U'S' Country Report

1
The Role of Hydrography in Hazard Response and
Environmental Protection
Kathryn L. Ries Deputy Director, NOAAs Office of
Coast Survey United States of America 2-4 October
2006
2
U.S. Mapping and Charting Responsibilities

• Department of Commerce
• NOAA Hydrography/legal National Shoreline
  surveys, Tides and Currents, Nautical Charts for
  U.S. waters, Coast Pilots, and other decision
  making tools
• Department of Defense
• Army Corps of Engineers Production of
  navigational charts for and dredging and
  maintenance of navigable channels and inland
  navigable waterways
• NAVOCEANO Surveying international waters
• National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency --
  Charting international waters, NAVAREA IV XII
  coordinator
• Department of Homeland Security
• Coast Guard Maintenance of maritime Aids to
  Navigation
• FEMA Disaster Response and Floodplain Mapping
• Department of Interior
• U.S. Geological Survey Interior to coastline
  base maps

3
NON-NAVIGATIONAL USES OF HYDROGRAPHIC DATA

• EMERGENCY RESPONSE/RESTORATION
• - Hurricane Katrina
• - Search and Recovery
• - Safe Seas Exercise
• ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
• Right Whale Protection
• Saving Coral/Saving Ships
• - Earthquake Damage Detection

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4
Economic Impact of Closure of Gulf Ports

• Unemployment
• Increase in Gasoline Prices
• Oil Industry Impacts
• 2,900 platforms were in the path of the
  hurricanes
• 109 Oil platforms and 5 drilling rigs destroyed
• 50 platforms and 19 drilling rigs suffered
  extensive damage
• 90 of crude production stopped
• 72 of natural gas output stopped
• Ocean Shipping
• 50 of Americas exports of agricultural
  commodities like corn and soybeans

5
Port Access Critical to Gulf Relief Effort

• Cruise Ships used for housing emergency workers
• in New Orleans
• US Navy Hospital Ship in Pascagoula
• Ports essential to
• movement of food
• and relief supplies
• US Coast Guard
• security/law
• enforcement mission
• Vital imports of oil
• and coal

6
Navigation Response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita

• NOAA Navigation Response Teams
• NOAA Hydrographic Vessels
• Contract Hydrographic Services
• U.S. Navy
• U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
• National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
• U.S. Coast Guard

7
NOAA Navigation Response Teams (NRTs)

• Emergency Response
• Regional User Response
• Chart Evaluation

8
Regional Navigation Response Teams
Plans for 7th in FY07 in the mid-Atlantic Plans
for 8th in FY08 for the western Gulf of Mexico
9
NRT Hurricane Response

• NRTs can be quickly dispatched to emergency sites
  and came from all over the U.S.
• Surveyed the Mississippi River, Port of
  Pascagoula, Port of Biloxi, Port of Mobile, Port
  of New Orleans, Port of Pensacola, Port of
  Gulfport, Port of Houston, Port of Galveston,
  Port Arthur, Lake Charles

10
Vessel Support Utilized by NOAA
NOAA Survey Ship THOMAS JEFFERSON
Contract Hydrographic Asset
NOAA Research Ship NANCY FOSTER
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12
U.S. Navy Fleet Survey Teams
Briefed Local Fishermen on safe navigation routes
Surveyed the Intracoastal Waterway and
Mississippi and Pearl Rivers
13
U.S. Navy Surveys
Surveys were conducted by the NAVOCEANO
Hydrographic Survey Training Launch in St. Louis
Bay, Pass Christian and Long Beach Harbors
Surveyed
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15
Gulf of Mexico Debris Mapping Project
After the 2005 hurricane season, the Northern
Gulf of Mexico is littered with debris that
represents a hazard to safe navigation,
commercial fishing, and other coastal uses

• The major sources of debris include
• Materials from impacted coastal areas as a result
  of storm surge and retreating flood-waters.
• Wrecked and lost recreational and commercial
  vessels
• Numerous offshore oil and gas facilities
• Oil or hazardous material tanks that drifted far
  from the facilities, filled with water, and sank.
  
• Numerous allisions and other navigation
• incidents have occurred as a result of this
  debris
• Also ship sinkings, oil spills and damage to
• hulls, fishing gear and vessel equipment

16
Gulf of Mexico Debris Mapping Project

• Congress has tasked NOAA to address this
  concern
• 20 million appropriated in FY06 for contract
  surveys in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana,
  by five private companies
• Surveys to be completed in FY07
• No funds for actual recovery of marine debris.

• Data will be used to locate hazards to
  navigation and update NOAAs nautical charts and
  develop chartlets to identify location for all
  constituents
• Survey areas were defined with input from local
  constituents and commercial fishing community
• Tailored products for local community

17
Emergency Recovery Efforts

• TWA 800 - July 1996
• JFK Jr.s plane - July 1999
• EgyptAir 990 - November 16, 1999

Lowering SSS towfish from NOAA Ship WHITING to
assist with recovery efforts
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• Oil Spill Response Preparedness
• Multi-agency emergency response effort led by
  NOAA
• More than 250 people participated in training,
  field operations, oceanographic surveys, and
  incident command post activities.
• Vessels and aircraft from NOAA, the U.S. Coast
  Guard, and others
• Built on the successful 2005 exercise in the
  Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, and
  agency-wide experience in response to the 2005
  Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma
• Hydrographic surveys to identify potential
  locations to ground vessel, if necessary

19
SAFE SEAS 2006 Exercise Site
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Right Whale Protection

• The North Atlantic right whale is primarily a
  migratory coastal species found seasonally in
  five high use areas -- three off the eastern
  United States and two off of southeastern Canada.
• Each area lies in or adjacent to major vessel
  traffic corridors.
• Cape Cod Bay has been designated under U.S. law
  
• as habitat critical for the survival of right
  whales.
• The population is believed to be at or less
  than
• 300 individuals, making it one of the most
  critically
• endangered large whale species in the world.
• February 2004 to April 2005,
• at least four adult pregnant females
• were killed by ship strikes.

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NOAA/U.S. Coast GuardStrategy

• Proposed Ship Routing Protective Measures
• Traffic Separation Scheme
• Recommended Routing
• Cape Cod Bay
• East Coast from Massachusetts to Florida

22
Right Whale Protection IMO / Traffic Separation
Scheme
IMO NAV52 approved a proposal to amend the
IMO-adopted Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS) in
the approach to Boston, Massachusetts, and
forwarded to the Maritime Safety Committee for
adoption

• .
• The objective is to make changes that should
  result in a significant reduction in the
  likelihood of ship strike deaths and serious
  injuries to right and other whales, while
  maintaining and improving maritime safety
• The whales begin moving out of Cape Cod Bay in
  March through April, crossing through the TSS en
  route to feeding areas in the Great South
  Channel.
• Research shows that there is a significant
  overlap between the areas where right and other
  whales commonly occur in high densities and the
  existing TSS.
• Effective date anticipated to be 6 months after
  adoption, approximately
• June 2007

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25
Coral Reef Electronic Chart InitiativeProtecti
ng Corals, Saving Ships
Kathryn L. Ries Erich Frey Office of Coast
Survey, NOAA Lee Alexander, CCOM-JHC, Univ. of
New Hampshire
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27
PSSA Boundary
ATBA Boundary
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29
Florida Keys Coral Reef Habitats
30
Coral Reefs
FKNMS Boundary
31
Earthquake Damage Detection

• NOAA Ship Rainier surveyed for evidence of
  underwater landslides in Puget Sound that may
  have been triggered by the February 28, 2001
  earthquake.
• Underwater landslides can damage structures on
  land when they undermine footings and
  foundations.
• At the request of the U.S. Geological Survey the
  231-foot, Seattle-based ship was diverted from
  its normal schedule -which usually has it mapping
  the coastline of Alaska -to look for signs of the
  earthquake before the water wiped them out.
• The new maps will be invaluable the next time an
  earthquake strikes the Puget Sound region. Armed
  with good baseline information, geologists will
  be able to see how the bay bottoms shifted.

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U.S. Training Opportunities

• IHO Category A - M.S. Program at University of
  Southern Mississippi, SSC. One-year non-thesis
  option and two-year thesis option. (U.S. Navy)
• IHO Category A - M.S. and Ph.D. in Ocean
  Engineering or Earth Sciences Ocean Mapping-
  University of New Hampshire
• IHO Category B - International Hydrographic
  Management and Engineering Program (IHMEP).
  Six-month program. (U.S. Navy)
• Certificate in Ocean Mapping Twelve-month
  program. Center for Coastal and Ocean
  Mapping/NOAA-UNH Joint Hydrographic Center of the
  University of New Hampshire and GEBCO/Nippon
  Foundation of Japan
• NAVOCEANO Mobile Training Team (NMTT).
• NOAA
• Navigation Response Teams
• NOAA Hydrographic Survey Ships
• Geodetic positioning