Improving the Marine Event Permit Program

Excerpt from U.S. Coast Guard Proceedings of the Marine Safety & Security Council magazine by LCDR Ellis H. Moose, marine event permit program manager, U.S. Coast Guard Office of Marine Transportation Systems, Oceans and Transportation Policy Division.

The U.S. Coast Guard has been safely and successfully administering the marine event permit program for years, but the ambiguity of existing policy has made it difficult to provide a consistent service-wide approach. 

Currently, Coast Guard district and sector commanders evaluate the need for an event permit by using locally developed risk-based decision making and knowledge of their areas of responsibility. While this practice has resulted in an impressive safety record, it’s created inconsistencies in how the program is administered from unit to unit and district to district.

The Review

The Office of Marine Transportation Systems at Coast Guard headquarters owns the marine event permitting process and is working with Training Center Petaluma, whose analysts are developing a strategic needs assessment, a five-phase process that consists of:

• performance analysis,
• root cause analysis,
• intervention selection,
• implementation,
• evaluation.

The project will certainly include revisions to national policy but could also include job aids, detailed work instructions, or training courses.

Seamless Service Delivery

Coast Guard units must continue to execute the program using the risk-based approach that has served so faithfully to date. Furthermore, it’s important to recognize that sector and district commanders will always have wide latitude to exercise discretion in the administration of the program regardless of the outcomes from this project. 

No national policy will ever substitute for considering the totality of the situation, the inherent risks associated with gathering people and vessels on the water, and the local issues unique to an area when exercising this authority.

It is the goal of this project to foster a policy that provides a consistent approach while continuing to provide effective control over marine events.

Coast Guard members navigate their canoe during a race against the other four branches of the military at the Walter MacFarlane Canoe Regatta in Waikiki. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer Michael De Nyse. 

Full article is available at http://www.uscg.mil/proceedings/spring2011/.

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Collaborating to Mitigate Risk: The tools that guide the process.

Excerpt from U.S. Coast Guard Proceedings of the Marine Safety & Security Council magazine by LCDR Tony Maffia, visual navigation signals management policy manager, U.S. Coast Guard Visual Navigation Division; Mr. George H. Detweiler, Jr., marine transportation specialist, U.S. Coast Guard Marine Transportation Systems Management Directorate; and Mr. Burt Lahn, marine transportation specialist, U.S. Coast Guard Marine Transportation Systems Management Directorate.

The United States Coast Guard Office of Marine Transportation Systems Management develops and implements policies and procedures that facilitate commerce, improve safety and efficiency, and inspire dialogue within the maritime community to make our waterways safe, efficient, and commercially viable.

One way we do this is by establishing risk baselines that guide our decisions. Three tools that guide these efforts:

• ports and waterways safety assessments,
• waterways analysis and management system studies,
• port access route studies.

Ports and Waterways Safety Assessments

The Coast Guard established the ports and waterways safety assessment process to address waterway user needs and place a greater emphasis on partnerships with industry. The process involves convening a group of waterway users and stakeholders and conducting a structured workshop to elicit their opinions.

Waterway Analysis and Management System Study

Our nation’s waterways contain more than 100,000 aids to navigation—the buoys and beacons that provide signals to maritime transportation system users. A waterway analysis and management system study helps Coast Guard waterway managers review and improve the system in a particular waterway. The study incorporates the perspectives of major and/or frequent waterway users to identify the most effective aid mix while anticipating needs for the future.

Port Access Route Studies

Permanent structures such as oil rigs and offshore renewable energy installations may affect port traffic, and areas like designated marine sanctuaries also must fit into this mix.

To manage this, the Coast Guard may create traffic separation schemes. Through the port access route study process, the Coast Guard consults with affected Native American tribes as well as federal, state, and foreign state agencies (as appropriate) and considers the views of maritime community representatives, environmental groups, and other interested stakeholders.

Port access route studies continue to identify critical changes in maritime traffic volumes or routes, and allow the Coast Guard to implement sound vessel routing measures to ensure safe passage in the off-shore approaches to our nation’s ports and harbors.

Full article is available at http://www.uscg.mil/proceedings/spring2011/.

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Offshore Renewable Energy Installations: Impact on navigation and marine safety.

Excerpt from U.S. Coast Guard Proceedings of the Marine Safety & Security Council magazine by Mr. George H. Detweiler, Jr., marine transportation specialist, U.S. Coast Guard Marine Transportation Systems Management Directorate.

To reduce our dependence on foreign energy supplies, alternative or renewable energy sources are being pursued. These sources exploit a wide range of technologies:

• solar photovoltaics or power plants;
• hydroelectricity (dams);
• ocean thermal energy conversion facilities;
• offshore renewable energy installations, which may include “wind farms,” marine current turbines, and wave generators (hydrokinectics).

All these technologies have the potential to affect marine navigation and safety, and although no offshore renewable energy installations presently exist in U.S. waters, several are contemplated following successful trials in other countries.

Of the technologies being considered, wind farms and hydrokinetics pique the Coast Guard’s interest because their developers propose to locate them in U.S. navigable waters.

Navigation Impact

All offshore installations, regardless of type, will have impact on vessel navigation and safety in their vicinity.

Location. An offshore site could affect navigation based on the traffic volume, types of waterway users, and other vessel characteristics such as speed capability, navigation equipment, and number of passengers.

Spacing. To make best use of the wind, turbine spacing is proportional to rotor size and the down-wind wake effect created. As such, wind farm turbines are generally spaced 500 meters or more apart.

Visibility. These structures could also block or hinder the view of other vessels, the coastline, or other navigational features such as aids to navigation, landmarks, or promontories used by mariners to navigate.

Electronic impact. Larger structures could produce radio interference with respect to any frequencies used for aviation, marine positioning, navigation, or communications, including automatic identification systems.

Effects of tides, tidal streams, currents, seabed changes. Current maritime traffic flows and operations in the area of an offshore renewable energy installation are affected by the depth of water in which the installation is situated at various states of the tide.

Additionally, the structures themselves could cause changes in the set and rate of the tidal stream or direction and rate of the currents. Also, structures in the tidal stream could produce siltation, deposition of sediment or scouring, and other suction or discharge aspects, which could affect navigable water depth.

Mitigating the Impact

While these offshore renewable energy installations have many potential benefits, it’s important to recognize the equally potential negative effects mentioned and to devise plans to mitigate them.

The Coast Guard will review the assessment to develop a “safety of navigation” opinion and associated mitigation measures that it will forward to the appropriate lead permitting agency.

Full article is available at http://www.uscg.mil/proceedings/spring2011/.

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How Narrow is “Narrow?” NAVSAC recommends the Coast Guard develop navigation criteria.

Excerpt from U.S. Coast Guard Proceedings of the Marine Safety & Security Council magazine by Mr. Craig H. Allen, Sr., Judson Falknor Professor of Law and of Marine Affairs University of Washington.

In June 2010, the U.S. Navigation Safety Advisory Council (NAVSAC), the Coast Guard’s advisory council on the Rules of the Road, unanimously recommended to the Coast Guard that it formally designate those waters in the U.S. that will be subject to Inland Navigation Rule 9 as “narrow channels or fairways.”

History

The NAVSAC action comes partly in response to a recommendation by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to the Coast Guard following the NTSB’s investigation into a collision between two towing vessels on an inland waterway.

The NTSB discovered that the vessel operators had come to conflicting conclusions as to whether the waters were a “narrow channel or fairway” for purposes of applying Rule 9.

Rule 9 Working Group

NAVSAC formed the Rule 9 Working Group and met in June of 2009 and June 2010 to examine the issues and present draft recommendations to the council for consideration.

The working group members noted that the Inland Navigation Rules include two “area-based” risk management rules:

• Rule 9, applicable to waters that constitute narrow channels or fairways,
• Rule 10, applicable to traffic separation schemes.

The members also observed the contrast between Rule 9, which leaves it to the mariners to determine when the rule applies, and Rule 10, which applies only when the waters have been designated a traffic separation scheme.

They also noted that the rules do not define “narrow channel” or “fairway” or provide the mariner with criteria for determining which waterways fall within those terms.

The group’s conclusion: Rule 9 has the potential to be an important collision prevention rule, but its effectiveness is undermined. The multi-factor Rule 9 analysis adopted by courts in collision cases is complicated, and the need for a case-by-case analysis of the relevant factors might well delay the mariners’ collision avoidance action.

There is also a risk that two (or more) approaching vessels will reach conflicting conclusions as to whether Rule 9 applies to a given situation, as the tow boat operators did in the collision investigated by the NTSB.

The working group therefore concurred with the NTSB recommendation to the extent that it recommended that the Coast Guard take action to better enable mariners to know when to apply the narrow channel rule.

Full article is available at http://www.uscg.mil/proceedings/spring2011/.

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The “Black Hull” Fleet: Multi-function assets for multi-mission duty—PART 2

Excerpt from U.S. Coast Guard Proceedings of the Marine Safety & Security Council magazine by CDR Gregory Tlapa, chief, U.S. Coast Guard Visual Navigation Division.

The Continuing ATON Mission

As the response in the Gulf continued beyond projected timelines, senior Coast Guard leaders were concerned that the absence of the buoy tenders would negatively impact the overall aids to navigation (ATON) infrastructure.

In the end, however, the nationwide aid availability rate remained nearly constant throughout the deployment, which poses the question: How can this be?

Through a series of strategic initiatives and efficiency improvements over the last decade, the ATON program has dramatically improved hardware reliability and reduced the cutter resource hours needed to maintain the system.

Improvements in Efficiency and Technology

In the past, nearly 60 percent of their operational hours were devoted to performing ATON. In fiscal year 2009, however, these vessels spent only 39 percent of their operating hours on these duties, with the remaining 61 percent dispersed across other mission areas.

The coastal buoy tenders have experienced similar effects in mission employment, and expanded shore-based aids to navigation teams have also greatly improved overall mission response. Additionally, though the buoys and beacons along the U.S. coast look much the same as they did 30 years ago, there has also been a systematic transformation of aids to navigation equipment and hardware and efficiency improvements including:

• differential GPS positioning,
• increased use of solar power,
• transition from incandescent lighting systems to light-emitting diodes,
• use of self-contained systems,
• new buoy coating systems.

The Coast Guard employs a multi-tiered management philosophy to maintain ATON infrastructure so that each aid and waterway can be serviced by several types of Coast Guard assets.

DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano observes aids to navigation operations aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Anvil.

Full article is available at http://www.uscg.mil/proceedings/spring2011/.

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The “Black Hull” Fleet: Multi-function assets for multi-mission duty—PART 1

Excerpt from U.S. Coast Guard Proceedings of the Marine Safety & Security Council magazine by CDR Gregory Tlapa, chief, U.S. Coast Guard Visual Navigation Division.

Pictured is a Tlapa blackhull vessel.

Black, White, Red

While all Coast Guard afloat assets are multi-mission platforms, they are loosely grouped into three communities—the black hull fleet, white hull fleet, and red hull fleet.

As the names suggest, the hulls are painted those colors and denote each asset’s primary mission function:

• Black hull—aids to navigation,
• White hull—maritime law enforcement and other safety-at-sea missions,
• Red hull—icebreaking.

“Primary” being the operative word: As Coast Guard missions have expanded and evolved, so have the capabilities of its assets. Today the terms serve more to describe the personnel aboard the assets, engendering camaraderie within the communities and spurring friendly competition among them.

To fulfill its multi-mission duties, the Coast Guard’s black hull fleet or “buoy tenders” don’t just tend buoys—these vessels are routinely employed in all of the Coast Guard’s statutory mission areas, and carry specialized equipment to fulfill those functions.

For example, as a result of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 mandated that they be outfitted with an onboard spilled oil recovery system (SORS) comprised of outriggers, booms, hydraulic skimming equipment, and product storage vessels.

In addition to “normal” operational training, seagoing buoy tender crews participate in annual training and mock exercises with this equipment. While the smaller coastal buoy tenders are not outfitted with SORS equipment, they also conduct annual training and mock exercises using pre-staged vessel of opportunity skimming system gear, and all crews receive hazardous waste operations and emergency response training.

Thanks to such training and exercises, these crews quickly integrated into the response to the sinking of the mobile offshore drilling unit Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico.

CGC Juniper’s spilled oil recovery system.

Find out more in part 2.

Full article is available at http://www.uscg.mil/proceedings/spring2011/.

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Visual Aids to Navigation: Dispelling aid availability myths—PART 2

Excerpt from U.S. Coast Guard Proceedings of the Marine Safety & Security Council magazine by Mr. Robert Trainor, aids to navigation specialist, U.S. Coast Guard Office of Navigation Systems.

Aids to Navigation Discrepancies

Aid availability is impacted by unplanned outages, or ATON discrepancies, and the Coast Guard’s ability to respond to and correct them.

In 2005, the Coast Guard specified maximum maintenance intervals of 36 months for buoys and lighted beacons and 60 months for unlighted beacons. Specific maintenance intervals for individual aids are determined after considering component reliability and service life, environmental factors, wildlife, vandalism, and other factors.

The USCG uses a discrepancy response factor—a numerical indicator measuring the criticality of the discrepant ATON—to prioritize response. The higher the number, the more critical the aid is to safe navigation, and hence the higher the priority for response and correction.

 An aids to navigation team works on a small buoy. USCG photo.

The annual recurring funding for establishing, maintaining, and operating the U.S. visual aids to navigation system is approximately $300 million. Ninety percent of that goes to personnel, ATON servicing platform operations and maintenance, and indirect support costs.

The remaining $30 million finances everything that either produces or supports an ATON signal (repair, maintenance, and replacement costs of buoys; buoy mooring systems; beacon structure components; optics; power systems; and day signals).

This funding level has been static over the past 10 years, with slight adjustments for consumer price index considerations. During that period, aid availability fluctuated by as much as 1.28% in one year. In the years of low aid availability (2005 and 2006), the ATON mission was allocated supplemental funding to reconstitute the visual aids to navigation system in those waterways disrupted by a series of major hurricanes.

Aid Availability History

The concept of aid availability became a topic of international interest in the mid-1970s when significant numbers of lighthouses were being automated. The Coast Guard implemented aid availability as a performance measure in the 1990s and established an overall strategic aid availability goal of 99.7 percent.

Since waterways have a variety of traffic patterns and risk levels, the Coast Guard assigned each of its aids to navigation to one of three categories based on the critical nature of the aid, the type and volume of marine traffic, the waterway configuration, and environmental considerations.

• Category 1: Vital navigational significance – aid availability goal = 99.8 percent.
• Category 2: Important navigational significance – aid availability goal = 99 percent.
• Category 3: Necessary navigational significance – aid availability goal = 97 percent.

Certain anomalies, such as major weather events, can have a short-term negative impact on aid availability. The International Association of Marine Aids to Navigation and Lighthouse Authorities (IALA) recommends tracking aid availability for three continuous years to accurately determine trends.

IALA also recommends that the minimum aid availability for any aid should not fall below 95 percent and that consideration should be given to discontinuing or replacing aids to navigation that consistently fall below that threshold.

              

Full article is available at http://www.uscg.mil/proceedings/spring2011/.

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Visual Aids to Navigation: Dispelling aid availability myths—PART 1

Excerpt from U.S. Coast Guard Proceedings of the Marine Safety & Security Council magazine by Mr. Robert Trainor, aids to navigation specialist, U.S. Coast Guard Office of Navigation Systems.

Aid availability for the United States visual aids to navigation system is calculated monthly by the U.S. Coast Guard Marine Transportation Systems Management Directorate’s Visual Aids to Navigation Division.

Frequent updates and convenient data presentation lead many waterways managers to assume that aid availability provides a comprehensive assessment of the health and effectiveness of aids to navigation (ATON) in their waterways as well as the efficiency of their ATON service delivery units. This mistaken assumption has perpetuated the following aid availability myths:

• Aid availability is proportional to recurring ATON funding levels.
• Aid availability provides an accurate assessment of an ATON service delivery unit’s efficiency.
• Unscheduled maintenance of ATON service delivery platforms (cutters and boats) or emergency diversion to other mission areas directly impacts aid availability.
• Aid availability is primarily impacted by ATON component reliability.

Dispelling the Myths

Myth—Aid availability is proportional to recurring ATON funding levels. This is predicated on the assumption that recurring funding levels could be reduced if aid availability goals were lowered. The efficiency by which the USCG corrects ATON discrepancies directly impacts aid availability, so lowering aid availability goals would suggest that the Coast Guard should reduce its efficiency.

Furthermore, being less proficient at periodic maintenance or ATON discrepancy response would likely result in a much greater expense when the discrepancy is eventually corrected.

In addition, timely response and correction of an ATON discrepancy could help prevent a much costlier incident, such as a vessel collision or grounding.

Myth—Aid availability provides an accurate assessment of an ATON service delivery unit’s efficiency. This myth equates a falling or raising aid availability with the efficiency of an ATON service delivery unit. While a service delivery unit’s efficiency could certainly impact aid availability, there are a variety of other factors that could have a greater influence.

Myth—Unscheduled maintenance of ATON service delivery platforms or emergency diversion to other mission areas impacts aid availability. The USCG’s ATON multi-tiered maintenance strategy provides reserve capacity, including primary and secondary service delivery units, for these and other contingencies.

 Myth—Aid availability is primarily impacted by ATON component reliability. This assumes that an increase in ATON component failures (power systems, optics, buoys, mooring chain, dayboards, etc.) has a direct impact on the aid availability rate. However, an analysis of discrepancy data over the past 10 years does not support this assumption.

While component failures certainly influence discrepancy rates and may influence aid availability, the data does not support a direct correlation.

A temporary lighted buoy marks the wreckage of a lighted beacon, which was damaged after a vessel allision.

The Continuing Mission

To appropriately focus their resources, waterway managers must carefully measure the state of the aids to navigation systems under their purview. Aid availability rate is just one of the tools they use.

We must be mindful, however, to consider this information in perspective and in conjunction with other metrics to accurately assess overall waterway ATON health and effectiveness.

PERCENT OF DISCREPANCIES CAUSED BY COMPONENT FAILURE.

Find out more in part 2.

Full article is available at http://www.uscg.mil/proceedings/spring2011/.

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