THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 16, 1995 TAG: 9502160320
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JAMES SCHULTZ, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines
It's winter still, down by the Elizabeth River where they're making ready for a springtime sail. Painters are scraping hulls, mechanics fine-tuning motors, and engineers upgrading the hardware and software on bridge computers.
But by year's end, two of the four federal survey ships based in Norfolk will probably be in mothballs. As part of government restructuring, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) wants to turn over to the private sector 50 percent of its task of surveying underwater hazards up and down the East and Gulf coasts and throughout the Great Lakes.
Such a prospect alarms critics, who assert that NOAA's mapping, already years behind, will lag even more. Already, American mariners are beginning to rely on more current nautical charts produced by the British Admiralty in London.
Outdated charts, the critics contend, endanger everyone and everything that ply U.S. coastal waters because of shifting shoals, dangerous obstructions like dropped cargo, even uncovered shipwrecks.
``It's frightening,'' said Lorenzo Amory, president of the Virginia Pilot Association, a group whose members guide ships in and out of Hampton Roads harbors. ``If they can't produce useful charts, we're going to be out of luck. This is just as critical for a recreational boater as it is for me on a 1,000-foot tanker loaded with 150,000 tons of coal.''
NOAA's four Norfolk mapping ships cover thousands of square miles in a survey season that begins in March and ends in November. A fifth ship comes under separate NOAA supervision in Seattle, spending most of its time charting Alaskan waters.
The agency is responsible for producing and updating roughly 1,000 charts that cover nearly all of the nation's navigable coastal waterways.
``We impose unlimited liability on (oil-carrying) vessels and then furnish them charts that are outdated,'' said James Provo, president of the National Association of Maritime Organizations, which represents commercial marine interests. ``I think that's ludicrous. It's unreal, really.''
Chart accuracy is especially crucial because today's ships are bigger and more heavily laden with cargo and fuel than vessels of a decade ago. Since newer ships ride lower in the water, a difference of a few feet can mean the difference between clear passage and disaster.
Still fresh in many pilots' minds is an incident that occurred in August 1992 when the Queen Elizabeth II, flagship of the Cunard Line, ran aground off the southern coast of Massachusetts, 10 miles west of Martha's Vineyard. The vessel drew 32 feet, and charts placed water depth at 39 feet.
At the time of the accident, underwater maps hadn't been updated since 1939.
NOAA officials admit there have been problems but say they are attempting to correct shortcomings by increasing agency funding by several million dollars in the current federal budget and by getting for-profit firms involved in underwater mapping. There won't be any layoffs or firings of NOAA staff.
And even though ships may be put out of service, the money saved will be used to expand survey efforts, not shrink them, NOAA says.
``We are far behind,'' conceded Frank Maloney, deputy assistant administrator for the National Oceans Service, the NOAA division that oversees the nautical surveys. ``That's why we're making an attempt to move resolutely into the private sector. We just don't have the technology the private sector does. We're crazy not to use (them).''
The agency has contracted with a private firm to chart selected regions of Long Island Sound. Should that effort succeed, Maloney said, the scale and scope of private involvement will quickly and dramatically increase.
``It's not just a matter of laying up two ships,'' Maloney said. ``There is a problem there. And we're working it.''
None of that work has convinced Virginia marine interests. Late last week, a group that included Amory and Provo met with NOAA administrator James Baker to try to persuade him to keep the two Norfolk ships in service. Privatization is well and good, they say, but the work of low-bid companies may not measure up to that of their federal counterparts.
``They say they're cutting back,'' Provo said. ``I say maybe you're cutting the wrong things.
``All we have to do is have one major oil spill around here. That will pay for NOAA for the next 10 years.'' ILLUSTRATION: CREDIT/
Color photo by Jim Walker, Staff
Ensign Jessica Walker, aboard the NOAA ship Rude, displays a
``towfish'' that's used to chart underwater hazards. Maritime groups
are wary of the U.S. agency's privatization plans.
KEYWORDS: MARINE CHART NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION by CNB