 which lists a huge -- identifies 
0096
 1   specific tasks that we're supposed to do related to oil spill 
 2   prevention and response, environmental monitoring, studying wind 
 3   and water currents so that you can better predict transport of 
 4   oil.  So we have a huge kind of laundry list and we rely on 
 5   partnerships and data provided by other organizations a lot in 
 6   order to get our work done.  We are interested in the data 
 7   that's been discussed for improved safe navigation, mainly for 
 8   its applications in preventing oil spills during navigation.  
 9   But also we're really interested in a lot of that data for its 
10   applications beyond safe navigation, such as we have a very 
11   strong interest in improving surface models for oil spill 
12   trajectories in Cook Inlet.  As well we would like to see three 
13   dimensional models developed in the area that can handle the 
14   vertical velocities found in Cook Inlet associated with the red 
15   zones that we do know from past examples, the Glacier spill, can 
16   actually entrain the oil vertically and make it appear 
17   elsewhere.  And it's a little hard to pre-plan or to plan your 
18   response if you don't really understand where that's going to 
19   resurface.  And this three dimensional modeling will be -- help 
20   us to better understand comparative risk for surface oil 
21   trajectories versus disbursed oil trajectories, the interaction 
22   and fate of oil mineral fine aggregates, and then, as I 
23   mentioned, even particulate oil that gets entrained subsurface.
24    As an organization we have invested a lot of time and 
25   money into trying to improve this and helping any way we can 
0097
 1   other organizations collect their data that can help us improve 
 2   tools that are available in Cook Inlet.  For example, we are 
 3   working with Alaska Ocean Observing System in preparing a draft 
 4   Cook Inlet, Kenai Peninsula Ocean Observing System Plan so that 
 5   we can work to integrate observational measurements and develop 
 6   better modeling tools.  We worked with AOOS in the Kachemak Bay 
 7   research reserve to develop a user needs assessment for Cook 
 8   Inlet and I'll mention some of the results of that in a moment.  
 9   And as well we have worked with organizations such as University 
10   of Alaska, school of fisheries and ocean sciences, the Kachemak 
11   Bay research reserve and various branches of NOAA to fund and or 
12   support observational data collections that can be used for 
13   improving some of these models and building tools.  And examples 
14   of that are we supported some surface ocean current radar 
15   deployments for Cook Inlet.  We are conducting monthly CTD 
16   transects at what we're considering the boundaries of Cook 
17   Inlet, at the lower Cook Inlet entrances, Kennedy and Stevenson 
18   entrances, northern Shallow Cove, as well as areas that sort of 
19   bound upper Cook Inlet from lower Cook Inlet that -- between the 
20   forelands and bisecting Kachemak Bay.  We've supported the work 
21   of Mark Johnson in deploying satellite drifters to help us 
22   understand net transport within the inlet and downstream of Cook 
23   Inlet.  And as well we've been supportive of the work that 
24   NOAA's done to deploy 80 CP's in Cook Inlet and we are also 
25   currently seeking funds to get some permanently deployed bottom 
0098
 1   mounted ADCP's that will overlap, excuse me, spatially with some 
 2   of this other work.
 3    We've been really pleased with a lot of the partnerships 
 4   that we've been able to build but we've also been kind of 
 5   frustrated, and without picking on any particular program we 
 6   have noticed that there are times when within an agency, 
 7   including NOAA, there's not necessarily good communication among 
 8   the different divisions or departments.  And we would love to 
 9   see that communication improve so that the deployments of 
10   various instruments can overlap in space and time.  Recent 
11   example was a disjunct in the deployment of COTR by NOAA in Cook 
12   Inlet, current meters and ADCP's and it would have been a really 
13   I think phenomenal set of observational data if they had 
14   overlapped in space and time.  
15    I mentioned that we worked with the Alaska Ocean Observing 
16   System in doing a user needs assessment.  We also co-sponsored a 
17   physical oceanography symposium in 2005 where we could discuss 
18   the results of the user needs assessment and have all the 
19   different people that are collecting data and developing models 
20   in the same room so we can talk about long term plans.  And the 
21   proceedings from that symposium are available on Molly's website 
22   and as a quick summary I'm going to talk about some of the 
23   things specific to Cook Inlet that did come up for that.
24    As already has been mentioned, there's a need for better 
25   predicted tides and currents, improved bathometry and that's for 
0099
 1   the higher resolution bathometry we have for all areas of Cook 
 2   Inlet the better we can build models that rely on tidal 
 3   component.  But also bathometry and sediment type data is really 
 4   important for just basic things such as our research.  We did a 
 5   big gulf wide environmental assessment through the EPA's 
 6   National Coastal Assessment Program and we ended up having to go 
 7   into several areas where there was no data available and we just 
 8   had to rely on the ship tracks and getting some good sonar 
 9   before we could put our trawl down.  Also bottom type oftentimes 
10   did not match up with what we found on the bottom throughout an 
11   entire area and what was included in the charts.  We also found 
12   that especially for Cook Inlet I believe that the sediment type 
13   depends very strongly on whether you're in a spring or a neep 
14   tide and we were able to sample soft sediment types only during 
15   certain tide phases and that sediment type was not anywhere 
16   available during really -- the really strong spring tides.  So I 
17   like Orson's idea of sediment transport information. 
18    Better shoreline is definitely, that's been an issue for 
19   us for some of our coastal mapping and we believe that we need 
20   very good vertically or tidally referenced shorelines to 
21   interact with some of the habitat -- coastal habitat data that 
22   we've been trying to develop.  And these information are really 
23   important to interact with the better trajectory models that 
24   we'd like to see so that we can have a better -- we can do 
25   better assessments of shoreline risk in preplanning and response 
0100
 1   efforts for Cook Inlet.  For Cook Inlet there was identified 
 2   that we definitely need some better winds and weather 
 3   information, especially related to some specific jets that come 
 4   down through the mountains in lower Cook Inlet.  And we would 
 5   like higher resolution, both spatially and temporally, surface 
 6   currents and we -- as I mentioned before, we tested COTR.  And 
 7   Molly mentioned that in a lot of areas it's really hard, the 
 8   research is that you have had some problems with the remotely 
 9   deployed ones and power issues but in Cook Inlet we have the 
10   infrastructure available to deploy them for much of the 
11   shorelines in Cook Inlet.  So I think that we're ready to go in 
12   terms of getting some of those instruments deployed and they can 
13   be very useful in obtaining the data that we need to test and 
14   improve models as well as directly for oil spill response in the 
15   event that we had an issue there.
16    And, as I mentioned, we need models that can incorporate 
17   the complex oceanography that's found in Cook Inlet, such as the 
18   semi-permanent frontal systems at the rip tides that include 
19   both convergent and divergent fronts.  And that can incorporate 
20   both tidal currents, the very strong tidal currents that we see 
21   in Cook Inlet, as well as currents driven by the density 
22   differences, I'm sorry, such as baroclinic (ph) currents like 
23   the Alaska coastal currents that influence this lower Cook Inlet 
24   and the western boundary current due to the high volumes of 
25   fresh water that are entering Cook Inlet, in the upper Cook 
0101
 1   Inlet by the Knik -- Matanuska and Susitna Rivers as well as 
 2   other rivers.  And finally, sediment transport issues are of 
 3   real importance in Cook Inlet, as I mentioned before, but also 
 4   not just from a depositional but from a erosional point of view.  
 5   So thanks.
 6    MS. MCCAMMON:  Thanks very much, Sue.  Our final speaker 
 7   is Kevin Bruce who's Deputy Director of the Port of Anchorage 
 8   but I don't see him here.  He had another conflict meeting 
 9   starting at 10:00 and he was going to be a little bit late but 
10   he may join us in a few minutes.  But as you can see, we have a 
11   little bit of a kind of Cook Inlet, southcentral bias I guess or 
12   perspective up here because this meeting is based in Anchorage.  
13   But I think if you were to hold this meeting in Juneau or 
14   Ketchikan you'd be hearing very similar stories from the folks 
15   who represent the different interest groups there, that 
16   basically there's a -- what we view as kind of a dearth of 
17   information up here compared to the length of our coastline and 
18   certainly the value of the resources that people experience in 
19   the marine environment.  And with that, I -- we take any 
20   questions and I turn it back to you, Mr. Chairman, and how you'd 
21   like to proceed.
22    MR. RAINEY:  Okay.  Well, Molly and the panel, thank you 
23   very, very much.  I know for a number of years we've been trying 
24   to come up here because we are aware of some of the special 
25   requirements and needs that you pointed out.  I had a couple of 
0102
 1   thoughts listening through that I just want to comment on and 
 2   then open it up for the panel members.  But it was a 
 3   tremendously helpful presentation and as you may be aware if you 
 4   came in a little bit ahead of time, we're working on a special 
 5   report right now and trying to sketch in some of our 
 6   recommendations and we've had an opportunity for public comment 
 7   at our -- all of our meetings.  And one of the things I wanted 
 8   to comment on is information across the panel today, that we 
 9   heard some excellent examples of -- one of the things that we're 
10   working on is expanding the uses and NOAA's just acknowledging 
11   NOAA's effort and supporting increased use of this data across 
12   different user groups and as many of you all mentioned today was 
13   some very excellent examples of that.  The question I wanted to 
14   ask is a follow up.  I think Captain Pierce and Ms. Spahn and 
15   others mentioned one of the things that we were chartered to do 
16   explicitly in the Hydrographic Service Improvement Act which 
17   enacted this panel was to work with NOAA to take a look at their 
18   national survey priorities plan and in fact this afternoon 
19   Commander Doug Baird is going to give us a briefing on the 
20   recent vision for that.  And we have had occasion and we did 
21   comment on that and I think it's a great vehicle.  But I'd be 
22   interested to ask you, you know, as a panel generally about your 
23   awareness of that plan and the transparency of the process and  
24   -- you know, with the NOAA nav managers and other steps NOAA has 
25   taken to highlight that, if you had any kind of further comments 
0103
 1   on how you provide the input to that plan.  Because that's 
 2   something we've been specifically asked to do and are working 
 3   on.  
 4    CAPTAIN PAWLOWSKI:  I can make one comment obviously.  
 5    MS. MCCAMMON:  Use the microphone, Bob.
 6    CAPTAIN PAWLOWSKI:  Sorry.  Yeah, I can make one comment 
 7   and compliments to -- is that on?  Yeah.  And compliments to how 
 8   NOAA's kept the process open.  Two things.  One, by having a 
 9   navigation advisor up here you have a very good conduit into the 
10   spectrum of the industry.  But you have to recognize that Alaska 
11   is huge.  The ability to attend the proper meetings whether it's 
12   in southeast, whether it's with the Coast Guard, whether it's 
13   with Southwest Alaska Municipal Conference, et cetera, or 
14   whether it's even getting out into western Alaska and 
15   familiarity with changes in fisheries or mineral development, et 
16   cetera, is a challenge.  Because Steve Burrell (ph) was here 
17   with a letter to Mike Riddle talking about resource development 
18   for gravel and that on behalf of the Mining Association out of 
19   Hinchinbrook (ph) -- or not Hinchinbrook (ph), out at western 
20   Alaska as well as up in Nome.  The navigation advisor needs to 
21   be able to participate and actually understand the challenges 
22   with those.  So it's a good process.  Having a navigation 
23   advisor up here will make it go much better but that navigation 
24   advisor has to have the resources to do justice to the different 
25   regions in the state.
0104
 1    MS. MCCAMMON:  Anyone else?
 2    DR. SMITH:  I'll just.....
 3    MS. MCCAMMON:  Okay, Orson, go ahead.
 4    DR. SMITH:  I feel compelled to say that my only 
 5   experience for a really long time it seems has been very good 
 6   with NOAA's particular willingness to collaborate with other 
 7   agencies.  As a Corps of Engineers Project Manager I called on 
 8   NOAA many times to help with the planning and design of 
 9   navigation projects and found the -- particularly the 
10   operational side of the house in surveys and tides to be very 
11   responsive and that's certainly a reputation that I hope will 
12   abide in the agency and it's very useful.  Collaborating with 
13   the Coast Guard, of course, is a natural thing and charting and 
14   I believe there are opportunities for other agencies as I 
15   mentioned, like the USGS as well.  So that's what I wanted to 
16   say there.  Molly.
17    MS. MCCAMMON:  Okay.  I'd just like to make one comment 
18   and that's that for the Alaska Ocean Observing System we have 
19   two members from NOAA sitting on our board.  We have a 
20   representative of -- the State Director of the National Weather 
21   Service and then we have the State Director, the Director of the 
22   Alaska Fisheries Science Center.  So we have NOAA fisheries and 
23   NOAA weather service represented but National Ocean Services is 
24   not well represented in this state.  There is really not much of 
25   a presence up here.  And it makes -- I think there -- it makes 
0105
 1   it a little bit difficult then to have that full integration of 
 2   those services within that division with the other services in 
 3   the other divisions of NOAA.  And I don't know if the answer is 
 4   having a stronger NOS person being the lead person or if it's 
 5   even -- something even above that, something similar to what the 
 6   Department of Interior has which is a direct representative of 
 7   the Secretary of Interior representing all Department of 
 8   Interior agencies across the board in the state.  But some way 
 9   to help facilitate that interaction and communication amongst 
10   all the agencies I think would be very helpful.  Rich.
11    MR. RAINEY:  Well, thanks very much.  Could I open it up?
12    MR. MCMAHON:  Just one other.....
13    MR. RAINEY:  Certainly.
14    MR. MCMAHON:  .....quick comment on that is people on the 
15   com -- or folks on the committee may not be aware there is also 
16   a -- kind of a loose knit organization called the Alaska 
17   Geographic Data Committee and I think it -- it has some 
18   recognition through the Federal Geographic Data Committee and 
19   for -- it may provide one conduit to help improve some of those 
20   communications.  The main goal of that organization is to share 
21   information about, you know, spatial data activities and it's 
22   modeled more or less off the Federal Geographic Data Committee.  
23   And NOAA did have good presence when Bob was available but it's 
24   kind of fallen off since so it's just one opportunity.
25    MR. RAINEY:  Okay, well thanks, that's -- those are very 
0106
 1   helpful insights.  Can I open it up to the panel members for any 
 2   other follow up questions?  John Oswald.
 3    MR. OSWALD:  I'd make a comment.  I went to -- I meet with 
 4   Molly several times a year and try to find out what they're 
 5   doing and what these other groups are doing.  So I went to the 
 6   Homer -- Molly through AOOS has these stakeholder meetings 
 7   around the state so they, like this, try to get input.  Very 
 8   well attended, broad base.  I went to the one in Homer been 18 
 9   months ago now maybe and was totally shocked to see some things 
10   happening.  When Jack Dunnigan spoke this -- just yesterday 
11   about this breaking down, you know, the walls, et cetera.  But 
12   in modeling, CO-OPS does modeling.  There's a variety of efforts 
13   going on in the universities and in NOAA and elsewhere in 
14   modeling.  But -- Molly could correct me, but I believe we had 
15   reports from six, possibly seven different research entities 
16   doing modeling in Cook Inlet.  I as a taxpayer would like to see 
17   that stopped and more coordination.  I know everybody has their 
18   agenda.  The one that -- do you remember how many?  It was seven 
19   or.....
20    MS. MCCAMMON:  Well, I know there were at least -- I don't 
21   know, maybe you have like five ocean circulation models.  And I 
22   think three or four of them were NOAA's.
23    MR. OSWALD:  Yes.  There's (indiscernible) the PMEL model, 
24   the NASA JPL model, the U of W model, the -- and then to the 
25   surprise of everyone the NOAA NOS -- I have to get this right.  
0107
 1   It's the research group that's under Steve Barnum.
 2    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
 3   microphone).
 4    MR. OSWALD:  Yeah.  And there -- and you would know the 
 5   person.  I can't think of the fellow's name.  He's 60 years old, 
 6   a senior scientist, just beginning a complete new model of 
 7   collecting all the bathometry from the historic charts and not 
 8   one of the other modelers knew about that effort.  And it was 
 9   about a one and a half man year effort according to him and I 
10   could look in my notes and find the name.  You probably know 
11   this fellow.  But.....
12    MS. MCCAMMON:  Was it Rich Patchen?
13    MR. OSWALD:  .....(indiscernible).
14    MS. MCCAMMON:  Was it Rich Patchen?
15    MR. OSWALD:  Yes, that's who it was.  Does anything 
16   through the AOOS happen on more -- like CO-OPS has operational 
17   models for the Great Lakes, Chesapeake Bay and there's a few 
18   others that sometimes are done in the -- I believe done in the 
19   universities and then come over and some are done probably 
20   inside the university.  That actually doesn't support the NOS 
21   program, Office of Coast Survey program, of hydrographic 
22   surveying, if you can believe that, because they're not 
23   compatible.  Inside of NOAA.
24    MS. MCCAMMON:  Yeah, John.  I think that the issue -- the 
25   issue I don't think is so much that there are all these 
0108
 1   multitude of models because each one of them will tell you, 
 2   well, we're doing it a little bit differently and our mission is 
 3   a little bit different and our perspective.  But I think that 
 4   the larger issue is that the folks are not talking to each other 
 5   about what observations are needed to be collected to service, 
 6   to feed those models, and those are not being coordinated.  And 
 7   that's where the expense is is in collecting the observations 
 8   and that's where we need to really force the issue of getting 
 9   the various agencies and the various entities together to really 
10   figure out what is -- what are they trying to achieve with these 
11   models and is there duplication between them but if not at least 
12   do a better job of coordinating the observation system.  So -- 
13   and that is the goal with the plan that Sue's been working on 
14   for Cook Inlet to hopefully achieve that.
15    MR. ZILKOSKI:  And -- Dave Zilkoski.  Is this on?  But 
16   from the Integrated Ocean Observing System and what Molly's 
17   leading in the Alaskan Ocean Observing System, that's one of the 
18   things we're trying to identify, how do we coordinate these 
19   models and -- from inside NOAA is one aspect and we're trying to 
20   look at how to do that and we're doing a better job of it.  But 
21   it's between the agencies and we're also doing that.  The 
22   Ocean.US which is supposed to be coordinating a lot of these 
23   activities between the agencies and working with the Interagency 
24   Working Group on Ocean Obs.  And I kind of mentioned yesterday 
25   in one of my reports, there's a modeling group to try and -- to 
0109
 1   do just that, to start coordinating what they're doing.  And as 
 2   they said, there's certain models you want to do for certain 
 3   reasons but it's the data acquisition and then the multi-use of 
 4   the same data and that's making it interoperable and integrating 
 5   so you can actually get the data out there so other modelers can 
 6   know what they have and what they're doing and then they can use 
 7   it.  So we're trying to tackle that and actually Thursday we're 
 8   going to meet with Molly and her group to talk a little bit more 
 9   about some issues.
10    MR. SZABADOS:  John, I'd like to respond to one question 
11   you had regarding the cooperation between Coast Survey and CO-
12   OPS and modeling.  Actually it's a -- it is a (indiscernible), 
13   it is a very close knit team and they actually do the transition 
14   of the models from research to operation to us so we do work 
15   close together.  And I think to answer the question about the 
16   multiple models, let me -- I -- my office is responsible for 
17   running models but I will say operational models.  And it's not 
18   that operational's any different than research, but research is 
19   where you develop new systems, new technology, and I would 
20   encourage the universities to develop the new models, bring on 
21   the new technology, and then at the appropriate time see that 
22   migration, that technology to operation and enhancements.
23    MS. SAUPE:  I would just like to add to that.  That, you 
24   know, addressing these multiple models, there probably will 
25   always be multiple models for every geographic area that are 
0110
 1   designed to address very specific issues.  Like the MMS one, 
 2   they were really interested in the wetting and drying, very near 
 3   shore areas.  JPL modeling so that it can link with larger -- 
 4   within a bigger larger nested scale.  But ultimately it comes 
 5   down to, from my interest in oil spill NOAA will rely on one 
 6   model and one model only currently and that's the NOAA model and 
 7   the NOAA model does not model Cook Inlet very well.  And so in 
 8   order to test these models and improve any model or all models 
 9   we definitely need to emphasize the observational data.  And I 
10   just really wanted to reemphasize what Molly was saying.  
11   Thanks.
12    MR. RAINEY:  Andrew.
13    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  Yeah, Scott, I think Molly hit the nail 
14   on the head when she said that it's not the models, it's the 
15   sensors that cost the money and that they have to multipurpose.  
16   I mean we've talked about this before, that -- you know, and 
17   we've seen that a lot of redundancy if you have three different 
18   organizations putting sensors in the same spot and it's 
19   ridiculous, let's face it.  I mean we need to get smart about 
20   that and put in sensors that are multipurpose that can be used 
21   whether it's real time for navigation or, you know, to -- used 
22   for modeling or whatever down the road.  I mean that's -- you 
23   know, everyone could just -- we need a source that the data can 
24   go into and people can pull it out and do whatever they want 
25   with it.  But it's got to be -- the money -- let's face it, this 
0111
 1   -- the IOOS program, all of this, there's not a whole lot of 
 2   money for any of this stuff so we've got to be really smart on 
 3   how we put these sensors in and they have to be used by 
 4   everybody and they have to be able to be used by everybody.  And 
 5   that seems to be the -- to me the biggest -- you know, the 
 6   smartest way to go here.
 7    MR. RAINEY:  Okay.  Any further questions from the panel?
 8    MR. ZILKOSKI:  Yeah, I have one more.  Once again, Dave 
 9   Zilkoski.  Molly, you mentioned about the tide gauges and I know 
10   NOAA has certain standards that they put tide gauges in and USGS 
11   Corps have different standards and -- which I don't really see a 
12   problem with that they have different requirements and so forth.  
13   But I guess I -- can you elaborate on what would be helpful to 
14   you coming from a geodetic world and so we have different 
15   standards for doing different orders and accuracy.  You know, 
16   heights, two centimeters, five centimeters, and we give both of 
17   those and they have different procedures and specifications of 
18   doing them and people find that very useful, they don't need to 
19   get millimeters, they need to get five centimeters or even 10 
20   centi -- but we have guidelines of how to do that.  Is that 
21   something what you're saying that you'd want certain layered 
22   standards of certain types of -- say the tide gauges, having a 
23   first order, a second order, a primary, secondary -- I can't use 
24   that because that has a different meaning, but first order, 
25   second order type gauges?
0112
 1    MS. MCCAMMON:  That's correct, Dave.  And I'm not an 
 2   expert on this, this was a recommendation that came basically 
 3   from our arctic researcher up at the University and some 
 4   discussions with John Oswald too that -- and it goes to the tide 
 5   gauge issue and to the mooring issue and buoys that often the 
 6   universities are able to put things in on a research basis that 
 7   is providing information at a much less cost than the regular 
 8   operational deployment from NOAA or from other agencies.  And so 
 9   we just have to figure out a way to do it more cost effectively 
10   and cheaper because we need more of them and cost is always 
11   going to be the issue.  And so I think there can -- we should 
12   look at some layer of standards, different standards for 
13   different purposes that would be still useful.  
14    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  Scott, I just.....
15    MR. RAINEY:  Captain McGovern.
16    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  I think the -- that just defeats the 
17   last statement that the sensors -- you need to have multiuse 
18   sensors and if you've got sensors that have different accuracy 
19   limits then they can't be used by everybody.  You have to 
20   determine what is at least a minimum accepted accuracy for a 
21   multipurpose sensor and then you have to go with that and that 
22   is why I guess, you know, some of the NOAA stuff costs more but 
23   say to use it navigationally it has to be accurate.  It has to 
24   be because I'll go to jail if it's not, you know.  
25    MS. MCCAMMON:  Well, it's.....
0113
 1    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  I'm using a sensor so you -- what I'm 
 2   just saying is.....
 3    MS. MCCAMMON:  Yeah.
 4    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  .....the whole purpose of trying to 
 5   minimize the amount of sensors and use them multiuse if you say 
 6   that they can run at different accuracies then you've just taken 
 7   that and thrown it out the window, that's just my problem.
 8    MS. MCCAMMON:  I think it's accuracy to what level because 
 9   there's nothing that's perfectly accurate anyway, there's always 
10   some standard deviation or whatever, error of deviation.  But I 
11   think it's not just the multipurpose sensor that we focus on 
12   too, but it's also multipurpose platforms.  And so you might 
13   have one sensor on that platform for a single purpose but you 
14   would be using that platform for additional sensors for 
15   additional purposes.  So the big cost for us isn't necessarily 
16   with the sensor itself, it's with the platforms and maintaining 
17   them.
18    MR. SZABADOS:  Since we're talking about water levels let 
19   me -- I would like to clarify one thing.  While sensor 
20   technology and sensor accuracy is important, that's only part of 
21   the equation.  The standardization to zero in that tide gauge to 
22   a reference point, to a datum is very critical.  You could have 
23   the most accurate sensor out there but if you don't maintain it 
24   to the right datum it can cause significant -- ships going 
25   aground, levees being built a foot and a half below where they 
0114
 1   should have, like they were at New Orleans.  Again, that was not 
 2   the sensor's problem, they didn't pay attention to surveying and 
 3   to the datum.  So it's the whole process that -- and that's 
 4   actually where some of the funding gets more expensive, 
 5   maintaining that system to that datum or, as you said, to that 
 6   platform.  But sensor technology is also important.  
 7    MR. RAINEY:  Well, I just would like to make the 
 8   observation.  I'm at least taken away from my mind that we're 
 9   really largely on the right track.  I mean I think many of the 
10   information you gave us is aligning with our efforts that we're 
11   looking at in our special report.  And it's wonderful to get the 
12   -- you know, the Cook Inlet and then the statewide and then, 
13   like you say, we're trying to look at some national issues and 
14   to see sort of how that's dovetailing and it does seem to me 
15   that, you know, the communication and the outreach is taking 
16   place and I think we're all -- I think there's going to be 
17   significant progress made with NOAA's efforts and hopefully we 
18   can play our part.  But again, I'd certainly like to thank Molly 
19   and the panel, tremendous insights and information from the 
20   Alaska perspective and it's been a real pleasure to come up here 
21   and hear your point of view.  So thank you very much for taking 
22   the time to join us today.
23    MR. ZILKOSKI:  Can I say one more thing?  
24    MR. RAINEY:  Sure.  Yeah.
25    MR. ZILKOSKI:  Just I want to commend Rich for actually 
0115
 1   being -- someone other than me to say the state geodetic advisor 
 2   and the geoid model.  So that hasn't happened in this forum 
 3   before, so thank you very much.
 4    MS. MCCAMMON:  We did it for you, Dave.
 5    MR. RAINEY:  Okay.
 6    MR. SZABADOS:  Scott.
 7    MR. RAINEY:  Yeah.
 8    MR. SZABADOS:  I'd just like -- I mentioned to some of the 
 9   people, but next season we'll be doing a full current survey up 
10   in Prince William Sound and we have a group coming up later this 
11   month to work for the users to get their requirements, hopefully 
12   we put the gauges where they're needed the most.  Be looking to 
13   work with all of you.  Thank you.
14    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Thank you.
15    MR. RAINEY:  Mr. Vice Chairman.
16    MR. SKINNER:  I think having this panel was a really 
17   useful way of getting some public input to our process and I 
18   would -- I think as we go forward as a panel that in future 
19   meetings we should think about having a similar type panel at 
20   each venue because I think this has been very helpful.  It's 
21   very good to get the general public input to the public sessions 
22   but this really provides a real depth of input that I think is 
23   important for what we're working on.  So thank you.
24    MR. DUNNIGAN:  All right, let me -- and let me add my 
25   thanks too.  Sorry I had to step out for a minute.  But, you 
0116
 1   know, one of the challenges for me, you know, coming to the 
 2   National Ocean Service is to start looking for the different 
 3   ways in which our programs are connected.  And what I heard from 
 4   you today was a lot of connections talking about not just 
 5   surveys and charting and mapping but talking about the 
 6   implications of this for fisheries, for coastal management, for 
 7   habitat areas of particular concern.  And so it's helping me to 
 8   sort of understand and I think for those of us in the Ocean 
 9   Service to think about how the various pieces of what we do end 
10   up supporting each other and fitting.  So it's a very good 
11   perspective, I'm really glad you're here.  Molly, thank you very 
12   much for organizing, this is great.  
13    MS. MCCAMMON:  Thank you for coming.
14    MR. RAINEY:  All right.  Well, let's adjourn for lunch and 
15   then we'll come back and we'll jump in with hydro survey 
16   planning and priorities.  Thanks.
17    (Off record at 12:05 p.m.)
18    (On record at 1:05 p.m.)
19    MR. RAINEY:  As we mentioned just before the break, our 
20   next presentation or session here is going to be Commander Doug 
21   Baird is going to talk to us about the latest draft of the -- of 
22   NOAA's hydrographic survey priorities.  We had a chance to get 
23   the draft out to everybody before the meeting and hopefully 
24   folks have had a chance and let me just kind of turn it over to 
25   Commander Baird and we'll engage here.
0117
 1    COMMANDER BAIRD:  My name is Doug Baird.  I am an Alaskan 
 2   resident, however I'm currently displaced to the east coast.  I 
 3   am counting the weeks until I come back permanently.  Captain 
 4   Bob mentioned that I was on a team that taught a hydro course 
 5   and several other teachers are actually in this room.  But it 
 6   reminded me of a statement I used to open up by first lecture 
 7   with.  When I was a wee Ensign back 16 years ago the ship I was 
 8   assigned to was delayed from sailing to Antarctica and the 
 9   captain was briefing the ward room as to what was going on and 
10   what he thought might happen.  And after he was done I raised my 
11   hand and being kind of eager I wanted to get underway and wanted 
12   to know how much we were going to be delayed.  And I asked him, 
13   I said, well Captain, what's the worst case scenario.  He looked 
14   me dead in the eye and said, well Mr. Baird, that'd be global 
15   thermonuclear war.  Ever since then I've been very -- I've tried 
16   to be diligent about being precise in how I speak.  So if I 
17   leave something out or I'm not clear ask me a question, I'll 
18   clarify.  
19    I think most of you or all of you on the panel have 
20   received a copy of the 2006 draft update of the hydro survey 
21   priorities.  Hopefully you've had a chance to look through it.  
22   When I got in the office a year ago the plan was to actually 
23   update the 2004 edition in 2007.  But there was a -- my boss has 
24   changed and they decided they wanted to do it a little bit 
25   sooner.  So we hurried up and we tried to put something together 
0118
 1   before this meeting started.  And so this is not a final 
 2   product, it's -- there are some errors, in fact I'm seen some 
 3   errors since I've been here.  But I am -- part of what I wanted 
 4   to be up here for was for you all to actually give me 
 5   suggestions, critiques and comments.  
 6    Our plan in the future is to update this more frequently 
 7   then even just every two years.  I'd like to do it every year if 
 8   possible and we're going to do that by not producing or a 
 9   limited run of paper copies.  I'd like to go to a digital 
10   version that's available on the internet but that we have to 
11   spend less time actually producing a document like this.  The -- 
12   I had two employees working on this since mid to late June.  One 
13   of them put in basically a month and a half into it and the 
14   other one put in three weeks.  So it was a time sink to get a 
15   paper product out and so if we can just stay with a digital 
16   version we might reduce the labor that goes into it.  
17    So with that I'd like to open up for questions, any 
18   comments or suggestions or critiques that you all may have.  
19   Yes, sir.
20    MR. GRAY:  I looked at this and it's very interesting and 
21   to try and show us what it is that's been done, what it is that 
22   needs to be done, but I wrote on the front of it does this 
23   include U.S. Army Corps of Engineers channels, when you take the 
24   square miles needing to do this, that or the other thing.
25    COMMANDER BAIRD:  No, it does not. 
0119
 1    MR. GRAY:  It doesn't.
 2    COMMANDER BAIRD:  Not specifically.
 3    MR. GRAY:  And have you got any idea if you did include 
 4   that what -- how many square miles might be involved?
 5    COMMANDER BAIRD:  If the Corps of Engineers channels are 
 6   actually on our charts then it's been included.  But we did not 
 7   specifically do anything outside of our scope of responsibility 
 8   for charting.
 9    MR. GRAY:  But I mean like if you look at a major 
10   commercial harbor or something -- I think I looked at San 
11   Francisco here and it's all red, this is to be resurveyed and so 
12   forth like that.  There must be I think somewhere there some 
13   dredged channels, maybe they're not in San Francisco.  But if 
14   you did that in New York or other areas.  Or Delaware Bay.
15    COMMANDER BAIRD:  No, we have not actually physically 
16   doughnut holed out areas that may be surveyed by the Corps of 
17   Engineers.  Because even though when we're in an area we don't 
18   specifically tell them to survey in the channel, sometimes it 
19   makes more sense to leave a transducer on and cover that area at 
20   the same time.  But the Corps of Engineers data always has 
21   precedent over our own, unless we find a discrepancy.  At that 
22   point we report it to the Corps.  So.....
23    MR. GRAY:  Well, I'm sort of curious on it because one of 
24   the things that we're putting in our report is that we want in 
25   government maintained by Corps of Engineers channels to have 
0120
 1   NOAA survey, NOS surveys to see that they've cleared the 
 2   channels of all obstructions.  I'm just curious how much 
 3   additional mileage or square mileage that might add to the tasks 
 4   that NOAA would have to undertake.
 5    MR. DASLER:  Just having worked with the Corps before -- I 
 6   mean not all districts conduct their surveys along the same 
 7   levels and that kind of thing.  And a lot of them look at it as 
 8   their task -- the Corps' mission is to maintain the channels in 
 9   terms of dredging.  So they consider these surveys as dredge 
10   condition surveys or monitoring surveys from a dredging 
11   standpoint and not trying to detect obstructions.  And certain 
12   districts do that a little more than others but -- and I think 
13   that's where sort of the nexus is in that is that they're really 
14   not out there looking for something, an obstruction that could 
15   have fallen, it's more maintenance of the channel and when do 
16   they need to re-dredge.
17    MR. GRAY:  That's a very short sighted view.
18    CAPTAIN BARNUM:  I was going to add that I would think the 
19   square nautical miles of the channel for a harbor is probably 
20   relatively small.  And certainly in the efficiency of surveying 
21   it's more efficient to run your lines when you're surveying a 
22   harbor rather than, you know, omit the channel so you get the 
23   full picture of the bottom.  So the Corps pretty much is the 
24   authority for the federal project and they pretty much draw 
25   their lines right at the edge of the channel for a little bit of 
0121
 1   overlap and that's it.  They do not survey outside the channel.  
 2   It's very interesting to point out when -- certainly in the 
 3   issue of -- NOAA had this comment, an emergency response a 
 4   couple years ago their view of the port being open was that the 
 5   channel was open irrespective of the fact that for this 
 6   particular port there were several areas that were naturally 
 7   deep that were not surveyed.  So our view is that to provide a 
 8   path all the way from the approaches, the deep water, all the 
 9   way to the berth, which is not their view.
10    CAPTAIN MYRTIDIS:  Well, Doug, I have a couple of 
11   questions for you.  I'm looking here at the survey priorities in 
12   Alaska and what is interesting to me is to see that some of the 
13   places that you have the majority of the cruise industry, 
14   hundreds of thousands of passengers and quite a few hundred 
15   thousands of tonnage you have priority three.  That's a little 
16   bit of a concern like in -- I believe in Ketchikan for example.  
17   Which is one of the major calls.
18    COMMANDER BAIRD:  Right.  Now port -- Ketchikan, excuse 
19   me, was actually surveyed in 2001.....
20    CAPTAIN MYRTIDIS:  Right.
21    COMMANDER BAIRD:  .....and so it was done with multibeam 
22   and Terra Surveys is the.....
23    CAPTAIN MYRTIDIS:  What about Juneau and Skagway?
24    COMMANDER BAIRD:  Juneau was surveyed in 1997 with single 
25   beam technology and then did a homeland security survey of the 
0122
 1   channel leading up to the harbor in 2003 I believe.
 2    CAPTAIN MYRTIDIS:  And the -- in that waters to let's say 
 3   Glacier Bay or Sawyer Glacier and all that.
 4    COMMANDER BAIRD:  Sawyer Glacier on Tracy Arm was surveyed 
 5   with multibeam in 2000 and -- excuse me, I think it's 2001, but 
 6   it was a fairly recent survey, it was '99 and 2001.  And we've 
 7   been told about the retreat of South Sawyer Glacier, it's 
 8   retreated about over a mile since we were there last.  And so we 
 9   are planning to send a vessel to Endicott Arm to survey in front 
10   of Daws (ph) Glacier and at the same time, this will be next 
11   fall, we will also be sending a crew up there to the upper end 
12   of Tracy to survey in front of where the South Sawyer has 
13   receded.  But as far as Glacier Bay, we have not addressed the 
14   fjords of Glacier Bay as much because of the fact that it was 
15   surveyed in the 1980's and it's considered to be a modern 
16   survey.  When we are noted of discrepancies then we would send 
17   in and do little field examinations.  In fact we did in 1999, we 
18   did a quick check of the face of the glaciers just to make sure 
19   they had not receded and at the time there wasn't much 
20   difference from what was charted and what was -- we found in 
21   reality.  But as we get worried about these discrepancies then 
22   we will address them.
23    CAPTAIN MYRTIDIS:  Well, I just -- you know, I just wonder 
24   everything you mentioned with the exception of one location I 
25   think in 2001 everything is '96, '98.
0123
 1    COMMANDER BAIRD:  Right.
 2    CAPTAIN MYRTIDIS:  And, you know, we were listening from 
 3   the panel before what's going on here in Alaska with the 
 4   shifting of the bottom and this and that and I was wondering 
 5   with the number of cruise ships that you have up here if it's 
 6   worth the effort to resurvey these areas.
 7    COMMANDER BAIRD:  There are some areas that are and we 
 8   rely upon the Coast Guard and the pilots to let us know where 
 9   the areas we've surveyed in the last 20 years have changed 
10   enough for us to go back and resurvey them.
11    CAPTAIN MYRTIDIS:  I hope not when they're going to hit a 
12   reef, right?
13    COMMANDER BAIRD:  So do I.
14    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Yeah, I was curious Doug, do they ever 
15   -- do you ever use satellite imagery to look at like how much 
16   glaciers have retreated to what's -- to where the shoreline's 
17   been charted.
18    COMMANDER BAIRD:  Yes, we have, and if -- I'll let Mike 
19   Aslaskan actually address that if you'd like to, Mike.
20    MR. ASLASKAN:  Mike Aslaskan, NGS.  Yes, we actually use 
21   active impasse of sensors to look at that.  We've used 
22   commercial synthetic adaptive radar to look at the glaciers as 
23   well as we use classified source quite often to update the 
24   glaciers because they are retreating quite fast.  Depends on the 
25   request from Coast Survey and then I guess inquiries as far as 
0124
 1   the users.
 2    CAPTAIN MYRTIDIS:  I'm sorry, I -- we have ships all over 
 3   the place.  Hawaii.
 4    COMMANDER BAIRD:  Hawaii.  We actually had -- we tried to 
 5   get some LIDAR data flown in Hawaii recently and I don't 
 6   remember what the result of -- there was -- the Corps of 
 7   Engineers was sending a plane or a helicopter there.  I don't 
 8   remember if we were actually able to work out anything with them 
 9   or not.  As of right now Hawaii is not an area we've been 
10   sending service platforms, we've been concentrating on other 
11   places.  The number of requests coming from Hawaii have been 
12   less than other areas.
13    CAPTAIN MYRTIDIS:  Just for your information, we have the 
14   biggest fleet of cruise vessels of 95,000 gross tonnage trailing 
15   Hawaii on an everyday basis, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
16    MR. RAINEY:  Doug, I had some things I just wanted to 
17   point out for the panel.  I mean first off I guess I'd really 
18   like to acknowledge the -- you know, that you guys have 
19   incorporated since we reviewed it the last time a number of 
20   things, you know, over and above even putting the page numbers 
21   in which was our best recommendation.  But the -- you know, on 
22   page three we've got a mention of recreational boating, that's 
23   new.  You've got we're tracking now the benchmark of the 
24   critical navigation areas which I think is incredibly important 
25   because that's sort of the sand bite or buzz word that we're 
0125
 1   using up on the Hill to kind of measure progress.  I think that 
 2   there's significant language -- well, there -- you can see the 
 3   break out of the new features but to talk about to be tracking 
 4   the emerging critical areas and then the -- and then to show 
 5   also the new -- the -- to actually start to graph and show 
 6   people the progress you're making with the full bottom coverage 
 7   I think is a really good feature.  In the report itself, I'd 
 8   like to draw everybody's attention to it because I think we can 
 9   use this as a source document for -- to make our argument on the 
10   critical need for this.  And if you look on page four, I've kind 
11   of grabbed onto some language there that bleeds over onto page 
12   five.  But basically getting -- NOAA is saying right there 
13   setting forth in the document why we need this full bottom 
14   coverage and the multibeam and that's exactly our argument for  
15   -- you know, that's the -- we've got the cross jurisdictional 
16   issues but that's making the point and that's the point we're 
17   trying to make, that this type of technology is what we need for 
18   navigation safety versus -- as Jon had just pointed out, the 
19   Corps has a different mission so they're using different 
20   technology.  And so there's language we can make note of and 
21   use.  It talks about again on page five the expanded uses of 
22   this data, and again that's just completely in concert with what 
23   we're trying to do on the -- you know, on our bullet to really 
24   show that it's not just, you know, fancy matrix management, this 
25   stuff is a reality and it crosscuts across all NOAA's missions 
0126
 1   and national needs.  There -- one of the things, on page 12 and 
 2   it ties into my question about the -- you know, the awareness of 
 3   it.  There is a section that talks about, okay, how do you get 
 4   input into the priorities and we talked about the nav managers 
 5   and the different -- the linkages and workshops and one 
 6   suggestion or comment I'd have is just to try to keep getting 
 7   the word out and have everybody be as familiar with that process 
 8   as you can.  Another idea I'd have, and I'd mentioned it and it 
 9   -- not necessarily an original idea I had, but one of the things 
10   that might be an enhancement that would be fun -- important 
11   kernel to track would be the number of obstructions that you're 
12   discovering with -- as you use the new technology and you do 
13   these surveys, you know, we've discovered, you know, this many 
14   new, you know, obstructions on the bottom or, you know, 
15   significant things.  And I don't know, it occurs to me as you 
16   mentioned, you know, doing this more often and digitally I don't 
17   know whether there'd be an opportunity to link -- I don't want 
18   to say in real time, but I mean just to -- you have your survey 
19   plan and I don't know if it would be possible to depict, you 
20   know, NOAA effort and contracting effort that -- and kind of 
21   show where they're working and focusing and have a link from 
22   your planning document to your execution.  That would be I think 
23   an interesting, you know, piece of information.  But I guess 
24   those were my major comments and thoughts and I think it's a 
25   good document.
0127
 1    COMMANDER BAIRD:  As we talked earlier about keeping track 
 2   of wrecks and obstructions, that's a relatively easy thing for 
 3   us to do.  It's just a matter of setting aside the time to do 
 4   it.  We've done it in the past on sort of an ad hoc basis, you 
 5   know, promoting certain wreck we've found and sort of do some 
 6   glossy handouts.  But keeping track of all wrecks and 
 7   obstructions we find during surveys is something that can easily 
 8   be implemented.
 9    MR. DASLER:  The other question I had was regarding the 
10   resurvey areas.  And I don't know, are those being incorporated 
11   back into the critical area as -- like a survey reach its given 
12   date?  Because I know the Corps of Engineers, especially in the 
13   inland waterways, in some areas, I mean it can -- a month, a 
14   survey could be a month old and they're going to consider it out 
15   of date because of big sand waves.  I mean I know it's a lot 
16   longer period for the areas we're talking about here but it 
17   seems like, one, identifying those resurvey areas and then at 
18   some point the areas where a critical survey area has been 
19   mapped and it's time to resurvey, it seems like that should get 
20   plugged back into the critical area again.  I mean it's all time 
21   sensitive.  And then -- I mean actually all of these surveys at 
22   some point it's a temporal snapshot or a snapshot in time of, 
23   you know, what was existing there.  But there continues to be, 
24   you know, unreported wrecks and obstructions or things that are 
25   coming into the waterways that even though a survey was a 
0128
 1   complete survey at one point there continues to be features that 
 2   show up that have not been reported.  I guess my question is is 
 3   the resurvey areas, is that getting plugged back into the 
 4   critical areas at some point in time?
 5    COMMANDER BAIRD:  No, it's not.  We're tracking resurvey 
 6   areas separately.  The resurvey areas pretty much never go away 
 7   unless we find a reason to remove them from that category.  But 
 8   the critical area, we were told basically to leave that goal 
 9   line where it is, that is not to move.  It's been set at 43,000 
10   square nautical miles and that we're going to leave it there 
11   until we finish it.  So that's why we now track areas that are 
12   considered critical now as emerging critical and areas that are 
13   resurvey that may have been surveyed 2001, 2005 even, as -- 
14   that's a separate category, that they require a different type 
15   of attention than even crit or emerging crit.
16    MR. RAINEY:  Doug, another thought I had, and -- again, I 
17   don't know whether it would be either possible or a good idea or 
18   not.  But one thing, if it -- again, if it's digital and you're 
19   not looking to reprint the thing but it might be an interesting 
20   graphic along with the number of obstructions that you're 
21   finding also to have a graphic that you highlight that says, 
22   okay, based on current, you know, funding resources or whatever 
23   this is our time till we're going to be able to complete the 
24   critical survey backlog.  I mean we kind of have this benchmark 
25   out there and it might be kind of a thing to note.  You know, 
0129
 1   that way you can kind of see -- you know, you're showing, you 
 2   know, the accomplishments you're making but also, you know, how 
 3   much of a task it is and it might be able to reflect the effort 
 4   that you can put in with the resources you're given might be a 
 5   nice mark as well.
 6    COMMANDER BAIRD:  We actually have an in house spreadsheet 
 7   that we're sort of tracking that as our estimated when we're 
 8   going to finish the critical area.  And I'm hesitant to actually 
 9   publish something like that because when something like that 
10   gets out it tends to be cemented and you can't get away from it 
11   again.  And so if something happens in the future that we didn't 
12   account for we could be criticized for not making the goal that 
13   we think, hey, as of 2006 we're going to finish by such and such 
14   a year and then we don't or whatever.  So I'd be willing to talk 
15   to that with people individually but I'm reluctant to advertise 
16   it or release that type of thing as a spreadsheet, digital 
17   document.
18    MR. RAINEY:  Elaine.
19    MS. DICKINSON:  Yes, thanks.  It seems like the survey 
20   areas could be divided into two categories, critical areas and 
21   everything else, since it looks like the critical areas are 
22   really the only thing that are -- we're likely to get resurveyed 
23   anytime soon.  I mean we're talking, what, 10 years or more.  
24   I'm just -- maybe this is more of a policy question but I'm 
25   wondering -- I mean this takes a lot of work, it takes time and 
0130
 1   resources to do this report.  Why are there even categories of 
 2   priority three, four and five?  You know, five is 132,000 miles.  
 3   I mean it just seems like this is probably never going to get 
 4   done.  So why are there so many categories I guess of priorities 
 5   that if the critical ones are, you know, barely getting done?
 6    COMMANDER BAIRD:  We basically tried to identify all the 
 7   areas that were considered navigationally significant based on 
 8   depth.  And in that boundary to sort of prioritize where we 
 9   should address first versus can wait.  But categories do change.  
10   We find out information about a new facility being built, L and 
11   G for example outside Boston.  What may have been a priority 
12   three may become emerging critical based on changing patterns.  
13   Or we get news about some tectonic activity off of Kodiak that 
14   has changed the shoreline and the depths drastically, that could 
15   change the category.  So we felt it necessary to label all the 
16   navigationally significant areas and then therefore we could 
17   sort of visualize where we should be placing our effort.
18    CAPTAIN ARMSTRONG:  Maybe I missed it, I don't think so.  
19   Following up on Elaine's comment, is there anything in here that 
20   says by the way, we're not going to do anything other than the 
21   critical areas?  Because it can be deceptive to see something 
22   that's priority two and they say, oh, well, we're priority two, 
23   you know, maybe in a few years they'll get to us?  No, never.  
24    COMMANDER BAIRD:  Depends on who you talk to.  There are 
25   people that -- might call them pie in the sky types, but they're 
0131
 1   actually talking about 100 percent requirement.  And this 100 
 2   percent requirement would enable us to survey all of the 
 3   navigationally significant areas every 50 years.  Is it 
 4   realistic?  I don't know.  But it.....
 5    CAPTAIN ARMSTRONG:  Just following up, it seems to me that 
 6   we need to say someplace.  Maybe I wouldn't have said that a few 
 7   years ago when I was in a different position.  But we need to 
 8   say someplace that we're just not going to do these unless 
 9   there's priority changes.
10    COMMANDER BAIRD:  And also it reflects the request.  If -- 
11   so saying you're -- I mean the category could change based on 
12   other criteria.
13    CAPTAIN ARMSTRONG:  Well, that's right.  But NOAA knows 
14   that they need to change the priority and unless they know that 
15   it's not going to get done unless it's in critical.
16    COMMANDER BAIRD:  Priority one, we actually do priority 
17   one and other areas.  We did I think approximately 300 square 
18   nautical miles last year that are outside critical, emerging 
19   priority one and priority two.  And that was at the request of 
20   other agencies.
21    CAPTAIN ARMSTRONG:  Presumably that sort of would have 
22   gotten them changed from those lower priorities in the critical.  
23   Is that right?
24    COMMANDER BAIRD:  No, actually it wouldn't.  I don't want 
25   to change the priorities or the categories on a whim.  It 
0132
 1   doesn't mean that if we're in an area we won't go out and spend 
 2   a day or two surveying some other priority because it makes 
 3   sense.  But just changing the categories willy nilly I think is 
 4   probably bad policy, at least from my perspective.
 5    MR. GRAY:  You said a few minutes ago that resurvey areas 
 6   don't go away, sort of.
 7    COMMANDER BAIRD:  That's my understanding.
 8    MR. GRAY:  Okay.  And I see here on page 47 that -- right 
 9   where we are here, Cook Inlet, it's 557 square miles which is a 
10   fairly big area.  And back on page 11 where it has this -- all  
11   -- the breakdown of everything, critical, emerging critical, 
12   priorities one through five.  It doesn't say how many total 
13   resurvey areas and if they won't go away they should be added 
14   into what still has to be done at least at some frequency I 
15   would think.
16    COMMANDER BAIRD:  I think the idea of the table on page 11 
17   is to show progress towards an end goal.  If there's 
18   510,000.....
19    MR. GRAY:  Right.
20    COMMANDER BAIRD:  .....square nautical miles of 
21   navigationally significant and we're working on those and would 
22   like to get those numbers down, you know, to zero on the bottom 
23   of all those columns.  But.....
24    MR. GRAY:  Well, I see that and -- and then you have a 
25   table on page 13 which shows the critical of 43,000, the ones 
0133
 1   that are completed, the ones remaining.  And all I'm saying is 
 2   if the resurveys don't go away then they're still remaining.  
 3    COMMANDER BAIRD:  That's correct.
 4    MR. GRAY:  So how much are they in total?
 5    COMMANDER BAIRD:  I could go back and total them up.  But 
 6   basically that -- I guess I don't see the reason of counting 
 7   something that -- of a number that never changes.  I mean the 
 8   whole idea of these tables is to show progress towards a goal of 
 9   reaching zero for (indiscernible).
10    MR. GRAY:  No, all I mean is if you've got to resurvey 
11   where you say they don't go away, they stay that way, you've got 
12   to resurvey them so it's still to be done.
13    COMMANDER BAIRD:  That's correct.
14    MR. GRAY:  Well, then still to be done is just the same as 
15   being category two or four or anything else.  Except it's 
16   probably more critical if it's considered a continuous resurvey.  
17   And so I'm saying again, how many resurvey square miles do we 
18   have?  Right out here in Cook Inlet you got 500 and some square 
19   miles against a total target of you're doing 1,000 or 1,500 
20   square miles a year so it's a pretty significant number on a 
21   yearly basis.
22    COMMANDER BAIRD:  Actually the resurvey were not designed 
23   to be yearly.  It was done on a frequency that is reasonable for 
24   that area.  It could be every two to three years, such as in 
25   Knik Arm, or it could be every five to seven years somewhere 
0134
 1   else.
 2    MR. GRAY:  Yeah.
 3    COMMANDER BAIRD:  Such as outside Wilmington, North 
 4   Carolina.
 5    MR. GRAY:  I would just say that to me I get the 
 6   impression that the navigationally critical areas, one, defined 
 7   some years ago still to be done, they're the highest priority.  
 8   But your comments on your resurvey sound like they're about the 
 9   next highest priority.  So we ought to know how many there are 
10   totally, not just in Cook Inlet.
11    MR. RAINEY:  Could I take a stab?  I think -- am I correct 
12   in saying that a couple areas of complexity what we're looking 
13   at, I mean to Bill's comment and Andy Armstrong's comment.  The 
14   priority areas as I see them are set up primarily as a 
15   navigation safety prioritization.  You're looking at the 
16   expected changes and the bathometry or hydrography and then the 
17   types of -- kind of the Marine Transportation System sort of 
18   arguments it seems.
19    COMMANDER BAIRD:  Correct.
20    MR. RAINEY:  And that seems to be the major theme that 
21   establishes the priority areas.  Now there's other issues that 
22   come up and I think what you're eluding to, let's take for 
23   example like the law of the sea surveys or homeland defense 
24   surveys.  They may have priorities that rise to a certain level 
25   and that patch of area may not be, you know, a priority one or 
0135
 1   critical area navigation safety wise but then that becomes a 
 2   national priority and so that gets surveyed.  And I think on 
 3   Bill's question, the complexity issue there is part of this is a 
 4   planning document but part of it's a marketing document in that 
 5   -- insofar as we want to have -- show progress on the benchmark, 
 6   that Congress establishes a new line item and it be responsive 
 7   to that.  But am I not right in my understanding that your 
 8   critical survey areas can also be -- I mean these aren't 
 9   necessarily distinct categories.  In other words you can have a 
10   resurvey area -- in other words you can do a critical survey but 
11   that would be something that you want to go back, as you said in 
12   the 100 percent requirement, maybe look at a, you know, periodic 
13   resurvey.  So, you know, these aren't necessarily mutually 
14   exclusive categories across all cases as I understand and I 
15   think that's the difficulty in trying to have a table that 
16   exactly accounts, you know, for it all.  Am I right in that 
17   understanding?
18    COMMANDER BAIRD:  Yes, you are correct.
19    MS. DASLER:  While we're on the subject of resurveying, I 
20   was just looking at 47 and the resurvey area in Cook Inlet and 
21   then when you look back at the priority areas it looks like that 
22   the resurvey area goes out and into the priority four area.  And 
23   I don't know if that's the intent or -- I mean just as people 
24   looking at this document that could raise questions I guess.
25    COMMANDER BAIRD:  I'm sure there's room for amending the 
0136
 1   areas.  A lot of these regions were drawn either at a relatively 
 2   small scale or on the quick.  And so part of the reason is we'd 
 3   like to get feedback is to -- you know, maybe we should pay 
 4   attention to page, you know, 47 and basically check the extent 
 5   of the polygons.
 6    MR. RAINEY:  Captain McGovern.
 7    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  Andrew McGovern.  Possibly, you know -- 
 8   I mean it was mentioned before maybe, like Andy said, we should, 
 9   you know, put in here, you know, look, your chances of getting a 
10   priority five area are slim to none.  Maybe that's not a way to 
11   say it but maybe -- and again, without lobbying, is there a way 
12   we could say that, you know, based on current funding levels 
13   this is how many -- you know, this is the -- this is how much we 
14   need to do but this is how much we're able to do.  And that.....
15    MR. RAINEY:  That goes back to my -- yeah.
16    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  That then maybe you can use as that -- 
17   you know, then you can use it when you go up to them, somebody 
18   says, well look, this is what they fund us now, if you have a 
19   problem with that you go to your -- see your -- you know.
20    MR. RAINEY:  That was what I was trying to drive at 
21   is.....
22    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  Yeah.
23    MR. RAINEY:  .....just to say, you know, we're doing the 
24   best we can but give them -- you know, not to lock yourself in 
25   but just to be flat up front along with, you know, we're finding 
0137
 1   all this stuff, we recognize we have this great -- you know, our 
 2   national responsibility is this entire -- you know, the whole 
 3   enchilada but we've got, you know, all of our effort, everything 
 4   we've got -- putting on this we're just barely going to get, you 
 5   know, through this in the foreseeable future and -- anyway, that 
 6   was -- I mean that was the basis for my recommendations.
 7    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  I don't see it as -- you know, it's not 
 8   lobbying because you're just stating facts.  I mean you're 
 9   saying this is -- these are the facts, this is our priorities 
10   but based on present funding levels this is what we're going to 
11   be able to do.  And then people can then take it from there.  
12   But without that this really doesn't help the people that need 
13   to figure out, you know, do they need to go -- that guy that's a 
14   priority two, you know, he may look at this and say, well, you 
15   know, according to these calculations I'll be done in, you know, 
16   2040, if I want to get past that I'm going to have to go to my 
17   Congressman, you know.  And -- you know.  And the other thing is 
18   when you were talking about the priority areas, and you 
19   mentioned based on depth that some of the priority -- you know, 
20   the difference between a four and a five may be that it's just 
21   naturally deeper than five but it doesn't say that in the 
22   description of the different priority areas.  You're talking 
23   about types of ships, tonnage, traffic, but I didn't see 
24   anything in there where it said, you know, area five may just 
25   normally be deeper than.....
0138
 1    COMMANDER BAIRD:  On page number eight on the top half of 
 2   the page it actually lists the depth limits that we consider 
 3   navigation (indiscernible).
 4    CAPTAIN GOVERN:  (Indiscernible) page 10 where it kind of 
 5   got into the.....
 6    COMMANDER BAIRD:  Yeah, and then basically areas within 
 7   those depths on page eight based on age of survey and type of 
 8   traffic is then how they're further broken down.
 9    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  Yeah, see but this talks about depth 
10   limit but this doesn't connect the depth limit with the priority 
11   number.  So if you go to page 10, right, and you then tell 
12   what's a priority one, a priority two, a priority three, it 
13   doesn't bring those depths back into that.
14    COMMANDER BAIRD:  No, because we basically use the 
15   information on page eight and on page 10 to create the polygons 
16   that are shown on the graphics in the rest of the document.
17    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  So it's a combination thereof.
18    COMMANDER BAIRD:  Right.  So anything that said.....
19    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  (Indiscernible).
20    COMMANDER BAIRD:  .....the first currently charted at 21 
21   fathoms off the Coast of North Carolina is something we will 
22   consider navigationally insignificant, that we don't plan to 
23   address it unless there is something other than a navigational 
24   interest into it.
25    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  Okay.  
0139
 1    COMMANDER BAIRD:  Of course there is the rub in that, you 
 2   know, we're using charted data to define where we're going and a 
 3   lot of times that's -- you don't find out what's there until you 
 4   go there and survey it.
 5    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  Yep.  All right.  But I still think you 
 6   should put in a schedule based on -- either based on current 
 7   funding levels or whatever that will give people the real idea 
 8   of when this is actually going to happen.  That may be the most 
 9   politically correct way to do it, I don't -- you know, you're 
10   not saying -- you're not promising them that you're going to be 
11   done in -- because if the funding level goes down, somebody says 
12   how come you're done, say hey, that was based on those funding 
13   levels, it didn't get there, you know.  I don't know but I think 
14   you really have to -- it would be a more useful tool for some 
15   people to use that way.
16    CAPTAIN BARNUM:  Excuse me.  I think that's probably a 
17   very good point, Andy, in that it gives folks a reference on 
18   when they might see an area surveyed.  Right now it really 
19   doesn't show the schedule for that, it just shows the what.  So 
20   that would be I think an important dimension that I think we 
21   could add.  Especially since it's going to be updated every 
22   year.
23    COMMANDER BAIRD:  Chris, to paraphrase Dwight Eisenhower, 
24   he said that he found plans to be useless but planning to be 
25   indispensable.  So I mean something I create this summer could 
0140
 1   be thrown out the window after the next hurricane season.  
 2    CAPTAIN ARMSTRONG:  Yeah, I think what we're looking for 
 3   is not a schedule but a sort of conceptual understanding of when 
 4   the agency is going to be able to do this work.  
 5    MS. DICKINSON:  It might also be useful, I don't know if 
 6   you've done this or if it's possible to put a dollar figure.  I 
 7   mean I know it sounds a little pie in the sky, but has anyone 
 8   ever calculated say to do the critical areas how much money 
 9   would it cost?  I mean that -- you know, I'm just thinking from 
10   maybe a lobbying point of view you could show just the drastic 
11   difference in what you're getting and what you need.  Have you 
12   ever sorted it out by dollars?
13    COMMANDER BAIRD:  We actually do keep track of the cost 
14   per square nautical mile.  There are problems inherent with that 
15   type of accounting but it seems to be the most useful at this 
16   point.  And it's something we probably could float but it's a 
17   decision beyond me.
18    MR. GRAY:  Elaine, we talked about that in San Diego and 
19   saying it's a lot different to do a square mile in the Gulf of 
20   Mexico than to do almost anything that you find in Alaska and I 
21   mean just common sense will tell you that.  But just the same, 
22   some order of magnitude figures are inevitably -- I mean if 
23   somebody's going to take it seriously that we feel the 
24   government should spend more of the taxpayer's money to get some 
25   of these jobs done sooner inevitably you're going to say, well, 
0141
 1   how much do you need to get done in five years.  And we heard 
 2   the other day if it get -- the remaining critical areas done in 
 3   10 years, no, let's do them in five years.  Somebody said that 
 4   yesterday.  And if we want to follow that through to the logical 
 5   conclusion of the decision maker we got to have some idea of -- 
 6   I mean are we talking tens of millions of dollars or hundreds of 
 7   millions of dollars or are we getting into billions of dollars, 
 8   they want to know how much is it going to cost to do this.
 9    MS. DICKINSON:  Maybe it could be done by cost per square 
10   nautical mile per region, like the Gulf of Mexico costs X, 
11   Alaska costs this much.  I don't know if that's possible.
12    COMMANDER BAIRD:  Ac -- excuse me.  Actually that's how 
13   we've been tracking some of the -- especially the contracts.  We 
14   know basically sort of based on the prior work as to how much 
15   it's been costing per square nautical mile, gives us an idea how 
16   much we can accomplish in a year.  Because we know how much 
17   contracting money's coming down the pipe, so.
18    MR. RAINEY:  Let me get John and then back to Andrew.
19    MR. OSWALD:  Yeah, John Oswald.  Yeah, I find this 
20   document extremely useful.  Every one of our congressional 
21   delegation members has this and expanded maps at their homes.  A 
22   couple of recommendations I would offer is there's areas on here 
23   that have already been surveyed because of the date that you did 
24   this but perhaps look at a publication of around the end of the 
25   third, beginning of fourth quarter of the year and then at least 
0142
 1   -- I don't know so much on the east coast, but west coast and 
 2   Alaska the work is done.  So there's blocks that are already 
 3   actually done, the contractors -- the contractors are demobed or 
 4   in the process of demobing now so it might be a target date 
 5   every year.  I agree with not -- printing a limited quantity and 
 6   using the web to distribute this.  This document is not that 
 7   widely distributed in the ocean community.  I think you should 
 8   mandate that every geodetic advisor and navigation -- well, not 
 9   the geodetic advisor in North Dakota.  But the geo -- the 
10   coastal geodetic -- CGA's, coastal geodetic advisors, and the 
11   nav advisors.  I don't know how you'd do that from a management, 
12   but -- like at the AOOS meetings in this state it comes up every 
13   time in the focus groups that almost always the number one thing 
14   is bathometry and number two usually is shoreline.  And then 
15   they get into the tides and currents and physical chemistry.  So 
16   that would be a way to get this more widely distributed and NOAA 
17   funds -- I don't know in every case but they fund this -- the 
18   regional associations.  And you have a mechanism with the 
19   advisors and the -- geodetic advisors and nav advisors.  The -- 
20   you'll hear about the Drift River but I'll bring that up again 
21   because that is in the papers in the winter.  Drift River oil 
22   terminal which is west of Nikiski and Captain Jeff Pierce 
23   mentioned that today so I'm sure they'll have their red coloring 
24   pens out when you're in Homer tomorrow.  There's ice issues in 
25   Cook Inlet, some years heavier than others, that -- in the 
0143
 1   Rainier -- it's Rainier did some modest surveying there a few -- 
 2   maybe two or three years ago.  Possibly on the resurvey areas 
 3   it'd be helpful for me to explain things to other people.  As 
 4   you know in Cook Inlet, maybe it's not that whole 557 square 
 5   miles but what the -- is it two year schedule, three year 
 6   schedule and possibly with some shading techniques, you don't do 
 7   this in GIS, say when the last survey was done.  Which I think 
 8   is about -- Tara would know.  Two years or something?
 9    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
10   microphone).
11    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  I believe it was '04, wasn't it, Tom?
12    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
13   microphone).
14    MR. OSWALD:  Yeah.  A part of that was done, so.  And you 
15   guys know because you have been doing it.  We've been surveying 
16   Cook Inlet since 1778, so.  Stakeholders, I would like to see 
17   you guys put on the internet like other parts of NOAA, I'd like 
18   to see the GIS files for these maps put on there, georeference.  
19   Because we have done it for all the Alaska maps so I merge it 
20   with other data -- if you can believe this, I take these maps, 
21   merge it with a nice Alaska map and then I take the NOAA, CO-
22   OPS, NWLONS and tertiary sites and we prepare map products to 
23   give back to NOAA for planning purposes and to sell concepts.  
24   But if that were done the coastal managers I think would pick up 
25   and see where their priorities overlay in this, just a GIS 
0144
 1   technique.  Just post the GIS files just like NGS posts the -- 
 2   what's it called, Mike, the -- shoreline exporter and.....
 3    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
 4   microphone).
 5    MR. OSWALD:  Yeah, we've used that extensively too.  Now 
 6   we did it, we actually just did it through the back door, we got 
 7   the files from the last GIS technician that was there through I 
 8   guess Captain Parsons is how we did it a few years ago.  And 
 9   then with respect to the ranking, I've never quite understood.  
10   You have these critical areas, the resurvey and emerging 
11   critical areas and your area around Kodiak is a huge area, 
12   3,900, 3,600 square miles emerging.  And I've been told by 
13   Office of Coast Survey before that that status of emerging and 
14   the critical is the same, it's just the critical is that -- you 
15   know, the original 43,000 square miles, I know we had that 
16   benchmark.  So how do you decide within the priority areas what 
17   to survey, is it like the -- how thick the pile of letters is or 
18   -- for instance, why do you survey, you know, Sand Point, 
19   Metraphaney (ph) Island versus the entrance to San Francisco 
20   Bay?  Metraphaney (ph) Island is sort of a sleeper.  I mean it's 
21   not surveyed but just a remote area here in Alaska.  We were 
22   just there.  And then why -- like in next year in -- 
23   specifically in Alaska -- I guess two part question.  How do you 
24   prioritize within the critical and then why would you have 
25   substantial probab -- I don't know, dollar wise, $5 million of 
0145
 1   work done on a priority one in southeast Alaska, specifically 
 2   Chatham Straits area, it's the east side of Sitka, on the other 
 3   side of that island, when it's -- the majority, 90 percent of 
 4   it, appears as priority one versus the area at Craig which is 
 5   critical survey.  And we're making statements in this most 
 6   wanted list about, you know, whether we use the word critical 
 7   and this mileage and this dollar figure.  So we're sort of -- 
 8   and you just mentioned you just survey priority one and two.
 9    COMMANDER BAIRD:  Prioritization within certain categories 
10   is based on where we have field units working currently.  I like 
11   the keeping the wet edge to the paint.  Keep working in an area, 
12   it seems to be more efficient that way.  And if we can keep the 
13   moving hop scotching around to a limited number of projects, 
14   that way it seems to enhance the efficiency of the units, that 
15   they can continue working in an area they know.  And we do take 
16   into consideration the number of requests for surveys in an 
17   area.
18    MR. RAINEY:  Andrew, you had something?
19    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  Well, just getting back to this.  I 
20   mean I really think you got to flush this out with some of this 
21   -- you know, the cost, you know, whether it's, you know, okay, 
22   this is, you know.  Again, this is what we can do with what we 
23   got and then maybe add to that this is what it -- you know, the 
24   approximate cost per square mile after that.  I mean Jack said  
25   -- the other day he said, you know, we want to grow NOAA.  Well, 
0146
 1   this is the fertilizer, you know, this is what we need in order 
 2   to grow NOAA.  I mean it's got to be -- you know, you're only 
 3   going to grow -- NOAA's more money and, you know, we need those 
 4   figures so that we can take them to the Hill and have them and  
 5   -- to put them in here just gives it a wider distribution which 
 6   will help, I think.
 7    MR. RAINEY:  Before -- John had kind of asked the 
 8   question.  The question I had in my mind was I was going to just 
 9   ask you to briefly describe how you do that and you just did 
10   that for John.  But on page 12 it just simply states, the annual 
11   survey plan is finalized at least six months prior to the 
12   beginning of the survey field session.  Is that ground truthing 
13   out, is that what you're seeing, are you able to accomplish 
14   that?  I mean it sounds like a tremendous challenge to -- you 
15   know, as you just mentioned, the Eisenhower quote there.  I mean 
16   you have your long term plan but things happen.  And I'm just 
17   wondering, are you able to -- is that happening, are you getting 
18   the ability to marshal your resources in house and contracting 
19   and you feel comfortable with that statement standing?
20    COMMANDER BAIRD:  For the most part.  There's always 
21   little hiccups along the way and, you know, speed bumps and 
22   tangents and diversions and stuff like that.  But for the most 
23   part we decide that we're going to work -- we made a list of 
24   2007 survey areas.  I expect the large majority of those to 
25   proceed as we've planned.  
0147
 1    MS. DICKINSON:  Can you say what percentage is being 
 2   contracted out?  Total.
 3    COMMANDER BAIRD:  By miles or by cost?  I think it's split 
 4   down the middle on money, isn't it Captain?
 5    MR. SZABADOS:  I think the ratio is about 40 percent in 
 6   house and the rest contracted but we can get you an exact 
 7   number.  But roughly..... 
 8    COMMANDER BAIRD:  And by miles it's almost half, it's 
 9   maybe 55 percent in house, 45 percent contracted.
10    MR. RAINEY:  Okay, thanks.  Doug or Captain, what -- you 
11   know, like I said, this was one of the things that was 
12   explicitly mentioned and I don't know if there'd be any benefit 
13   to you or us to mention we talk about it, you know, in the plan 
14   itself.  Is there a particular, you know, comment, notion or 
15   just, you know, capture it in the record of our deliberations?  
16   I mean how can we best package that for you so that we've -- you 
17   know, we both work together to meet that, you know, requirement 
18   of the committee to review and discuss it with you, what would 
19   be the most -- you talked about changing maybe the timeframe of 
20   it a little bit, maybe perhaps the format primarily, going to 
21   digital so that it can be updated more regularly.  Is there a 
22   schedule you would want to propose that we get on with you that, 
23   you know, we can kind of I guess institutionalize our review 
24   with you on that?
25    CAPTAIN BARNUM:  I think so, I think we would -- ideally 
0148
 1   would like to get in a synchronized schedule where the panel can 
 2   review the priority document on a yearly basis and so that it 
 3   gets a stamp of approval so to speak and that, again, shows the 
 4   -- that we're vetting it with the panel and that it is -- can 
 5   use that as we pass it along.  But I think it'd be very valuable 
 6   to have your input, and certainly we're hearing it here, 
 7   certainly about the schedule and using it as a potential 
 8   document for educating folks on the rate of completion versus 
 9   just the priorities.
10    COMMANDER BAIRD:  If I could make a suggestion.  If you're 
11   going to start putting a timeframe, we rely exclusively on 
12   survey outlines from the field units to update the graphics and 
13   those are usually turned in anywhere between, you know, during 
14   the field season through -- into November, December timeframe.  
15   And starting in October, November timeframe through March my 
16   entire branch is working on letter instructions and getting the 
17   documents ready for the upcoming field season.  So if it could 
18   be after March, say a late spring, early summer timeframe, to 
19   expect the updated that'd be -- work best for my schedule.  
20    MR. RAINEY:  Okay, I think that's very helpful.  Were 
21   there any other comments or suggestions, questions, from the 
22   members?  All right, well, Commander, thanks very much, really 
23   appreciate it.  Can I toss it to you, Tom, on the -- pick up on 
24   the report?
25    (Pause - background conversations)
0149
 1    MR. SKINNER:  People see that?  Is that readable?  No, 
 2   because I think maybe if we can just edit it this way we'll save 
 3   another round of grass.  But what we've done here, I had a 
 4   couple of minor changes on the actual list here that I wanted to 
 5   go through and then we had talked earlier about having some sort 
 6   of intro paragraph.  This I don't think would be a final 
 7   version, it's just sort of if the concept is -- people -- if the 
 8   concept people agree with then I think we would then turn it 
 9   over to Ann and say can you work on this.  So I wouldn't worry 
10   too much about the style or anything like that, just see if it 
11   gets the concepts.  This part is what we had before except that 
12   on number one to try and elevate the issue of ENC's.  On the 
13   last one I added to reduce ping to chart time and accelerate 
14   development of ENC's.  I don't know if that's the right 
15   language.  If anyone has some changes but that's what I come -- 
16   John, I don't know if you had time to think about that.  So any 
17   reaction to that change?  Elaine.
18    MS. DICKINSON:  I don't think anyone outside this room 
19   would know what ping to chart means.  It's like a foreign 
20   language.  This is mainly I think intended for an outside 
21   audience of, you know, policy makers and people like that.
22    MR. SKINNER:  Okay.  Just for this group as shorthand 
23   maybe, Ann, that's something that you can come up with something 
24   a little bit more English like.  Going on, any other comments?  
25   Once, twice, three.  The second one had a couple of changes 
0150
 1   under the bullet.  It used to identify wrecks and other 
 2   obstacles, it's now identify wrecks and other obstructions that 
 3   threaten navigation in federal channels, it used to say dredged 
 4   channels.  Is that all right?  And then skipping down to number 
 5   four, there were a couple of suggestions.  You can see here that 
 6   the wording question was the Vdatum, expand and fund real time 
 7   tide and current observations and either Vdatum modeling or just 
 8   modeling to commercial ports nationwide as a critical component 
 9   of the IOOS system.  Any thoughts?
10    MR. SZABADOS:  Tide was supposed to be replaced with water 
11   level.
12    MR. SKINNER:  You're right.  I'm sorry.  I'm sorry, Mike.  
13   Real time water level and current observations.  Yeah, thank 
14   you.  Elaine.
15    MS. DICKINSON:  This is where you know that I'm an editor.  
16   I think this has to be in plain English and is there another 
17   word for Vdatum?  Because nobody is going to know what that is 
18   either.  Is there just some other regular word that would imply 
19   the same thing?
20    MR. ZILKOSKI:  I mean Mike handed out a two page write up 
21   that explains it and I think you could just give it to -- and 
22   edit it and change what it is and -- I don't know if you really  
23   need to even put Vdatum up there so much.  It's the modeling 
24   part that you're interested in.
25    MR. SKINNER:  I think that's the first question is whether 
0151
 1   we.....
 2    MS. DICKINSON:  Data modeling.
 3    CAPTAIN ARMSTRONG:  How about calling it tidal modeling?
 4    MR. ZILKOSKI:  Well, Vdatum really is the transformation 
 5   from one datum to -- one vertical datum to another vertical 
 6   datum.  So it's making -- it's the modeling allows you to be 
 7   able to do that transformation.  So I don't know how you want to 
 8   put that in words that are simplified.
 9    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  I think the problem I would have with 
10   just saying modeling is it could get -- I mean there could be 
11   current modeling, zone modeling, I mean all kinds of things.  I 
12   mean maybe just putting it as datum modeling.
13    MR. ZILKOSKI:  Yeah, you could go datum modeling.
14    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  I would just leave it as modeling, try 
15   to keep it simple.  And then in the text itself you can expand 
16   on that.
17    MR. DASLER:  I mean leaving it modeling is -- I think is 
18   good because there are current modeling going on and, you know, 
19   the other.  So, you know, what's wrong with just saying 
20   modeling.  They say, well, what kind of modeling, well, we got 
21   Vdatum modeling, we got -- you know, we got the, you know, 
22   current modeling going on, we've got water level modeling going 
23   on, we've got all these things going on.
24    MR. GRAY:  Are you really just talking about accuracy?  
25   Expand and fund real time -- I don't know why we took tide out, 
0152
 1   we should have tide and current and the accuracy of the 
 2   observations.  
 3    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Tide was just replaced with water 
 4   level.
 5    MR. GRAY:  People want -- lay people want to know is it 
 6   accurate or is it not.  
 7    MR. DASLER:  Right.  I mean I think the point -- at least 
 8   initially in getting in the datum modeling was you get very 
 9   accurate observations at point measurements.  The problem is is 
10   when you start getting away from where those observations are 
11   made, you know, all bets are off.  I mean there -- and that's 
12   the point of the -- and I think.....
13    MR. MCBRIDE:  Is predictive models the right 
14   (indiscernible - away from microphone).
15    MR. DASLER:  No, it's the model between -- and what Dave 
16   was talking, the ellipsoid and mean lower well water.  So if we 
17   can get accurate modeling we can do more accurate surveys.  I 
18   mean eventually you can start putting the GPS on the ships and 
19   even navigate them on that surface.  I mean I think that's the 
20   real point.  I mean there -- yeah, there's a lot of other 
21   modeling efforts but I don't think that's what we're talking 
22   about here, we're talking about datum modeling and trying to get 
23   those point measurements spread out over a wide area and improve 
24   those accuracies.  So I would say datum modeling would be the 
25   way to express it.
0153
 1    MR. MCBRIDE:  I'm not exactly clear what that means 
 2   either.  
 3    MR. RAINEY:  It seems to me, I mean just my two cents on 
 4   it would be to leave it simple.  I mean remember what we're 
 5   talking about here is our -- is the basic sort of headlines if 
 6   you will and this is an organizational structure and then behind 
 7   all of this we've got a couple of pages of text, graphics and 
 8   recommendations that will support it.  And it strikes me that we 
 9   could have both.  I don't see why it wouldn't be an appropriate 
10   modeling.  The Vdatum I would characterize as like a tr -- and 
11   Dave, help me out, but in my reading on it, I mean it's a 
12   transformation or a translation methodology to model -- I mean 
13   to basically, you know, level the playing field so to speak 
14   across these various datums so everybody can speak to each 
15   other.  Okay?  Whereas we're also interested in, as Adam just 
16   mentioned, predictive modeling and all the modeling that you're 
17   talking about, hydrographic modeling and other things that allow 
18   and enable, you know, the better ports and decision making 
19   things.  So you've got two types of things going on there.  If 
20   we left it modeling and then we've got the benefit of spelling 
21   that out and probably talking about each in the subsequent 
22   supporting text.  
23    MR. SKINNER:  Okay.
24    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  (Indiscernible) percent.  I mean that's 
25   -- we've got these two different types of models and both of 
0154
 1   them are important.  You know, it's no good to know -- you know, 
 2   if you got a current or a tide gauge here, if you don't have a 
 3   model to tell you what the -- you know, what the height of the 
 4   water is over here it -- you know, it's not going to help you if 
 5   you're not right on top of the tide gauge, just as -- you know, 
 6   even if you're doing a survey, you don't have the accurate 
 7   differential, you know, it's not going to help you because you 
 8   have to put a -- you know.  And, Bill, you have to leave it 
 9   water level because it's more generic and -- because you have 
10   these things in lakes -- places where there are not necessarily 
11   tides.  There could be a storm surge which wouldn't -- you know, 
12   so water level is more generic.
13    MR. GRAY:  How about tides comma water level, and water 
14   level.  
15    MS. DICKINSON:  Scott.
16    MR. RAINEY:  Okay.  Can I.....
17    MS. DICKINSON:  I think.....
18    MR. GRAY:  I think the water level tables would make tide 
19   tables.
20    MS. DICKINSON:  I think we're way in the weeds here and I 
21   think -- I envision this as like a public outreach piece that, 
22   you know, should be a very succinct, clear, easy to understand 
23   list that -- I mean I could foresee, you know, Xeroxing it and 
24   attaching it to a letter and sending it to some staffer 
25   somewhere or somewhere on Capitol Hill or giving it to somebody, 
0155
 1   you know, that could influence budget decisions.  They don't 
 2   need all the jargon, they're not going to understand it and when 
 3   they see those words their eyes are going to glaze over.  So I 
 4   would just recommend we try to keep this as simple as possible 
 5   and then explain all the nuances in the text of the work.
 6    MR. SKINNER:  Can we go with just modeling, is that what I 
 7   heard?  Okay.  And we may want to change this around just -- I 
 8   was just thinking that it may want to be fund real time 
 9   observations and modeling for water levels and currents.  It's a 
10   little bit unclear because current could either be tide currents 
11   or -- like right now I'd think.  So we'll leave that up to Ann.  
12   Okay.  Good.  So anything else on these five or we'll go with 
13   these as our priorities?  Lou.
14    DR. LAPINE:  Just kind of an afterthought.  I thought we 
15   were.....
16    MR. SKINNER:  No afterthoughts allowed.
17    DR. LAPINE:  Oh, oh.  It's a forethought then.
18    MR. SKINNER:  All right, all right, go ahead.
19    DR. LAPINE:  Well, I was going to change my nomination for 
20   the Vice Chair.....
21    MR. SKINNER:  Please, do me the favor.
22    DR. LAPINE:  I thought we were going to remove the word 
23   hydrographic after contracting.  In other words we're going to 
24   expand NOAA's in house and contracting survey capabilities.
25    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Yeah, that (indiscernible).
0156
 1    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Capabilities (indiscernible).
 2    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Yep.
 3    MR. SKINNER:  Wait a minute.  
 4    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  First paragraph.
 5    MR. SKINNER:  Where are we?
 6    DR. LAPINE:  That's helps -- it's the first bullet.
 7    MR. SKINNER:  Okay.
 8    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible) first bullet.
 9    MR. SKINNER:  Oh, right.  Missed that one too.
10    DR. LAPINE:  That will cover the shoreline as well as the 
11   hydrographic.
12    MR. SKINNER:  Yep.  Sorry about that.  Is this something 
13   that we need to approve formally or just go for it?  Yes, 
14   Andrew.
15    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  I'm just looking at it now but second 
16   bullet of number two.  I thought it was -- we talked yesterday 
17   about this.  Did we say multipurpose survey vessels or just 
18   multipurpose vessels?  Because you're going to use them for 
19   fisheries and this and that.  I don't know if they're going to 
20   be -- I thought they were going to be multipurpose platforms, 
21   not necessarily -- you know what I mean?
22    MR. SKINNER:  Yeah.  I.....
23    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  Would that be.....
24    CAPTAIN ARMSTRONG:  I think it ought to stay survey.
25    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  Well, I don't know what their plan is.  
0157
 1   If their plan is to use them for other than surveys we should 
 2   take the survey off.
 3    MR. SKINNER:  I think there were fishing survey -- I 
 4   mean.....
 5    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  Fishing enforcement and things like 
 6   that that could be.
 7    MR. SKINNER:  I think they were all research type 
 8   (indiscernible).
 9    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Yeah, I think it was a variety of 
10   kinds of surveys.
11    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  Steve, could you answer that question?  
12   Captain Barnum.  Oh, sorry.
13    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Steve.
14    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  Steve, we have a question for you.
15    MR. SKINNER:  The question was on the bullet here, replace 
16   aging single purpose hydrographic survey fleet with multipurpose 
17   survey vessels.  Do we -- should we specify that they're 
18   multipurpose survey vessels or just multipurpose vessels?  
19   Now.....
20    CAPTAIN BARNUM:  I think (indiscernible).
21    MR. SKINNER:  Okay.  So that what NMFS does is also 
22   surveying with these -- with their vessels and you just want one 
23   platform for all of NOAA's surveying activities.
24    CAPTAIN BARNUM:  The discussion we've had about this issue 
25   is that there's many different views of it but my view is that 
0158
 1   the NOAA fleet would be composed of survey vessels that could do 
 2   other missions while they're on the site.  I think you heard you 
 3   heard it from the panel today, being able to drop a camera, it's 
 4   not something we normally do now, but have that kind of 
 5   capability to collect other data that's useful to our users.  
 6   Same could be said by the fisheries vessels, that when they're 
 7   steaming 2,000 miles to do a survey or wherever that they're 
 8   able to collect data that would be useful to hydrographic 
 9   community.  
10    MR. SKINNER:  Great, thank you.  
11    MR. DASLER:  Tom.....
12    MR. SKINNER:  I was just kidding when I said no last 
13   minute thoughts.  I think this is the time to sort of look 
14   through it, so.
15    MR. DASLER:  Could I add one?
16    MR. SKINNER:  I'm sorry.
17    MR. DASLER:  I was going to add one thing.  Mr. Baird here 
18   suggested this.  I know you had aging in there but I don't know 
19   if the word modern, I don't -- hesitant to use new, but modern 
20   multipurpose survey vessels.  And maybe it's just implied by 
21   replace aging that you're getting modern.  
22    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  (Indiscernible - away from microphone) 
23   one of the Navy's aging vessels.
24    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Yeah.  That's very possible.
25    MR. SKINNER:  If it's possible -- so general consensus no 
0159
 1   problem with modern?
 2    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Sounds good.
 3    MR. SKINNER:  All right.  
 4    MR. DASLER:  And, Tom, one last -- I guess to get rid of 
 5   the ping to chart we could just say reduce chart production time 
 6   and then we can talk about that.  If that makes.....
 7    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Yeah.
 8    MR. SKINNER:  Okay.  Oops, what did I just do.  Anything 
 9   else?  Is this something we need -- or we should take a vote on?  
10   Just to finalize it or.....
11    MR. RAINEY:  I don't see any harm in that.  I've put in 
12   backstops and check valves all over.  Can I have a motion?  
13    MR. GRAY:  So moved.
14    MR. RAINEY:  Okay, Bill Gray.  Second.  Jon Dasler.  Okay, 
15   all in favor.
16    SIMULTANEOUS:  Aye.
17    MR. RAINEY:  Opposed.  Okay, we have -- yeah.
18    MR. SKINNER:  There are a couple things that we'd like to 
19   do from here on.  I did mention this intro paragraph, I don't 
20   know if you want to go through that right now.  The other 
21   activity is to go through the other four groups that met this 
22   morning.  And what Scott did with John's group is he wrote down 
23   the themes that John and his group had developed on another 
24   document and then listed some examples with the idea being that 
25   by the end of today we would have an outline of not only these 
0160
 1   five things and the bullets that you see here but then the 
 2   themes and potential examples that each group has developed and 
 3   really have a pretty good outline of what the document -- what 
 4   the final document would look like.  So I don't know if it makes 
 5   more sense to spend more time on that or if you want to go 
 6   through this just quickly and see if this captures.  People are 
 7   looking at.  Why don't we just -- we can -- if this is 
 8   controversial we can just delete it and make it -- put it to a 
 9   different time.  But I just put down there the HSRP has 
10   developed a list of the five most wanted priorities to help 
11   guide NOAA and Congress on the nation's most pressing 
12   hydrographic needs largely unnoticed by policy makers and the 
13   general public unless something goes wrong.  Accurate 
14   hydrographic services are critical to the safe transportation of 
15   -- or safe passage it probably should say of commercial vessels 
16   that carry 95 percent of U.S. foreign trade, fishing vessels, 
17   the nation's 78 million recreational boaters, researchers, 
18   emergency response professionals and coastal managers.  The HSRP 
19   believes that an improved understanding of the importance of 
20   accurate surveys, charts and real time data is critical to the 
21   success of NOAA's hydrographic mission.  That, again, is trying 
22   to get the -- to the -- to Andy's point that getting people to 
23   realize that this is an issue is critical to getting any of this 
24   sort of moving forward.
25    CAPTAIN MYRTIDIS:  Tom.
0161
 1    MR. SKINNER:  Yeah.
 2    CAPTAIN MYRTIDIS:  Not because I feel neglected or 
 3   something, but I think you should mention the millions of 
 4   passengers.  You know, we're talking safety of life at sea and 
 5   safety of navigation.  So I think it's important to mention 
 6   that.
 7    CAPTAIN ARMSTRONG:  You must be around 10 million 
 8   passengers a year, somewhere around there?  I don't know the 
 9   exact number, but it's millions, yeah.
10    CAPTAIN MYRTIDIS:  I could find a good number, I don't 
11   have it right now, but.....
12    MR. SKINNER:  This is a huge list -- let's see.  
13    MR. RAINEY:  Yeah, cruise ship and ferries too.
14    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  Yeah, I -- Andrew McGovern.  I was 
15   going to mention you've got, you know, important to like -- 
16   you've got everyone, then you've got coastal managers.  Well, 
17   it's actually all this information is important to everyone who 
18   lives on the coast, not just the coastal managers but, you know, 
19   the entire  -- I don't know exactly how you define that.  But I 
20   like -- and I'd hate to lose this but there are some really -- a 
21   couple really good paragraphs in the old document on outreach 
22   and education that talks about, you know, that -- you know, the 
23   MTS affects everybody everyday, only people who may never see a 
24   coast community or busy port realize how important the MTS is to 
25   their daily lives will the outreach be sufficient.  I think -- 
0162
 1   and it doesn't necessarily have to be in this opening paragraph 
 2   but I think these couple of paragraphs in here really have to 
 3   get into this document.  And we do not have a bullet on it so I 
 4   -- I mean -- I mean to say a bullet, but there's -- you know, 
 5   somewhere in the intro or in a conclusion that we really got to 
 6   hammer the outreach part of it.  So.....
 7    MR. RAINEY:  Andrew, I think that would be exactly right 
 8   and what I maybe envision this is a single page so we've got the 
 9   intro page, this could be something that would -- will be, you 
10   know, pulled out, faxed around or whatever, the one thing, but 
11   there'll be -- I think there'll be space in the layout where we 
12   can have -- again, pull -- not lose that in a -- either in a -- 
13   you know, a letter or introductory section and things.  But 
14   maybe what Tom's got prepared there would always sort of be a -- 
15   you know, in the one pager that has the five major elements.  
16   But your point is well taken and certainly something we need to 
17   talk more about.
18    MR. SKINNER:  Put in a placeholder in case we -- yeah, you 
19   want to work that in.  And again, this is just to sort of say 
20   this is how -- something like this would be have a -- or what I 
21   would suggest that this would be framed as and we'll let Ann 
22   work her magic on it.
23    MS. BOESE:  One thing that is -- I think needs maybe to be 
24   solidified is to -- and I'm hearing this in listening to what 
25   Elaine's saying and what some other people are saying is that it 
0163
 1   really is important to identify the reader or the audience.  And 
 2   if something like Vdatum is going to be a potential stumbling 
 3   block, which it very well could be an alienating point in a -- 
 4   in the beginning of something, it doesn't -- of course has its 
 5   place later on in the material.  But I'm almost hearing that we 
 6   have to come back a little bit more and really say what are 
 7   hydrographic products and services and why should you care.  I'm 
 8   thinking that we have to decide that -- is it going to be 
 9   something that's going to make sense to the average Joe then 
10   maybe it has to take one step back.  Which isn't going to be 
11   hard, it doesn't mean that all the other information can't be 
12   there, it's just that it needs to be kind of -- it needs to be 
13   explained a little bit more throughout.  Not simplified, but 
14   explained.  
15    MR. RAINEY:  But I.....
16    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  That's a good point.
17    MR. RAINEY:  My thinking would be that that would all -- 
18   this is going to be sort of ensconced in the whole special 
19   report and that -- just what you're saying would be in a -- you 
20   know, in the introduction.....
21    MS. BOESE:  Right, right.
22    MR. RAINEY:  .....and then weaved throughout the 
23   supporting sections and that this -- for this particular one -- 
24   kind of one pager that we're highlighting it then -- you know, 
25   that -- you know, you want to keep it, you know, kind of 
0164
 1   (indiscernible).
 2    MS. BOESE:  No, I think succinct but I'm thinking of 
 3   looking at this introduction, I'm listening to what everybody's 
 4   saying and I'm thinking that there is a place.  And it was 
 5   really in the original way that we had laid it out.  I had -- my 
 6   feeling was to put the vital statistics about the Marine 
 7   Transportation System up near the front too because as a person 
 8   who maybe doesn't even know what the heck the Marine 
 9   Transportation System is, what is it, how does it affect me, how 
10   does it affect my fellow Americans, why should I care.  And that 
11   basically is how we laid it out to work, the function -- you 
12   know, how a person would take the information in and what -- 
13   hopefully how they'd be able to process it.  So it's just -- 
14   it's nothing that has to be word smithed right now but I guess I 
15   want to get a feel.  Do you think that is a good way for me to 
16   go in the editing?  I do.
17    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  I do.
18    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Yeah.
19    MS. BOESE:  Okay.  
20    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Yeah.
21    MS. BOESE:  Because I want to be able to hand it to my 
22   next door neighbor who's a fairly intelligent person and 
23   probably could be on the Hill at some point and say can -- what 
24   -- can you read this, what does it say, what does it mean.  Is 
25   that what we want to be able to do?  Okay.  
0165
 1    MR. RAINEY:  I think absolutely.  The only thing I'm not 
 2   quite getting is I don't think anything Tom has written is 
 3   inconsistent with that ultimate goal.....
 4    MS. BOESE:  No.
 5    MR. RAINEY:  .....because I think we have -- we'll frame 
 6   it in all of that and I think, you know.....
 7    MS. BOESE:  But it's how you want to fold it and 
 8   that's.....
 9    MR. RAINEY:  Yeah, okay.
10    MS. BOESE:  .....not something for introduction.
11    MR. RAINEY:  Right.
12    MS. BOESE:  .....but how it unfolds.  The idea, and 
13   Elaine's point is well taken, if you start hitting people with a 
14   lot of words of things that they don't necessarily know, they're 
15   foreign, you'll lose them.  If they're -- if they are unfold -- 
16   if they unfold later in the text they'll be interested by that 
17   point.  And it's the process and that really comes when we get 
18   all these pieces in and then we smooth it out so that it works 
19   for the mind who doesn't know all this already.  And that's -- I 
20   think that we agree on that, so.  I just want to make sure I was 
21   understanding.
22    MR. SKINNER:  Okay.  Good, I think that's great.  Can we 
23   go back to the groups if we're all set here?  I can cancel this 
24   out and -- I think it's.....
25    MR. RAINEY:  That's it.
0166
 1    MR. SKINNER:  Yes.  So this is group one.  And, John, this 
 2   is what Scott had recorded for your major themes and then a 
 3   couple of examples.  So this is sort of what the final project  
 4   -- product would look like by the end of today is the priority 
 5   area, a couple of the bullets, the themes and then examples.  So 
 6   I guess want to make sure before we go on with this that 
 7   everyone thinks that that's a -- that's the product that we want 
 8   by the end of today.
 9    MR. RAINEY:  The thought is exactly what Tom articulated. 
10   My thinking would we is that if we could do this, if we could 
11   run through -- Ann has all the raw data, everybody, you know, 
12   passed her, you know, please give if you haven't, you know, the 
13   information that we did, kind of mapping things back and all of 
14   that.  But if we had this, sort of the capstone, and everybody 
15   could leave the meeting, you know, with a copy of this, this 
16   kind of gives us our skeletal outline and then we can leave with 
17   some ideas.  If you've got some graphics on a certain section, 
18   I've heard people have, you know, some promises of some good 
19   photographs or whatever.  It might -- you know, we all leave, 
20   you know, literally on the same page of what -- you know, how 
21   this thing flushes out a little bit.  And then when we pull it 
22   together and get it back out to everybody, you know, then we can 
23   do another review.  So that just was the idea, try to capture 
24   this as much as we can and be in agreement as we all leave the 
25   meeting with the short time we have physically together. 
0167
 1    MR. SKINNER:  I guess just logistically if we can spend, 
 2   excuse me, about -- maybe until around 3:30 on developing that, 
 3   print out some versions -- print out a copy so that everyone can 
 4   actually then go through the whole thing and say okay, what are 
 5   we missing here or does this -- does everything fit together and 
 6   wrap it up by 4:00.  I think that would be a pretty successful 
 7   day.
 8    MS. DICKINSON:  On the -- on section one there was a 
 9   really interesting statistic I've heard at previous meetings 
10   that might be worth putting in there.  Something about a certain 
11   percentage of soundings on current charts were generated before 
12   the 1940's.  And if anyone has that statistic we might want to 
13   put it in.
14    MR. RAINEY:  It was actually in -- we could probably cite 
15   this maybe as the most recent document (indiscernible).
16    MS. DICKINSON:  Oh, okay.
17    (Whispered conversation)
18    MR. SKINNER:  Okay.  Whisper, whisper, whisper.  
19    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  Scott, just on this one.  The example, 
20   the Coast Guard reg on carriage of ECS is not due out till 
21   January '07.  Maybe we should change that to the bill, the 
22   Congressional mandate.  Because there is no right, they're not 
23   required to even have a right promulgated till.....
24    MR. RAINEY:  Right.  That's no problem, we can get 
25   the.....
0168
 1    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  Okay.
 2    MR. RAINEY:  .....you know, proper citations and things.  
 3   That's just quick shorthand.
 4    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  Yep.
 5    MR. RAINEY:  The idea there is that there's what I would 
 6   call a hard requirement.....
 7    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  Yep, there definitely is.
 8    MR. RAINEY:  .....and we need to make that point I think, 
 9   that, you know, this isn't just a nice to do thing, there's a 
10   responsibility to try to deliver on.
11    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  Just so whoever's looking at it.....
12    MR. GRAY:  If you're getting into....
13    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  .....(indiscernible) looking for the 
14   Coast Guard reg they're.....
15    MR. GRAY:  I'm sorry to be (indiscernible), but, you know, 
16   if you're getting into these details about the ENC's or anything 
17   like that, just remember the IMO is working on ECDIS and that's 
18   where the requirements are eventually going to come from in 
19   another year or two.  And whatever NOAA or anybody else has done 
20   on ENC's up to that point is going to be obsolete by what IMO 
21   puts out on ECDIS.  So.....
22    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Well, really though.....
23    MR. GRAY:  .....that's the way I hear it.
24    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  It will.....
25    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
0169
 1   microphone).
 2    MR. RAINEY:  Yeah.
 3    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
 4   microphone).
 5    MR. RAINEY:  Yeah, they've got all the technical 
 6   requirements on carriage so now it's up to the nation's states 
 7   to implement -- you know, it will -- I think we'll be proper if 
 8   we cite the -- you know, the federal law for our purposes.  But 
 9   what you say though is exactly right, I mean IMO is genesis of a 
10   lot of this but there's a lot of coordination with the Coast 
11   Guard and all the -- to make that happen.
12    MR. SKINNER:  Any other thoughts on group one?  Okay.  
13   Moving onto group two.  We've got about an hour.  The break I 
14   think will -- it was scheduled for 3:00 o'clock, I think if 
15   people are all right, are okay, I don't know if you need a 
16   break, sort of working through.  Just help yourself to coffee 
17   and whatever is brought in, I think we'll get through it a lot 
18   faster.  
19    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
20   microphone).
21    MR. SKINNER:  Hey.  Anyone who doesn't like that has 
22   detention.  
23    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
24   microphone).
25    MR. SKINNER:  Bill, do you want to go through what your 
0170
 1   group came up with?
 2    MR. GRAY:  Yes.
 3    MR. SKINNER:  Thank you.
 4    MR. GRAY:  My group was me and Andy I guess, maybe one or 
 5   two others.  And all we -- the theme is let's get rid of 
 6   obstructions that cause damaging groundings.  The incidents that 
 7   we came up with, there is a thing called the 1992 Hen report.  
 8   Gene (ph) Hen was a Coast Guard admiral that did the 
 9   investigation of the grounding of a ship called BT Nautilus and 
10   it was out of the Kilvin, called the Arthur Kilvin, the port of 
11   New York, New Jersey I think in 1992.  And in his report to the 
12   commandant on it there was some pretty pointed words about how 
13   bad the hydrography was in those areas and the fact that 
14   obstructions were known to exist in government maintained 
15   channels as well as along private berths and so forth.  I've got 
16   that report, the Hen report, somewhere and I'm going to send to 
17   Ann and to Scott the INTERTANKO Port and Terminal Safety Study 
18   in which we used that as one of the prime examples why the 
19   hydrography had to be better.
20    The next one that -- it's already been mentioned, is the 
21   QE-2, that was the grounding that took place in Vineyard Sound.  
22   We -- one of the things, excuse me, about it that I don't think 
23   we have to mention was that accident was not entirely caused by 
24   a chart that was bad, it was caused by the fact that the pilot 
25   and the navigating crew of the QE-2 despite being on board for 
0171
 1   about 24 hours didn't even talk to each other until they almost 
 2   hit the thing and then they had an argument and they hit it.
 3    MR. RAINEY:  Can I just ask a -- I'm sorry, one -- are we 
 4   capturing this?
 5    UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  (Indiscernible - away from 
 6   microphone).
 7    MR. RAINEY:  Yeah, we need to get this because at the end 
 8   of the day we want to have this.  I mean so I can come and type 
 9   it or -- I mean.....
10    UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:  (Indiscernible - away from 
11   microphone).
12    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  The QE-2.....
13    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Bill.....
14    MR. RAINEY:  I mean we need to have the.....
15    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Shouldn't be in this one.
16    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (indiscernible - away from 
17   microphone).
18    MR. RAINEY:  Yeah.
19    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Yeah.
20    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (indiscernible - away from 
21   microphone).
22    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Yeah.  No, this QE-2 shouldn't be in 
23   this one.
24    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
25   microphone).
0172
 1    MR. RAINEY:  All right.
 2    MR. GRAY:  All right.
 3    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Okay.
 4    MR. GRAY:  I don't care where it gets used, I'm just 
 5   getting incidents and it's -- the whole point is that all of 
 6   these things are doing to prevent accidents that cause 
 7   groundings that could cause pollution or damage or whatever.
 8    MR. SKINNER:  Bill, just if I can interrupt just for a 
 9   second.  What we're trying to do, and I know every group didn't 
10   do it in the same format because we didn't specify when we 
11   started.  But for the purposes of trying to get a completed 
12   outline I think if each person reporting can identify the major 
13   themes first and then go to the examples it'll be easier to have 
14   a -- sort of a consistent approach for each group.  And if 
15   that's not something that the other groups did it may be 
16   worthwhile to sort of spend a few minutes before we start 
17   recording thinking about what the themes are.  So I can -- I 
18   don't know if there's a -- Bill, if you want to spend a little 
19   bit more time or if you're ready to go with the themes.
20    MR. GRAY:  Well, I already said what it was.  Which is to 
21   find obstructions and whatever, impediments to safe navigation 
22   that vessels otherwise might encounter.
23    MR. SKINNER:  Okay.
24    MR. GRAY:  And that's why we want to do this.  And then we 
25   have incidents where obstructions have been found, some of them 
0173
 1   have been in federally maintained channels, some of them are 
 2   not.  And I've listed about 10 different ones that have occurred 
 3   in the last 10 or 12 years, three or four of these had to do 
 4   with boulders that have been found in the Long Island Sound, 
 5   Block Island Sound area, in Portland, Maine.  We heard that from 
 6   Captain Jeff Pierce earlier this morning, he said the same thing 
 7   happens out here in Cook Inlet.  Andrew told me that he heard 
 8   from Sam DeBow I guess that about 10 years ago or maybe five 
 9   years ago the -- NOAA was asked by the Department of Defense to 
10   do full bottom surveys in some of the more important federally 
11   maintained channels in the United States to find objects that 
12   might be terrorist inspired or otherwise dangerous to navigation 
13   and they found some examples of obstructions in those channels 
14   that they would not otherwise have found.  Sam DeBow is the guy 
15   that Ann and Scott can talk to on that.  We heard Doug tell us, 
16   again we've talked several times about it, that since the full 
17   bottom coverage and the multibeam have been available wrecks 
18   have been discovered at the rate of something like one or one 
19   and a half a day and other obstructions have been uncovered.  I 
20   think that just by talking with those people, Dave MacFarland, 
21   maybe Roger or whatever, right within NOAA we can get a good 
22   catalog of what are the -- some of the more interesting 
23   incidents were.  The most important example of course is the 
24   Athos I, which I've talked about since this happened because 
25   it's right there in a federally maintained channel by the Army 
0174
 1   Engineers, channel and anchorage, and they found these two large 
 2   objects that caused a spill that's cost $240 or $250 million so 
 3   far.  
 4    The one other instance of things that show up that can 
 5   cause groundings that I'm aware of, and I mentioned it and what 
 6   I'll hand over to Ann and Scott is in the lower Mississippi.  I 
 7   know in my Exxon years we had a very high percentage of our 
 8   groundings in the lower Mississippi each and every year but 
 9   almost never with any damage.  The lower Mississippi is a very 
10   interesting and kind of unique place I would probably say down 
11   by southwest pass because they dredge 24 hours a day, 365 days a 
12   year and they run new survey lines each day I think down there 
13   at southwest pass.  They've got in the area that deep sea ships 
14   can go up to Baton Rouge about 260 miles up the river, they have 
15   I think some 11 or 12 crossings that they also run surveys on 
16   every day or so and like that.  I put reference to the lower 
17   Mississippi here and so forth but I don't really think that's 
18   something I would suggest that NOAA tried to take over what Army 
19   Engineers are doing down there.  It's a situation that changes 
20   every day and the way the engineers do it and run those survey 
21   lines which are immediately made available to mariners and 
22   pilots, I think that's probably the right way to do it.
23    The other thing I put on the bottom of my paper goes back 
24   to something and Ann said a moment ago that she feels that the 
25   whole subject should be introduced by explaining what is the 
0175
 1   Marine Transportation System and why is it that people should be 
 2   interested in it.  And that was covered in the draft that we got 
 3   on page four and on page 21 and I disagree with most of the 
 4   numbers there.  I think the amounts of cargo moved, the volumes 
 5   and so forth, they don't coincide between page four and page 21 
 6   and I think all of them are low which makes me suspect they're 
 7   from old sources of information.  So I think that stuff should 
 8   very definitely be checked.  And I have mentioned two websites 
 9   on here that I think should be -- everybody should go and look 
10   at them and I want -- I mentioned one before, 
11   www.shippingfacts.com.  And that website is maintained by I 
12   think all the roundtable in Europe which is the International 
13   Chamber of Shipping, the INTERTANKO, Intercargo (ph) and BIMCO 
14   (ph) and between those four ship owner associations it covers 
15   pretty much the world of bulk shipping.  And they have all kinds 
16   of very good data on not only what the volume and value of cargo 
17   movements are but also on what the cost economies are that have 
18   been achieved.  In other words I mean how much it takes to ship 
19   a pair of shoes from Asia to Chicago or a bottle of whiskey or a 
20   car or whatever it may be, it's a very good source of 
21   information.  So www.shippingfacts.com, I think you should use 
22   it.
23    The other one that I would refer to is the world -- it's 
24   www.worldshippingcouncil.com.  That's an outfit run by Chris 
25   Koch in Washington, D.C. who is the spokesman really for pretty 
0176
 1   much the entire world container ship industry and he does a very 
 2   good job of looking out for the container ship people.  As a 
 3   matter of fact he's kind of the guy that went up to the Congress 
 4   when the due by ports fiasco was underway and all these crazy 
 5   bills were coming out from people like Mrs. Clinton and Schumer 
 6   and so forth saying that all containers have to be expected by 
 7   Americans before they can be put on board a U.S. ship and that 
 8   would certainly stop all container traffic absolutely dead in 
 9   its tracks.  But anyway, his website has excellent information 
10   on cargo flows, costs, all the rest of that for the container 
11   ship side of the industry.
12    And one other thing.  Ann, you had asked when I send off 
13   the Port and Terminal Safety Study which has the reference to 
14   the Hen report which was all about bum hydrography and objects 
15   in channels, I'll send some other things that I think may be 
16   relevant as sources of information on these subjects.  You've 
17   got there, Scott, that MTS report that we did in 2004, number 
18   279, and I thought it was kind of a crummy report and that's why 
19   I put a minority report in the thing and that makes some of 
20   these same points.  And also the point that what our country has 
21   done is disgraceful in the way it criminalizes the acts of 
22   seafarers and that type of thing.  I know that's not a NOAA 
23   issue but that's an issue that everybody ought to be aware of, 
24   that we've got people in this country treating seafarers in a 
25   despicable way.  Anyway, I'll give you a reference to that as 
0177
 1   well.
 2    MR. RAINEY:  Thanks, Bill.  Virginia, on -- let's start 
 3   another section on kind of global comments.  Because I mean 
 4   we're going to keep going through on the specific things but 
 5   Bill made some really great points, I think the last three 
 6   bullets, if we can put them in a -- sort of an overall or global 
 7   comment category that we can use and put them in the appropriate 
 8   sections there and then that'll help us maybe at the end of the 
 9   document because there'll be some -- and then that way.....
10    MR. GRAY:  It's world shipping -- oh, yeah, okay, world 
11   ship -- that's right.  Okay.
12    MR. RAINEY:  And Steve had a comment.
13    CAPTAIN BARNUM:  Yeah, I was going to -- a couple 
14   comments.  Certainly for the obstruct -- the homeland security 
15   surveys that were done for the baseline imagery for the 
16   potential mine hunters, I can address that.  I conducted 18 of 
17   those all the way from Norfolk to Brownsville to Tampa to -- 
18   even to the Virgin Islands.  So I can be a source of information 
19   for that, some of the objects that were found.  And another 
20   example that might be relevant is the Rebel which hit the 
21   submerged rig and sank, it created an oil spill down in the Gulf 
22   just this past winter after the storm, so might be another 
23   recent example.
24    MR. DASLER:  I don't know if it's appropriate in here at 
25   all to get into.  I know the Corps has been -- and DOD has been 
0178
 1   pushing now this munitions at sea and UXO and the large hazards.  
 2   I know we had -- some staff was working on a dredge just off of 
 3   Virginia Beach that the dredge hit ordinance and blew up a 
 4   dredge pipe.  But when -- just earlier, I think it was in a 
 5   couple of -- some of that information was passed around and -- I 
 6   mean, Steve, maybe you can -- I don't know if there's a place to 
 7   fit that in or not or what that -- it's a little bit out of the 
 8   realm but I know it's a concern that's being raised now.
 9    CAPTAIN BARNUM:  I know ordinance is certainly a concern.  
10   I know Hawaii there was an area that they were doing some 
11   surveys, trying to figure out where it is, there's -- off of 
12   Puerto Rico areas that -- where they're trying to identify 
13   coordinates.  These are areas that are also in habitat areas, 
14   not critical navigation but certainly approaches to Chesapeake 
15   Bay is, so.
16    MR. RAINEY:  So, Virginia, the last two as you're -- was 
17   the Rebel struck a submerged.....
18    MS. DENTLER:  (Indiscernible - away from microphone).
19    MR. RAINEY:  .....rig.  These would be under examples.  
20   And then let's say -- and then --it's just Rebel, right, R-E-B-
21   E-L.  Yeah.  
22    CAPTAIN BARNUM:  I be -- yeah, R-E-B-E-L.
23    MR. RAINEY:  Okay.  We think it's R-E-B-E-L.
24    CAPTAIN BARNUM:  It was a integrated tug barge unit.
25    MR. RAINEY:  And then the last thing maybe to add would be 
0179
 1   the issue of ordinance.  
 2    CAPTAIN ARMSTRONG:  If -- I guess I would encourage us to 
 3   keep this particular item strictly to federally maintained 
 4   channels.  I think that's where we started out on this.  Rather 
 5   than just things all over the place.
 6    MR. RAINEY:  You're right.  Yeah, so we can cut and paste 
 7   those in the other.  
 8    MS. DICKINSON:  As I recall there was a more recent 
 9   incident where a -- I think it was a pipe or a pier was found 
10   when they did a multibeam scan right in the middle of Baltimore 
11   Harbor.
12    CAPTAIN BARNUM:  That was post Isabelle surveys when we 
13   were doing the response surveys of the condition, make sure 
14   there's no objects that was discovered.  And it turned out it 
15   had been there for quite some time.  Scott also mentioned in 
16   Lake Union where they found a pile that was a danger to 
17   navigation that also went undetected.
18    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  So there's a lot of them.
19    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
20   microphone).
21    MR. RAINEY:  Yeah, we could put -- yeah.
22    DR. LAPINE:  You know, does anybody know what the 
23   magnitude of this undertaking is?  I would think it eclipses the 
24   critical area survey and I think it should be noted in the 
25   beginning here, you know -- and what's the impact when the U.S. 
0180
 1   Army Corps of Engineers reads this, isn't this their job?  And 
 2   now what we're saying is we're going to take over maybe a 
 3   billion dollar program from another agency.
 4    MR. RAINEY:  Well, you're exactly correct in that -- 
 5   except that I think that somebody, and this has been the thing 
 6   for me for years before I was on this panel, but somebody has to 
 7   stand up and say this is a major -- we all say we're about 
 8   safety but -- and we are, but somebody's got to point this out 
 9   and somebody has got to start to figure out how do we resolve 
10   the fact that this is going on.  I mean we've -- we just can't 
11   have the Athos I just keep happening.  We've got to find a way 
12   to deal with it.  So I don't think we're necessarily saying 
13   we're going to -- I don't think we're -- I mean we're pushing it 
14   by mentioning it I guess but I mean somebody's got to make this 
15   statement and then.....
16    DR. LAPINE:  I would suggest that we -- somebody check 
17   with the Army Corps of Engineers and see if they don't have some 
18   cost benefit studies that they've done.  You know, sure, half a 
19   dozen incidences have been labeled here for 500,000 transits of 
20   those channels.  You know, you're going to start up a billion 
21   dollar program.....
22    MR. RAINEY:  Well, I think that.....
23    DR. LAPINE:  .....to find -- to prevent three pilings from 
24   being struck.
25    MR. RAINEY:  I don't think it's irresponsible for us to 
0181
 1   suggest that this is an issue because we can cite things, the 
 2   Athos happened, the -- you know, John did a lot of work on the 
 3   High King, the -- you know, the Corps surveyed that multiple 
 4   times and then the vessel finally found it, they just went right 
 5   by it.  I mean I think it's an issue and I think it's one that's 
 6   within our -- I don't know, I'd like us to -- you know, to 
 7   mention it and then how it sorts its way out.  The issues you're 
 8   talking about would be what would be then the -- you know, the 
 9   subsequent debate at the CMTS level and, you know, among the 
10   different agencies and the legislative authorities.  But I think 
11   we're completely right to at least point this out, that this is 
12   something that needs to be looked at given, you know, recent 
13   incidents.  Andrew.
14    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  I agree and I guess the real success of 
15   this is, you know, just because there hasn't been an accident 
16   doesn't mean it's safe.  And if you hear the stories of what -- 
17   that Steve could relate which hopefully will come out in this, 
18   what they found during these homeland security surveys, it was 
19   absolutely amazing.  And it was just -- it's just plain luck 
20   that we haven't had more of these, right, Steve?
21    CAPTAIN BARNUM:  More surveys or more (indiscernible)?
22    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  No, the -- yeah.  But -- and, you know, 
23   the other thing maybe that's missing in this, Bill, is -- an 
24   example would be the fact that under OPA '90 the masters are now 
25   required to know their under keel clearance at all times.  
0182
 1    MR. GRAY:  That's true.
 2    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  And obviously they don't, you know.  So 
 3   you've got this requirement in there but you're not giving them 
 4   the tools to fulfill that requirement.  And it's just -- I just 
 5   think that this is something that -- you know, it does have to 
 6   happen.  I mean.....
 7    MR. GRAY:  If you -- Andy, if you go back and you read the 
 8   Hen report in 1992 it made the point that in federally 
 9   maintained channels and in the areas between federally 
10   maintained channels and private berths there were lots of pieces 
11   of different information and most of them were inaccurate.
12    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  I mean (indiscernible), yeah.
13    MR. GRAY:  And for the -- and back to what Lou's point is, 
14   what's the Army engineers going to think?  What they ought to 
15   think is that they -- either learn how to do the job right and 
16   keep doing it and find objects by making surveys periodically or 
17   let somebody who knows how to do it do the job.
18    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  Well, I was just going to say that.  I 
19   mean the other option to this is that instead of NOAA doing 
20   these multibeam surveys is that the Corps does it because they 
21   don't do multibeam surveys, they'll tell you that.  We don't do 
22   that, we do single beam, we do them 50 yards apart.  You know, 
23   and they used to do wire drags at least in the Port of New York 
24   and they stopped doing those until.....
25    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  The Corps of Engineers.....
0183
 1    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  .....a (indiscernible) ship had the 
 2   bottom thrown out of it after a dredging project and, you know, 
 3   found out that there was a boulder they missed.
 4    MR. WHITING:  Andy.  The Corps of Engineers does multibeam 
 5   surveys when they deem it necessary.  It's getting that 
 6   education into the Corps of Engineers to deem it necessary a 
 7   little more often and that's what we have.
 8    MR. DASLER:  And I think one of the bigger problems, not 
 9   all Districts are created equal.  Some are really on the cutting 
10   edge and are doing it, some are still back in the single beam 
11   era.  And I think the -- to address Lou's concern, I mean this  
12   -- NOAA charts these areas, it's still NOAA's responsibility 
13   when something grounds, I mean they're the ones that are called 
14   to the table.  And -- so I don't think we're stepping out of 
15   bounds that we're getting into federal channels, I think we're 
16   just highlighting some concerns and some incidents that have 
17   happened and it needs to be addressed somehow.  Either the Corps 
18   needs to get in there and start doing obstruction surveys or 
19   somebody needs to pick up that gap.
20    MR. SKINNER:  Can I jump in just for a second?
21    DR. LAPINE:  I'll rest my case, but I think we ought to at 
22   least show what the magnitude of this project is, somewhere in 
23   the -- in a bullet or something that the reader understands that 
24   this is a major undertaking.  And a major cost.
25    MS. DASLER:  Wouldn't -- I mean some of it is happening, 
0184
 1   it's just not happening all over.  I don't think it's that 
 2   major.  The Corps does surveys and some of them -- some of the 
 3   areas now they're still doing single beam.  It's just upgrading 
 4   some of that technology, getting some of that information put 
 5   in, if they're going to take that on.  If they're not and the 
 6   Districts don't want to take that on then at least they should 
 7   say, hey, NOAA, you need to -- I mean we're not -- we're just 
 8   looking at dredging, we're just doing single beam, somebody 
 9   needs to come in here and address this issue.
10    MR. SKINNER:  I think we need to somehow come to some 
11   conclusion that either we can wrap this up or it needs more work 
12   and move onto the next one.  I'm concerned that the energy level 
13   will rapidly fall off and I don't want to shortchange groups 
14   four and five, three, four or five.  So I guess I need some help 
15   in terms of are there some major issues that we still need to 
16   somehow hash through or is there a way to resolve things here?
17    MR. RAINEY:  I think that's good, that's.....
18    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
19   microphone).
20    MR. SKINNER:  This is not necessarily a major theme, it 
21   was just I heard it and it had to go somewhere, so.
22    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  I think it's a.....
23    MR. SKINNER:  Cannot always meet?  Okay.  Anything else on 
24   the second group?  Okay.  Number three.  I think this is Adam.
25    MR. MCBRIDE:  Most of the material that was drafted in the 
0185
 1   initial draft was pretty much on point and there wasn't really a 
 2   great deal to add to that.  I was concerned about the statement 
 3   that NOAA needed to assess its NRT capabilities and then the 
 4   next item was the conclusion that they needed to expand it and I 
 5   think you -- you don't come to that conclusion until you've done 
 6   the assessment or if you've made that conclusion I hope you've 
 7   done the assessment.  So I would eliminate the assessment 
 8   because I'm pretty clear in my own mind in talking to the NOAA 
 9   folks that they've assessed their five or six NRT's and 
10   determined that it's not adequate.  Beyond that I didn't have a 
11   great deal to add to what was already drafted, I thought it was 
12   very much in keeping with what we wanted to do.  So that really 
13   -- and that's just an editorial observation that -- coming out 
14   of the paperwork which I believe I gave back to Ann.
15    MR. SKINNER:  Anything else?
16    MR. MCBRIDE:  No.
17    MR. SKINNER:  Anyone want to add?
18    MR. RAINEY:  Just a question maybe, Adam.  Do you have 
19   some photos?  I mean having gone through that and the 
20   presentation you gave us and your staff gave us in Houston, I 
21   mean I'm just wondering to make that real I mean would you have 
22   or know of some things for -- as far as maybe photographs we 
23   could use to show that?  We can maybe pull from your 
24   presentation or the other -- we got a couple of maybe good sand 
25   bites from the API presentation I thought in Houston as well to 
0186
 1   really drive home how critical was -- we heard a number of times 
 2   that if we're not back up and running within 48 hours, you know, 
 3   a whole train of consequences.  Could you help us or.....
 4    MR. MCBRIDE:  Yeah, no, I'd be happy to go back over ours.  
 5   I think as well though that somebody like Tim Osborne who was 
 6   actively involved.....
 7    MR. RAINEY:  Okay.
 8    MR. MCBRIDE:  .....in a raft of these last year might have 
 9   some.....
10    MR. RAINEY:  Right, okay.
11    MR. MCBRIDE:  .....some better photographs.
12    MR. RAINEY:  Okay.  That'd be great (indiscernible).
13    MR. MCBRIDE:  Because -- yeah, I mean he was -- he and his 
14   teams were in the water and -- with his teams.
15    MR. RAINEY:  Right, okay.  Maybe -- Elaine.
16    MS. DICKINSON:  It might be worth putting in the text 
17   somewhere that we're entering a -- or we're in a more active 
18   hurricane period that is expected to last at least -- or about 
19   another 10 years, perhaps longer.  
20    MR. MCBRIDE:  I think the -- actually Tom, there was one 
21   other theme that I had that I wanted to mention was that NOAA's 
22   work, whether in emergency response or in some of these other 
23   incidents that arise is largely coordinated with other agencies, 
24   Corps of Engineers, DOD, et cetera.  And I think that NOAA at 
25   least in the hurricane season last year did a great job in that 
0187
 1   coordination work.  And I've made the observation before that 
 2   the water side recovery and -- after hurricanes Katrina and Rita 
 3   was fabulous, the land side was a disaster.  So I'm not sure 
 4   that that needs to be particularly developed but I would like to 
 5   highlight in the notes that this is an interagency activity 
 6   which has worked well.  And not to focus completely and utterly 
 7   on hurricanes because there are a whole raft or a variety of 
 8   other events, tsunamis, earthquakes, just other events to which 
 9   NOAA brings NRT or emergency response expertise.  So I don't 
10   want anybody on the west coast, for example, to think that we've 
11   forgotten them.
12    MR. RAINEY:  Right.  I -- and I think that's a really good 
13   point that -- in Houston we talked about it and I -- in the 
14   draft -- I can't remember whether I had it in there or not, but 
15   NOAA has developed an all hazards incident response plan and 
16   maybe that's a way to get at that.  Because I think that's a 
17   really good point, it's not just hurricanes, it's manmade, 
18   natural and, you know, really all hazard response and recovery.
19    MR. SKINNER:  Is that it?  We've -- and we've got 
20   examples?  Okay.  Great.  Group three, going, going, gone.
21    CAPTAIN MYRTIDIS:  Well, just -- I'm sorry, just a 
22   question.  How this last bullet is integrated with the most 
23   wanted.  I mean, okay, they did a great job which is great but 
24   what this has to do with what we're trying to present.
25    MR. SKINNER:  I'm using the major themes and this is 
0188
 1   probably in -- may not be correct.  It's sort of just a 
 2   placeholder for comments and then I think that -- I mean I can 
 3   go through and just.....
 4    CAPTAIN MYRTIDIS:  Okay.
 5    MR. SKINNER:  .....erase that.
 6    MR. MCBRIDE:  Let me just add.  As Minas has pointed out 
 7   and as I said, that.....
 8    MR. SKINNER:  Examples?
 9    MR. MCBRIDE:  .....I didn't think that was a major theme 
10   so much as an item to be -- and because it went so well, but 
11   that in the context of NOAA's emergency response it isn't 
12   interagency ordinarily activity which they already do quite 
13   well.  And maybe that's extraneous to the major theme that we're 
14   trying to push anyhow.
15    CAPTAIN ARMSTRONG:  Well, if -- you know, if -- we have to 
16   be careful with something like this because if we're going to 
17   say they did a really excellent job then what's the problem?  
18    MR. MCBRIDE:  Well, the problem is capacity.  
19    CAPTAIN ARMSTRONG:  Right.
20    MR. MCBRIDE:  Yeah.
21    MR. DASLER:  Is this an appropriate spot to mention the 
22   supplemental funding and the work that's being done this fall 
23   and winter down there also?
24    MR. MCBRIDE:  Well, again, I think you're trying to 
25   highlight the things that need action, not the successes that 
0189
 1   have happened in the past.  Unless you're going to point out 
 2   that it's a drop in the bucket or, you know, it's a good start 
 3   but there's still serious problems or something.
 4    MR. DASLER:  I mean it is a little bit of drop.  Other 
 5   than I guess they've designated 1,200 square nautical miles to 
 6   be done and only about half of that is going to be -- and there 
 7   was only funding to do half of that this year, so I don't know.
 8    MR. SKINNER:  I've just put a notation here, it's under 
 9   examples under number three.  And maybe what we do is possible 
10   high -- possibly highlight it as a future need that NOAA seems 
11   well positioned to take on this responsibility and it's -- it is 
12   something that we should look at moving forward.
13    MR. MCBRIDE:  Yeah, in the hurricane Rita example, as we 
14   mentioned during our presentation there was an NRT -- a single 
15   NRT response vessel which went first to Houston and then tried 
16   to get down to Port Art Beaumont and then came over to us third.  
17   In the meantime we were trying to -- contracting facilities.  So 
18   I think the interagency cooperation was working, the capability 
19   of getting the work done instantaneously, which is what every 
20   port director wants, was not there.
21    MR. ZILKOSKI:  Well, I think you hit it right there, and 
22   you said it before.  It's the capacity that you have in that.  
23   And your whole idea there is you're trying to increase the 
24   number of them.  So you can highlight the successes that you had 
25   in the Gulf but there was also some -- not failings, but not as 
0190
 1   quick response because you didn't -- you got a person doing too 
 2   much area so you got to decrease the area, increase the number 
 3   of people.  So you highlight the successes and this could have 
 4   been better it we would have had more people on the ground, and 
 5   that's what you use it for.
 6    (Pause)
 7    MR. SKINNER:  Any other thoughts?  Number three.  Going 
 8   onto four, expand and fund real time tide, current and -- wait a 
 9   minute.
10    CAPTAIN HICKMAN:  You changed that to modeling.
11    MR. SKINNER:  Right.  
12    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
13   microphone).
14    MR. SKINNER:  What's that?
15    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
16   microphone).
17    MR. SKINNER:  All right.  You know what I mean.
18    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  You know.
19    MR. SKINNER:  Who had this one, was it Sherri, is 
20   this.....
21    CAPTAIN HICKMAN:  Yeah.
22    MR. SKINNER:  Okay.
23    CAPTAIN HICKMAN:  Yeah.  I guess for your major themes, 
24   accurate, timely and reliable real time hydrographic info.  The 
25   next one would be identify water level.  And the next one, 
0191
 1   identify speed of current.  
 2    MR. SKINNER:  Speed of current.
 3    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  You mean direction?
 4    CAPTAIN HICKMAN:  No, the next one's..... 
 5    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
 6   microphone).
 7    CAPTAIN HICKMAN:  .....the next one's direction, identify 
 8   direction of current.  And modeling of nowcast forecast and 
 9   Vdatum.  
10    MR. SKINNER:  Of nav?
11    UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:  Now.
12    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Nowcast (indiscernible).
13    CAPTAIN HICKMAN:  Nowcast.
14    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
15   microphone).
16    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Nowcast forecast.
17    MR. SKINNER:  Nowcast forecast.
18    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Dave, instead of saying modeling.....
19    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
20   microphone).
21    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Speak to me anyways.
22    CAPTAIN HICKMAN:  And Vdatum.  Stop, stop typing.  Get 
23   your hands away from the computer.  
24    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
25   microphone).
0192
 1    CAPTAIN HICKMAN:  Yeah, go to modeling such as.  Delete, 
 2   delete.
 3    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
 4   microphone).
 5    CAPTAIN HICKMAN:  Okay.  And then.....
 6    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
 7   microphone).
 8    CAPTAIN HICKMAN:  That's what we were saying and then 
 9   there's a lot that we've highlighted for Ann within the current 
10   draft.
11    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
12   microphone).
13    CAPTAIN HICKMAN:  That's it for the themes that we.....
14    MR. SKINNER:  Okay.
15    CAPTAIN HICKMAN:  Now -- I've highlighted a bunch of the 
16   stuff that was in the original draft of our handout to be used.  
17   And the example, one of the best examples would be the Potomac 
18   Trader.  And I guess -- Andrew, you want to just give them a 
19   little recap of that, of how much -- there's just more than the 
20   fact that this one went aground because of -- it was a parameter 
21   of different problems.
22    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  (Indiscernible) New York there's a, you 
23   know, meteorological conditional effect on obviously the water 
24   level fairly greatly and the Potomac Trader went up the East 
25   River, they had a northeast wind -- we had an easterly wind of 
0193
 1   about 40 knots that's going around in about an (indiscernible) 
 2   to northwest about 40 knots.  And the tides were supposed to -- 
 3   this is all we found out later and (indiscernible) has all this 
 4   info as to why.  We had a normal five foot rise and a ten foot 
 5   rise on one high tide.  The ship was 35 (indiscernible), it's a 
 6   35 foot channel, (indiscernible) high water.  So basically, you 
 7   know, looking at planning, it was planned perfectly, 
 8   (indiscernible).  The problem was when this wind shifted from 
 9   east to northwest we went from a 10 foot rise of tidewater to a 
10   minus one foot rise of tidewater, 11 foot (indiscernible) we 
11   lost.  The ship went up on the high (indiscernible) but there 
12   wasn't any high water, it was -- you know, it -- and so it ran 
13   aground and of course bottomed out.  Luckily for us it was one 
14   of the first double hull tankers and there was no spill but 
15   major, major damage.  So -- and the subsequent investigation, 
16   then we were able to access the tide gauge at -- this was right 
17   before PORTS so we were able to access the tide gauge and the 
18   battery and get all this information and he -- Mike's got the, 
19   you know.....
20    CAPTAIN HICKMAN:  Yeah, Mike's got that all in graph form 
21   so that would be a really good visual.
22    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  Yeah.  So that for me is a good example 
23   (indiscernible).
24    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
25   microphone).
0194
 1    MR. SZABADOS:  Another example (indiscernible - away from 
 2   microphone).
 3    CAPTAIN HICKMAN:  And we've highlighted that in the 
 4   critical connections, yeah, for Ann.  
 5    MR. SZABADOS:  Okay.
 6    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
 7   microphone).
 8    MR. SKINNER:  What's that?
 9    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
10   microphone).
11    MR. SKINNER:  Okay.  Anything else?  Group four.  Others.
12    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  You guys want anything about the Vdatum 
13   (indiscernible)?  I don't know really what the.....
14    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
15   microphone).
16    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  Yeah.
17    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
18   microphone).
19    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  Okay.
20    MR. SKINNER:  Group -- moving onto group five.  Elaine, is 
21   that you?
22    MS. DICKINSON:  That would be me.  Last but not least.  I 
23   had a meeting with myself.  Steve came over and helped me a 
24   little bit.  This one, fully disseminate hydrographic data and 
25   develop additional products to support other navigational and 
0195
 1   non-navigational uses.  I think -- then there's four bullets, so 
 2   -- and some of them are very different so do you want to do them 
 3   bullet by bullet? 
 4    MR. SKINNER:  Sure, yeah.
 5    MS. DICKINSON:  Okay.  The first one is provide education 
 6   and information to recreational boaters.  And off the top of my 
 7   head there's two major themes there.  One is that the most 
 8   claims that are -- that occur on recreational boats for 
 9   insurance companies is hitting a submerged object.  And at one 
10   time I had a dollar cost of those losses, it was in the tens of 
11   millions.  I can flush that out.  The other theme is that the 
12   consumer market for marine electronics, particularly what we 
13   call GPS chart plotters, is pretty much exploding.
14    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
15   microphone).
16    MS. DICKINSON:  People are buying these things, using them 
17   on their boats.
18    MR. RAINEY:  It's a tough crowd.
19    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
20   microphone).
21    MS. DICKINSON:  Loggers.
22    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
23   microphone).
24    MS. DICKINSON:  Not bloggers.  They have perhaps a false 
25   sense of security that -- just like the cartoon we saw 
0196
 1   yesterday, that just because they have the latest marine 
 2   electronics, they're only as good as the data being entered into 
 3   them on a card and they may think they know exactly where they 
 4   are but we would like the -- all of the baseline data to be 
 5   updated and improved.
 6    MR. GRAY:  (Indiscernible) to say they know where they are 
 7   but they don't know what's in front of them.  Because the data 
 8   that's on the electronic chart (indiscernible) just the same as 
 9   it is for anything other than that.
10    MS. DICKINSON:  Exactly.  But people think because.....
11    MR. GRAY:  (Indiscernible - away from microphone).
12    MS. DICKINSON:  .....they have -- yeah, they know where 
13   they are but they think because they have the latest Garmond GPS 
14   that it's very, very -- that the chart information is absolutely 
15   positively accurate and up to date and it might have come from 
16   1942.  
17    MR. GRAY:  (Indiscernible - away from microphone).
18    MS. DICKINSON:  So you're putting horseshoes on, you know, 
19   modern products.
20    MR. GRAY:  Yeah.  It's just like on page seven of this 
21   (indiscernible), it says (indiscernible) with much -- have much 
22   greater accuracy.  They don't have anymore accuracy 
23   (indiscernible).
24    MS. DICKINSON:  Well, the GPS gives you some pretty good 
25   accuracy.
0197
 1    MR. GRAY:  For where you are.
 2    MS. DICKINSON:  Right.
 3    CAPTAIN HICKMAN:  Bill, I think the point.....
 4    MR. GRAY:  (Indiscernible) doesn't tell you what's under 
 5   the water.
 6    CAPTAIN HICKMAN:  The point you're missing though is this 
 7   is to educate the recreational boater with the equipment.  This 
 8   is an education (indiscernible).
 9    MS. DICKINSON:  Well, yeah, this is to support why it's 
10   important to provide all these things to improve products and 
11   services to the boating public.  Because they're using all of 
12   these chart plotters.  So the better the charts the better it is 
13   for everybody.
14    MR. GRAY:  (Indiscernible) because they're got it on 
15   screen it's more accurate (indiscernible).
16    MS. DICKINSON:  Right.
17    CAPTAIN HICKMAN:  So they have to be educated that it's 
18   not.
19    MS. DICKINSON:  The other item we can mention there is 
20   also the -- that NOAA's been producing some nice products, we 
21   don't want to see them disappear, such as the small -- what do 
22   you call it?
23    MR. GRAY:  (Indiscernible - away from microphone).
24    MS. DICKINSON:  Small.....
25    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
0198
 1   microphone).
 2    MS. DICKINSON:  Well, the pocket charts, chart downloads 
 3   and then the small -- what's the word.  Small craft charts.  
 4   They're -- we don't want them to go away is the point here.  
 5   Because of budget constraints.
 6    CAPTAIN HICKMAN:  Help me out here.  The small craft -- 
 7   yeah, isn't that what they're called?
 8    MS. DICKINSON:  Yeah, and there's also booklet charts, 
 9   it's a new product that's very handy and downloadable.  The next 
10   bullet was provide baseline and real time information for 
11   emergency response.
12    MR. SKINNER:  (Indiscernible - away from microphone).
13    MS. DICKINSON:  I'm going to the next bullet.  
14    MR. SKINNER:  Okay.
15    MR. SZABADOS:  I might have an example for that.
16    MS. DICKINSON:  Yeah, we could use an example.  This would 
17   be something other than what the NRT's are doing.  This would be 
18   other emergency responders who could really benefit from using 
19   NOAA data that's already there like -- I think what Adam was 
20   mentioning about the Calcasieu oil spill.
21    MR. SZABADOS:  Another one is that Lakes Charles Emergency 
22   Center has a display of the real time water levels and they also 
23   have a GPS survey which Dave did and they have their evacuation 
24   route tied to the tide gauge so as the water rises they know 
25   when that road floods.  Previous to that they used to have the 
0199
 1   sheriff go out there with a two by four banging in the walkie 
 2   talkie and tell when the road was closed.  And actually during 
 3   Katrina they actually implemented that so there's a good story 
 4   there.  And we have pictures and data, we can give some 
 5   examples.
 6    MS. DICKINSON:  Okay.  I think we need to catch up with 
 7   the typist.  
 8    MR. SKINNER:  Get all that?  I'm sorry.
 9    MS. DICKINSON:  Did you get all that?  Emergency 
10   responders.  Mike has an example of using it for evacuation 
11   routes.
12    MR. SKINNER:  Okay.  So this is more an example?
13    MR. SZABADOS:  Example, yes.
14    MR. ZILKOSKI:  And I think that's part of what's important 
15   here is linking the water to the land.  I mean the water levels 
16   are measured, that you know the water's coming and you're going 
17   to get flooded.  And so the -- linking that to the digital 
18   elevation models for the evacuation routes.  So that tells the 
19   emergency managers when they have to have people evacuate and 
20   also if there's flooding going on where they potentially can go 
21   and not go because they're under water.  So it's that linking 
22   part I think and that's the theme part of it if you will.  Okay.
23    MS. DICKINSON:  Yeah, I don't know if you need another 
24   example.  We could probably come up with one.
25    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  Elaine, I think another one would be -- 
0200
 1   I'm sure Mike's got about 1,000 of these probably, but an oil 
 2   spill response when -- especially in a port with -- let's say 
 3   with a port system where they would give the on scene responders 
 4   all the trajectories for the -- you know, the spill and 
 5   everything like that.  And that actually ties right back into 
 6   Adam's of what went wrong, right, when you didn't have that 
 7   information.  So it could be maybe your -- an example would be 
 8   the response of yours versus the response of a port that had 
 9   these systems in place and how much better one went than the 
10   other may be really a good example, you know, good versus bad.
11    MR. SZABADOS:  Going to Houston, Galveston, we have a port 
12   system there and it's been used for placing oil booms.  So we 
13   can get an example for that.
14    MR. ZILKOSKI:  If you'd add under examples the Gulf Coast 
15   height modernization examples.  Just put that bullet and I will 
16   get you lots of different one pagers that you can extract what 
17   you want out of there for examples.
18    MR. DASLER:  Other examples are the -- what we talked 
19   about the other day, the Coastal Services Center and how they -- 
20   you know, I guess to address the resilience of the coastal 
21   communities and the -- again, the map once, use many times and 
22   the examples of that in that Coastal Services Center brochure 
23   that uses all the different kinds of data and how they can be 
24   used for coastal managers.  There's -- I think Mike sent an e-
25   mail that there -- it's also a link to the Coastal Services 
0201
 1   Center.
 2    MS. DICKINSON:  For the -- the third bullet is support 
 3   marine habitat protection.  I think there is some stuff already 
 4   in the draft that we got that speaks to that.  The only other 
 5   thing we could use as examples, some of the folks that were on 
 6   our Alaska panel talked quite a lot about fisheries management 
 7   and that how much they relied on the NOAA data to help with 
 8   fisheries.  
 9    MS. BOESE:  I did get her card and I did take some quotes 
10   and I'll check them against the transcript.
11    MS. DICKINSON:  Okay.  And the last bullet, support 
12   resilient coastal communities.  That might pertain to shoreline 
13   erosion, communities using NOAA data for, you know, managing 
14   land use projects, beach replenishment.  I'm not the expert on 
15   that one, so.
16    CAPTAIN ARMSTRONG:  Well, the sediment, the offshore 
17   sediment maps that we mentioned today would be a -- an ideal 
18   (indiscernible).
19    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
20   microphone).
21    CAPTAIN ARMSTRONG:  Sand and gravel from offshore is 
22   probably the biggest mineral extraction activity in the U.S.
23    MR. SKINNER:  This was also mentioned, but it's used by 
24   managers of aquaculture leasing and so forth.  
25    MS. DICKINSON:  Aquaculture?
0202
 1    MR. SKINNER:  Using this information as a way to figure 
 2   out where to license aquaculture facilities was mentioned today 
 3   and I know that's one of the things that coastal managers use it 
 4   for.
 5    MS. DICKINSON:  Okay.  The draft that we got, I think we 
 6   can just reformat pretty much most of the stuff that was on page 
 7   10, 11, 12 and 13.  Because those sections were already 
 8   supporting resilient coastal communities and informing and 
 9   expanding user group outreach and education efforts.  So a lot 
10   of that is good stuff that's already written.  There's two boxes 
11   that were included that I'm not sure belong there anymore and 
12   that was -- there was a box on IOOS in that section and I really 
13   don't know if that belongs here or somewhere else.
14    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Yours can't be bigger than number one 
15   though.
16    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Tom, can you cover wetland 
17   restoration?  Is that.....
18    MR. SKINNER:  I'm (indiscernible) examples.....
19    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Yeah.  Okay.
20    MR. SKINNER:  .....with the theme, so -- but let me -- 
21   I'll try and clean this up.
22    MS. DICKINSON:  I came up with a couple -- on the 
23   education and outreach end of things I just sketched out like 
24   two recommendations.  One was having to do with training of 
25   future survey professionals.  That there is a lack of -- that 
0203
 1   there should be an investment in higher education training, the 
 2   next generation of survey professionals that have the adequate 
 3   skills to meet future capacity.  Or future needs, something like 
 4   that.
 5    MR. DASLER:  I think we should replace survey professional 
 6   with hydrographer.
 7    MS. DICKINSON:  No.  We had a discussion on that.
 8    MR. SKINNER:  Was there a second recommendation?
 9    MS. DICKINSON:  Oh, yeah.  Sorry.  The other was re -- I 
10   don't know, for a better word, repackaging and publicizing 
11   existing NOAA data to serve a broader range of applications.
12    MR. SKINNER:  Repackaging and?
13    MS. DICKINSON:  Publicizing.
14    MR. SKINNER:  Publicizing.
15    CAPTAIN ARMSTRONG:  Yeah, I think I prefer.....
16    MS. DICKINSON:  The existing.....
17    CAPTAIN ARMSTRONG:  .....you know, hydrographic and ocean 
18   mapping over survey because.....
19    MS. DICKINSON:  That's right, ocean mapping was a 
20   good.....
21    CAPTAIN ARMSTRONG:  Yeah.
22    MS. DICKINSON:  .....phrase for the previous one.
23    CAPTAIN ARMSTRONG:  People might jump to the land survey 
24   conclusion.  I think there's plenty of that training.
25    MS. DICKINSON:  Survey data to serve a broader range of 
0204
 1   applications.  And that's as far as I got.
 2    CAPTAIN ARMSTRONG:  Tom, that was -- in that first bullet 
 3   under recommendations, changing survey professionals to 
 4   hydrographic and ocean mapping.
 5    MR. SKINNER:  Training future.....
 6    UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:  You want it on that line or the 
 7   second line?
 8    CAPTAIN ARMSTRONG:  Either one.
 9    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible).  Because there's a 
10   lot of land survey training, I think that's where we're -- we 
11   were just trying to differentiate that.
12    UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:  This is for NOAA, (indiscernible).
13    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  When -- well, but it's going.....
14    CAPTAIN BARNUM:  When Elaine and I were talking we were 
15   trying to capture, you know, the geodesy and the oceanography 
16   professionals that go into the compliment -- you know, the 
17   hydrographers.
18    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  I guess -- I think we -- you know, 
19   maybe there's not the problem in training land surveyors in -- 
20   as there is in hydrographic surveyors.  That's all I was 
21   thinking.
22    MR. SKINNER:  We don't actually have to -- our recommen -- 
23   sorry.  Our recommendations are the main bullets.  So, Elaine, I 
24   think maybe this could still fit under the themes section if 
25   that's what we want to focus on.  
0205
 1    MS. DICKINSON:  Okay.  I was.....
 2    MR. SKINNER:  I mean the themes generally are.....
 3    MS. DICKINSON:  .....what I was doing was following the 
 4   draft that had actual recommendations in little boxes.  
 5    MR. SKINNER:  Oh, okay.  I guess it did.
 6    MS. DICKINSON:  So I guess that all changed.  That's okay.
 7    MS. BOESE:  Those recommendations actually came from 
 8   (indiscernible).  But that's a good question.  If there's going 
 9   to be just the five most wanted do you still want to go through 
10   and have all those other recommendations?
11    MR. SKINNER:  I'd prefer to have it just as part of the 
12   discussion.  Because all of these -- I mean if you look back on 
13   these they're all sort of things that we -- they're describing 
14   what we think is important so I think our -- could easily be 
15   rephrased as recommendations as well.  But what we want to do is 
16   sort of get at the larger issue and use these as illustrative I 
17   think.  Have -- how's everyone's energy level?  
18    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Low.
19    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
20   microphone).
21    MR. SKINNER:  Do you want to just see if we can clean this 
22   up a little bit and print it out and -- so that everyone can 
23   take a look at it?  And in the meantime people can get up and 
24   stretch and walk around, grab a cup of coffee.  Does that make 
25   sense?  
0206
 1    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Sounds good to me.
 2    MR. SKINNER:  All right.  Thanks very much to the groups.
 3    (Off record at 3:23 p.m.)
 4    (On record at 3:56 p.m.)
 5    MR. RAINEY:  I was going to -- we've just passed out two 
 6   documents, just -- if you can have them in front of you.  The 
 7   skeletal outline of the sections and then we have a public 
 8   comment that we want to get to in time.  And then we'll be able 
 9   to wrap it up.
10    (Pause - background conversations)
11    MR. SKINNER:  Again, I think we're looking for major 
12   changes, not so much word smithing, but if you have comments.  
13   Minas has already suggested that the QE-2 under number one was 
14   not really an appropriate example so we might want to think 
15   about moving that out of there.  Because it was not just a 
16   charting error, it was a -- I guess the finding was that it was 
17   significant seamanship error.  So that it might be better to use 
18   another one that is specifically.....
19    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
20   microphone).
21    MR. GRAY:  Real time what?
22    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
23   microphone).
24    MR. GRAY:  What's that?
25    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  It's a more precise GPS 
0207
 1   (indiscernible).
 2    THE REPORTER:  Put your mic on over there, Bill.
 3    MR. GRAY:  What's that?
 4    THE REPORTER:  Your mic on.
 5    UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:  Your microphone.
 6    MR. GRAY:  I'm just trying to find out what real time 
 7   kinematics is and I still don't understand but maybe I don't 
 8   need to know.
 9    UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:  The lights aren't on.
10    MR. GRAY:  You're right about that.  That's true when I 
11   use my computer too.  Real time kinematics.  We've got ping in 
12   here still.
13    MR. DASLER:  That should be kang, K-A-N-G.
14    MR. GRAY:  What?
15    MR. DASLER:  K-A-N-G, high -- were you talking about the 
16   ship?
17    MR. GRAY:  No, we just talked about.....
18    MR. DASLER:  Oh, ping.
19    MR. GRAY:  .....ping to chart.
20    MR. DASLER:  Oh, right.
21    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
22   microphone).
23    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Where is that?
24    MR. RAINEY:  In the first section, okay, the very first 
25   section was drafted -- I put that down contemporaneously as John 
0208
 1   was making his report.  So we can amend that with the panel's 
 2   concurrence to, you know, pick up the comments we just had in 
 3   the last round.  So, yes, the -- you see some of the original 
 4   language that we kind of agreed to change and I -- okay.  
 5    MR. SKINNER:  I also went back to try and update the 
 6   actual most wanted five and I think I got everything but we'll 
 7   double check that.  If you see anything mention it.  And under 
 8   five, the last one, because I don't know how to do sub-bullets, 
 9   the major themes are broken out under the four -- according to 
10   the four bullets on pages two and three.  
11    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
12   microphone).
13    MR. SKINNER:  Yes.
14    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Good.  (Indiscernible - away from 
15   microphone).
16    MR. SKINNER:  Just want to make sure everyone has the time 
17   to go through it.  But since we have a motion, when people are 
18   ready.  Anyone want to second the motion?
19    UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:  I will.
20    MR. SKINNER:  Been seconded.  I'm sorry, that's your job.
21    MR. RAINEY:  No, that's all right, you (indiscernible).
22    MR. SKINNER:  All in favor of using this document with the 
23   notations that we've discussed as the outline for the report 
24   signify by saying aye.
25    SIMULTANEOUS:  Aye.
0209
 1    MR. SKINNER:  Any opposed?  Abstentions.  Great.  Thank 
 2   you all very much.
 3    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
 4   microphone).
 5    MR. RAINEY:  Right.  Could I -- Ann, could you join us 
 6   here?  We talked about kind of the next steps and let me bring 
 7   Ann up and we'll just throw out -- because what we've got now is 
 8   we've approved the skeletal outline, we've reorganized it, we've 
 9   got our major themes.  We've go the raw data so to speak in a 
10   stack and the report out.  So Ann would like to put out a couple 
11   of target dates for folks that had some pictures that they 
12   identified and other -- like I'm going to get some citations and 
13   some things.  So can I just turn it to Ann as -- with some of 
14   these -- with the additional data that we need to collect fairly 
15   quickly and then we'll pull all that together and then get it 
16   back out to the panel and talk about that in a little bit.
17    MS. BOESE:  Well, if anybody has artwork that they'd like 
18   to submit.  I think the best thing to do would be to e-mail a 
19   high res JPEG format at 300 DPI to Barbara so that it goes 
20   through NOAA by next Friday.  And if anybody has any sudden 
21   thoughts or ideas or something that needs to be considered or 
22   should go into the text part I would like for them to e-mail it 
23   to Scott by next Wednesday which is August 23rd and next Friday 
24   is August 25.  I believe I have everybody's written packet, the 
25   work packet that everybody worked on with their section.  If 
0210
 1   there's anything else just drop it off to me.  And I did want to 
 2   say that I think that it was a very dynamic and useful process 
 3   to get the hands dirty in the copy and the guts and now we'll 
 4   have to sort the guts all out.  But thank you.
 5    CAPTAIN HICKMAN:  Good luck.
 6    MR. RAINEY:  I think -- what I propose is we do that and 
 7   we'll get the information all pulled together and then 
 8   basically, you know, follow up the outline that we have with the 
 9   information that we've all talked about and pull it together and 
10   then we can get it out to the panel once we have it together.  
11   This is jumping ahead a little bit into the new business but I 
12   think it's appropriate to talk about it now because it's sort of 
13   the next steps.  And the ultimate -- I talked with Jack here.  
14   Again, from our perspective having this, you know, delivered by 
15   the end of the calendar year would be the objective.  So there's 
16   likely that the thought process and talking with NOAA and just 
17   looking at the next meeting is that we would probably do this, 
18   as we've done before, after the New Hampshire meeting we'll pull 
19   this together and communicate through e-mail and or a conference 
20   call that we'd produce this document likely without having 
21   another physical meeting on it.  And then look to have our next 
22   meeting in the February timeframe which would be in conjunction 
23   or very close to the 200th birthday anniversary of the Coast 
24   Survey and if we'd have this document that we can, you know, 
25   have for that occasion and it would give us a real nice press 
0211
 1   release and an event that we could, you know, kind of start the 
 2   process with this product.  So that's right now the thinking.  
 3   So it's -- it'll be important to follow through.  I'll send out 
 4   an immediate e-mail to try to update Admiral West and Admiral 
 5   Larrabee as quickly and as thoroughly as I can.  I know they had 
 6   sent an e-mail saying that they were, you know, interested in 
 7   that and I want to try to get them as up to speed as I can and 
 8   we'll incorporate if they have some comments and get that down 
 9   to Ann as quickly as I can facilitate that.  I just wanted to 
10   thank everybody, this was a tremendous undertaking and a 
11   phenomenal accomplishment I think this meeting.  Are there any 
12   other specifics on that?  I think that's how we'll proceed.  
13   Just like to let you have the last word if there's another 
14   comment and then we'll turn -- we have a -- one public comment 
15   and -- so is there any other panel comments on that?  Want to 
16   thank.....
17    CAPTAIN HICKMAN:  Well, I thought I might wait.  But I 
18   just wanted to say that -- I know we've mentioned it but I think 
19   it deserves to be said again that we know you put a lot of time 
20   into the original critical connections that you brought here 
21   with you and -- and to your buddy sitting next to you, good 
22   luck.  
23    MS. RAINEY:  Well, thanks.  I think it's a huge -- I think 
24   we're going to all be proud of this, it's going to be a good 
25   document, good effort, and everybody's really contributed and I 
0212
 1   think that's been tremendous and really happy to have Tom on 
 2   board.  But -- well -- okay, well let's turn the floor over 
 3   then.  You have another document from Mr. Scott McClaine who's 
 4   joined us to make public comment, professional land survey under 
 5   State of Alaska and he'd like to address the panel.  So Mr. 
 6   McClaine.  Anywhere is fine.  If -- kind of -- there, that'd be 
 7   great.  Thanks.
 8    MR. MCCLAINE:  First of all I'd like to thank you for the 
 9   opportunity to make a few brief comments.  I'm Scott McClaine, 
10   I'm a professional land surveyor here in the state of Alaska and 
11   I represent a small business concern that's been providing 
12   support services on NOAA multiyear contracts since 2001.  I'd 
13   like to encourage you to -- encourage the participation of 
14   Alaska small businesses on NOAA projects.  I feel that our small 
15   business has -- it's been a team effort to gain a little bit of 
16   experience on NOAA projects to try to attain the ability to 
17   provide those services in a fully functional manner in a later 
18   timeframe once we gain the necessary experience.  So I'd 
19   encourage NOAA to continue with providing those opportunities 
20   for Alaska small businesses.  
21    Secondly, I'd like to encourage the participation of 
22   professional Alaskan surveyors on NOAA projects.  Recently the 
23   State of Alaska has adopted regulations that follow the NC's 
24   model law and one of those specifically require that Alaskan 
25   professional surveyors be responsible for acquiring hydrographic 
0213
 1   data within the jurisdictional boundaries of the state.
 2    And lastly I'd like to encourage NOAA to adopt a faster 
 3   method of data dissemination to the community.  As an end user 
 4   we all like to see the data put out to the public in the 
 5   quickest manner possible.  And those are my comments.  Thank 
 6   you.
 7    MR. WHITING:  Scott, I'd like to thank you for putting 
 8   that provision in the model law for the hydrographic survey and 
 9   in the Alaska Statute and stuff.  We talked about this, what, 10 
10   years ago?  
11    MR. MCCLAINE:  We did.  It took a long time to get there.
12    MR. WHITING:  It took a long time.  Thank you.
13    MR. MCCLAINE:  I'd be happy to answer any questions that 
14   somebody might have.  Thank you.
15    MR. RAINEY:  Thank you, sir.  Are there any other public 
16   comments at this time?  
17    MS. MORRISON:  Hello everyone, my name is Gail Morrison, 
18   my company is Allied GIS.  My team which consists of IIC 
19   Technologies, TerraSond and 3001 recently won a NOAA contract, 
20   we maintain the NOAA ENC charts.  We won that about two years 
21   ago.  So, first of all, with that in mind I'd really like to 
22   encourage you all to change this number from zero to something 
23   much larger that's on here for the ENC's for 2005, seven it's 
24   zero.
25    And I'd like to just talk briefly about my experience with 
0214
 1   NOAA.  You are by far one of my favorite contracts.  Everyone 
 2   has been so nice to deal with, everyone -- the contracting 
 3   officers, my client, Alexandria Heliotis.  I'd just like to say 
 4   that everyone's just so professional and just so nice, the whole 
 5   contracting experience has been very nice.  I've learned so 
 6   much.  This was my first large contract and everyone has been 
 7   just so nice.  And I've learned so much and all the knowledge 
 8   that I gained from this contract I've been able to carry on 
 9   through some of my other contracts and have been able to win 
10   some other larger -- some other large contracts.
11    I'd like to encourage NOAA to continue providing contracts 
12   for small businesses.  It's very tough for small businesses to 
13   get into the federal market, so I'd like to thank you for 
14   supporting small businesses and especially women owned small 
15   businesses, which is what I am.  So thank you.
16    A second topic I'd like to bring up is throughout this 
17   meeting I've -- and I was only here for today, unfortunately I 
18   couldn't make it yesterday.  There is -- I'm hearing different 
19   companies, different agencies are using different datums, 
20   different geoids, et cetera.  I use GIS -- US GIS products is my 
21   specialty, I also use CAT.  I do a lot of data importing, data 
22   exchange.  The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has developed a data 
23   toolset called SDSFIE.  It's Spatial Data Standards for Facility 
24   Infrastructure and Environment.  This is an enormous relational 
25   database.  What this provides is data standards, it provides 
0215
 1   templates for your contractors when they go out to collect data.  
 2   It provides visuals so people know exactly what they're going to 
 3   collect.  For instance, there is a field saying what geoid did 
 4   you collect this in, what's your vertical datum, what's your 
 5   horizontal datum, how many feet are you off.  There's about -- 
 6   there's at least 40 fields and then you can add additional 
 7   fields to that, you can hyperlink documents to the GIS.  This -- 
 8   the SDSFIE creates a GIS feature, either a point line or poly.  
 9   So again, this is an excellent tool for standardizing your data 
10   and explaining to your contractors exactly what you want, 
11   exactly what you need and exactly what format you need it in.  
12   It imports data from many different fields, from many different 
13   types, Excel, DBF, text file, there's quite a few.  So again, 
14   this is an excellent way to standardize your data.  
15    And the last thing is, I'd just like to mention a contract 
16   that I have locally, it's the Alaska Army National Guard, and 
17   this goes back to federal dollars, everybody's budgets are 
18   getting squeezed.  What I've been able to provide for the 
19   National Guard is on some of my -- I have several contracts with 
20   them and different teams that provide different services.  For 
21   instance, right now I have a vegetation contract with them and 
22   when these vegetation people, veg people go out to the different 
23   sites I have them collecting survey -- some survey data for the 
24   National Guard as well.  So I'm helping them group these 
25   contracts so that they don't have to do a separate land survey 
0216
 1   contract.  It just costs another $100.00 or $200.00 to have 
 2   these veg people go out.  They're not registered land surveyors, 
 3   but again, we don't need extreme accuracy, we just need to know 
 4   plus or minus 30 feet where the buildings are, we need some sort 
 5   of X, Y, Z -- or X -- just X, Y coordinates so that other 
 6   contracts can feed off these coordinates.  So I don't know -- I 
 7   talked to Mr. Baird about this, he had been doing this in the 
 8   past.  But I'd like to encourage you to tap into your 
 9   contractors to tap into their contracts and their contacts so 
10   that if they're going out into an area where you might need a 
11   couple of points collected, just ask them if they wouldn't mind 
12   swinging by.  It's a huge cost saving here in Alaska.  I'm 
13   already saying my con -- my National Guard contacts thousands of 
14   dollars by doing this.  Thank you.
15    MR. RAINEY:  Thanks very much.  Okay, I think that 
16   exhausts our public comment.  Is there any new business from the 
17   panel members?  McGovern.
18    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  Just something to think about I guess 
19   for the next meeting or something, it's something that's 
20   bothered me for years and -- we're doing a huge dredging project 
21   in New York.  We've done several of these, because of the way 
22   the federal government funds it it's like every five feet so 
23   we've done this -- we're doing the same project three times to 
24   get 15 feet of extra draft.  And each time, obviously, the whole 
25   current picture changes, there's never -- you know, they give us 
0217
 1   a billion dollars to dig or they give the Army Corps a billion 
 2   dollars to dig and not a dollar to do a new current study.  
 3   Which we know everything has changed after it but we don't know 
 4   exactly how -- you know, how much because we can't get -- I 
 5   would just think that there should be a way to almost require, 
 6   you know, after a -- I think Andy had the words better 
 7   yesterday, but if there's a change in the bottom then there 
 8   should be required that there is a subsequent current study to 
 9   follow up -- I mean we're talking, you know, pennies compared to 
10   what the dredging project cost.  You know, that -- I don't know 
11   how we'd do that because it's a -- I guess it's one agency not 
12   necessarily against another but it's a follow up thing and I 
13   don't know how we can do that but it's something maybe people 
14   can think about between now and the next meeting.  But just 
15   that, you know, if there is a major dredging project that that 
16   dredging project should be followed up by a new current study to 
17   see how, you know, the currents and maybe other things that were 
18   affected by this dredging project.  Because, you know, we've had 
19   dredging -- some of these dredging projects they make the turns 
20   bigger but make them harder because they've changed the whole 
21   current profile and it's -- it makes the turn actually a harder 
22   turn even though it's a wider turn.  So just something to think 
23   about between now and then, it's a -- you know, I would love to 
24   get that requirement in there but I don't know exactly how you 
25   would do that and the procurement process and maybe that's 
0218
 1   something that the -- you know, (indiscernible) can work out.
 2    MR. WHITING:  Andy, ask the Corps of Engineers to do that.
 3    CAPTAIN HICKMAN:  I was going to.....
 4    MR. WHITING:  They are very interested in anything that 
 5   affects their bottom, why don't they do just that, ask them to 
 6   do it.
 7    CAPTAIN HICKMAN:  Andy, I think.....
 8    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  Because they're not paid to do it so 
 9   therefore -- they're paid to dig.
10    MR. WHITING:  You're their client, right?
11    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  No.
12    CAPTAIN HICKMAN:  Andy, I think -- I don't know how it 
13   came about but I believe they did a study on ours before we 
14   dredged between and made the new spoils between Lynchburg and 
15   Morgans Point because we were concerned with the bottleneck in 
16   the water flow there.
17    MR. RAINEY:  Was that because of the special asymmetrical 
18   channel or was that a different navigation project?
19    CAPTAIN HICKMAN: It was because they were going to be 
20   putting the dredged material into.....
21    MR. RAINEY:  Okay.
22    CAPTAIN HICKMAN:  .....new spots.  And so they were not 
23   only dredging the channel deeper but they were making new land 
24   around it.
25    MR. RAINEY:  Kind of camping.  Yeah, okay.
0219
 1    CAPTAIN HICKMAN:  So I'm not sure how they -- how we had 
 2   that done, I could look into that.  But I would imagine if 
 3   they're doing it prior to it they might be willing to do it 
 4   afterwards.
 5    CAPTAIN MCGOVERN:  And I guess this is -- I mean we had 
 6   one current study done too in between two of the -- between the 
 7   first project and the second project.  But it was a special 
 8   deal, it was a big deal that was -- you know, it took a lot of 
 9   effort.  To me, what I'm trying to do is try to maybe -- is to 
10   automate this, that it should be I guess call it the chicken and 
11   the egg or the egg and the chicken.  I mean it should just be, 
12   you know, if you're going to do this that this -- this is just 
13   done automatically, you know, following it whether it's part of 
14   the original allocation or what but it's just, you know, when 
15   you do this this will be done too and make it more automatic and 
16   not such a big deal to try to get that done.
17    MR. RAINEY:  Might be the recommendation we could draft 
18   that we would recommend NOAA take that as an agenda item to the 
19   CMTS because that's the whole idea is that you've got Corps of 
20   Engineers digging but you've got NOAA doing your hydrographic 
21   modeling, you've got Coast Guard doing ATON.  So all of this, 
22   somebody should manage the big picture and when you change 
23   something that affects everything else you ought to take a look 
24   at the everything else.  Bill Gray.
25    MR. GRAY:  Yeah.  I surely agree with what Andy is 
0220
 1   suggesting but it brings up the thought -- you say we might have  
 2   a meeting in February and what I'm thinking, we talked yesterday 
 3   about possibly inviting people from (indiscernible) H-10, Alex 
 4   Landsburg or something like that, to the meeting to talk a 
 5   little bit about the work that was done in Houston, the full 
 6   scale measuring.  Which then brings me to the thought maybe it'd 
 7   be -- you know, if we can do that why don't we invite somebody 
 8   from the Army Engineers and somebody from the Coast Guard as 
 9   well and talk about this subject.  And you remember, Andy, when 
10   we did that Norfolk meeting four or five years ago, we had a 
11   very small workshop where we got a lot of pilots together, we 
12   got a -- quite a few Army Engineers together, we got good Coast 
13   Guard representation.  And it was interesting because we had a 
14   fellow from the Army Engineers called Barry Holiday (ph) and I 
15   had only barely met him but we said we wanted to get some sort 
16   of a dialogue going between Coast Guard, Army Engineers and so 
17   forth.  And at the end of this day and a half meeting where we 
18   had some break out and work, you know, the way ships maneuver, 
19   all these various things, they asked Barry Holiday (ph), said 
20   what did you think of this meeting.  He said, you know, I have 
21   been in this business of planning and designing channels for the 
22   United States for roughly 35 years and he said I learned more in 
23   the last 36 hours about the way mariners regard what we do than 
24   I did in the previous 35 years.  And it -- I think everybody 
25   went away with a very good feeling about that and several of us 
0221
 1   wrote a paper about that, Al Bloom (ph) and me and Alex 
 2   Landsburg I guess and Jennifer Waters (ph).  And it worked out 
 3   very, very well and that kind of a thing might be a little 
 4   bridge building step that we could take.  And as Lou was 
 5   mentioning, you know, we're talking about grabbing some of 
 6   Army's responsibilities or however the hell you might want to 
 7   talk about it.  But as I said, that's the only time in my quite 
 8   a few years in the industry that I've really had what I thought 
 9   was an open and positive discussion take place with the dredging 
10   people, the Army Engineer people.  So that's just for 
11   consideration as we think of the next meeting.  Oh, and one 
12   other thing I had.  We don't have Helen anymore, are we going to 
13   try and replace......
14    MR. RAINEY:  Yes, I guess what I -- we talked just real 
15   briefly about that but the -- my understanding is that there is 
16   a process in place, a selection board has met and that's 
17   proceeding.  There's -- there are, you know, various and sundry 
18   requirements with the FACA Act administration that go into that 
19   selection process.  So I would suspect that, you know, by our 
20   next meeting perhaps we may be able to have that member with us.  
21   Is that fair?
22    CAPTAIN BARNUM:  I think the package is downtown, I think 
23   probably the announcement is -- would -- I would say would be 
24   imminent, so we should know soon.
25    MR. RAINEY:  All right.  We've kind of arrived at -- is 
0222
 1   there any other new business?  Okay.  Well, again -- Barbara, 
 2   can I turn it to you to give us the -- I don't know if there's 
 3   more to say other than by -- we have an event for this evening 
 4   for the panel graciously hosted by John Oswald and my 
 5   understanding is there'll be a -- some cars for transportation 
 6   available if you get out at the lobby by what was it, 5:15 we 
 7   figured, is that the.....
 8    MS. HESS:  (Indiscernible - away from microphone).
 9    MR. RAINEY:  Is that okay?
10    MS. HESS:  (Indiscernible - away from microphone).
11    MR. RAINEY:  Okay.  All right.  Minas
12    CAPTAIN MYRTIDIS:  Yeah, just a question and I don't know, 
13   I'm sorry if I missed that.  Did we discuss the possibility of 
14   location, time for the next meeting, do we want to do that 
15   or.....
16    MR. RAINEY:  If -- we did but clearly not with much 
17   specificity.  Let me say what I think we have in the works is 
18   that try to look for an opportunity.  So it'd be worth it to 
19   check -- to hear from the panel what the availability would be 
20   around February 10th is the anniversary of the Coast Survey and 
21   the thinking would be perhaps to do a meeting that abuts that or 
22   is adjacent to that timeframe.  So maybe if you could give 
23   Barbara your availability, you know, a week before or after that 
24   date and we were going to check with NOAA leadership and we're  
25   -- the thinking is to look for an appropriate site that would 
0223
 1   allow us to make this a pretty watershed event for the panel as 
 2   well as -- you know, in conjunction with the -- Coast Survey's 
 3   200th birthday and also we would hopefully have our special 
 4   report on hand.  So that there would be some synergies of, you 
 5   know, time, place and manner of the meeting.
 6    MR. WHITING:  Is the Hydrographic Society going to have 
 7   their meeting about the same time?
 8    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  That's in May.
 9    MR. WHITING:  That's in May.
10    MR. RAINEY:  May, yeah.  May in Norfolk.
11    MR. WHITING:  And you wanted to have this meeting before 
12   then, right?  Are we going to have another meeting in Norfolk 
13   right after that?  Because I think we still, even though -- I 
14   think that the place that this thing belongs is at the 
15   Hydrographic Conference, right there, day before, during it or 
16   whatever. Have a panel like this and invite some of those big 
17   people.
18    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
19   microphone).
20    MR. WHITING:  In May.  Right.  We're going to have two of 
21   them in Norfolk at the same time, the same year?
22    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
23   microphone).
24    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
25   microphone).
0224
 1    MR. RAINEY:  Well.....
 2    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
 3   microphone).
 4    MR. RAINEY:  Why don't we.....
 5    MR. DUNNIGAN:  We might, for example, want to have a 
 6   meeting in Mobile.  Have any -- Chairman have any committees 
 7   that come from Alabama?
 8    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
 9   microphone).
10    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  That thought just occurred to me 
11   because Barbara and I had been talking about something else.
12    MR. RAINEY:  Yeah.
13    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
14   microphone).
15    UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:  Sorry.
16    MR. RAINEY:  Why don't we leave it, if it settles with the 
17   panel, that we're looking for around that timeframe.  I would 
18   very much like to have the opportunity for NOAA leadership to 
19   kind of get back with us where -- when they look at all of the 
20   activities they have for the 200th and things going on.  I think 
21   Larry's point's very well taken that, you know, look at the 
22   HSOA's and we had a very good meeting in conjunction with them 
23   in San Diego.  But maybe we can get a short list of -- you know, 
24   I think we'll benefit from taking -- getting back and checking 
25   schedules and looking for a special opportunity, I think we 
0225
 1   would be -- benefit from tying it into something that would work 
 2   for NOAA leadership as well as the panel.  So can we just 
 3   promise to get back with you on some options here within the 
 4   week?  
 5    CAPTAIN MYRTIDIS:  Of course the other option is to have a 
 6   very long meeting on a cruise ship, but -- take seven day 
 7   cruise.
 8    MR. RAINEY:  Well, nothing's impossible, we got to Alaska.  
 9    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Indiscernible - away from 
10   microphone).
11    MR. RAINEY:  Can we leave sometime around February 10th 
12   and then arrive in Norfolk by May something?  Yeah.  
13    CAPTAIN MYRTIDIS:  We are just making deployment right 
14   now, so probably we could do that.
15    MR. RAINEY:  All right.  Well, is there any other new 
16   business?  All right.  Well I'd accept a motion to adjourn with 
17   -- Jack, thanks.
18    MR. DUNNIGAN:  Yeah, let me just add my thanks to 
19   everybody for your time.  I have to tell you something.  I'm a 
20   professional bureaucrat so what you all did this afternoon and 
21   over the last day and a half I know is hard work so I really 
22   appreciate that.  I'm very much looking forward to your product 
23   here.  And I learned really a lot from a number of aspects over 
24   the last two days.  So from my standpoint this continues to be a 
25   really important group that I'm committed to working with.  I 
0226
 1   think the discussion we had about programming and planning was a 
 2   little dense but it's really good for you to know what we have 
 3   to go through.  I thought the discussion we had this morning on 
 4   reauthorization of the HSIA is a good start.  I did get a sense 
 5   from you about, you know, sort some outlines of the scope of 
 6   what you thought would be useful for going into so that's very 
 7   helpful and we'll continue to work with you on that.  But from 
 8   my position, once again, thanks an awful lot for being here, 
 9   it's a good meeting, appreciate it.  And congratulations, Tom.
10    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  I might just add, just on behalf of 
11   the panel I think we're all reenergized I think by the 
12   interaction that has taken place and some of the NOAA leadership 
13   that's stepped up and working with this and I'd just really like 
14   to show my appre -- express my appreciation for those efforts.
15    UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:  Group hug.
16    MR. RAINEY:  Okay, could I have a motion to adjourn?
17    UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  So moved.
18    MR. RAINEY:  All right.  All in favor.
19    SIMULTANEOUS:  Aye.
20    MR. RAINEY:  All right, thank you.
21    (Off record at 4:31 p.m.)
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16   TRANSCRIBER'S CERTIFICATE
17    I, Nicolette Hernandez, hereby certify that the foregoing 
18   pages numbered 268 through 492 are a true, accurate and complete 
19   transcript of proceedings of the National Oceanic and 
20   Atmospheric Administration, Hydrographic Services Review Panel, 
21   held  August 15, 2006 at Anchorage, Alaska, transcribed by me 
22   from a copy of the electronic sound recording to the best of my 
23   knowledge and ability.
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25   _____________________________ _____________________________
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17    Continued
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