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.) 22 23 24 25 0227 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 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. 24 25 _____________________________ _____________________________ 0228 1 Date Nicolette Hernandez 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 _________________________ 17 Continued 18 493 19 20 KRON ASSOCIATES 21 1113 W. Fireweed Lane, Suite 200 22 Anchorage, Alaska 99503 23 (907) 276-3554