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New police boat to help Coast Guard

by Douglas Gould on May 21, 2010

New Suffolk police boat to help Coast Guard

Gosh, so many reactions to this news piece. I love this headline, “… to help Coast Guard.” Gee, when did the City of Suffolk, VA. Police last help the Coast Guard execute a MARB? No, I don’t mean respond to a MARB, I mean make the broadcast. That would actually be helping the CG, wouldn’t it? As in, help the CG implement current CG policy. Shoot, that doesn’t go down on the rolls as a rescue. No rescues this year, no Fed dollars next year. No Fed dollars means no more cool blue boats.

(Ed note: the City of Suffolk is at the head of the Nansemond River, about 20 miles from Hampton Roads, VA. The  article refers to that city, not to be confused with Suffolk County, NY, which is the eastern half of Long Island, where I grew up, and is the home of SeaTow International HQ. I refer to both Suffolks in this post. Try and keep up, ok?)

Since when does the CG need help? What kind of help? Help policing the waterways, like Homeland Security stuff? The Police in Suffolk County, NY, have a whole fleet of these SAFE boats. Are there so many terrorists threatening to blow up the Smith’s Point Bridge? Does the CG need help stopping all the illegal Cubans and Haitians sneaking over the dunes at Dune Road? We’re talking Suffolk County now; you know, The Hamptons, Fire Island, Shelter Island? Not giant security threats like NYC or Washington, DC.

Ok, maybe the CG needs help responding to boaters in distress? Out of gas? Dead Battery? Too cheap to pay for a tow back home? Those are the kinds of distress calls that the Suffolk County PD respond to with their SAFE boats, along with legitimate emergencies. Will the City of Suffolk be any different? How do we stop our these government agencies from competing with our business?

Lets start with the funding for this boat, as mentioned in the article:

The boat was paid for a grant from the U.S. Coast Guard with the understanding that it would be used regionally, said spokeswoman Debbie George.

OH WELL, as long as it is used regionally….thank god that the City of Suffolk agreed not to use the boat in another region. Without that understanding, what is to stop the City Police from acting like Cops on Spring Break and helping boaters in New Jersey or something….

With the hype from this year’s CPORT meeting about the full, solid Quality Partnership our industry signed with the USCG, you would think we could get them to act like our partner and attach some strings to all the dough they are handing out. The strings I am thinking of are pretty simple. I think the USCG should expect, in writing, that the local agencies will adhere to Coast Guard policy about non-emergency cases with these boats that are purchased with Federal money and have a potential to adversely effect out industry. I’m not suggesting that the locals (like harbormasters) shouldn’t have these nice new boats, only that the USCG should make it clear that if local agencies are going to get USCG grant money for a rescue boat, it comes with a stipulation about non-emergency use, and the definition of non-emergency should be as outlined in the MSAP, not some local boat driver’s idea.

If you are a member of CPORT, why not call one of the board of directors and discuss this issue. If you are seeing boats like this pop up in your AOR, mention your concern to CPORT.

Most of you are aware of the problems with public agencies competing in Southern California. These SAFE boats have t he potential to spread that issue all over the country.

That’s my .02.

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Going out on a limb

by Douglas Gould on April 11, 2010

I’m going to go out on a limb. I mean it. Don’t think I won’t, ’cause I will. I am going on a real bender; around the bend. I am going to jump off the cliff.  One giant step for the blogosphere, one small stumble for me.

Oh my god Doug, get to the point — please! See, I can read your mind… If I can do that, maybe I have a point with this next post? Read on…

You see, the thing is, I have too much time on my hands. And it’s tax season; never a good time to contemplate how your tax dollars are spent. It doesn’t matter who you are, or what your political strain is, some of your tax dollars are getting spent someplace that you wish they weren’t, right? And I read the Coast Guard news feed, which during king crab season seems filled with stories of daring rescues up in the Bering Sea. USCG Helos and Cutters and Big Ships and radios and… well, you’ve seen all the drama on Deadliest Catch.

Imagine a different show: Dirtiest Cargo. It’s all about these huge tankers that ply the world’s oceans filled with crude oil, and the crews that run them. This week’s episode is about a huge tanker, the Monolith Oiler, who’s Third Mate tries an uncharted shortcut through Prince William Sound and hits Bligh Reef, splitting her open and dumping a gazillion gallons of Alaska’s finest goo into the bay. Before the first commercial break, we watch as the crew calls the USCG with the bad news. The tension builds as the narrator speculates how long it will take USCG to show up with a fleet of barges, tugs, pumps, oil skimmers, boom boats, eight miles of containment boom, 600 HazMat trained beach-clean-up crew and 100 bird biologists to the scene. Will they get there in time? ….. (insert fried chicken ad here)

After the commercial break, we learn that the Monolith Oiler contacted the USCG as a paperwork formality, and that resources from Alyeska are responding to the scene to. Alyeska is a private company owned by a consortium 5 oil companies:

Alyeska Pipeline spends over $60 million annually to oil spill prevention and response in Prince William Sound, and has dedicated over 300 personnel to this effort, mostly through its Ship Escort/Response Vessel System (SERVS). Created in July 1989, SERVS is considered one of the best oil spill prevention and response forces in the world. The SERVS mission is three fold: prevention, preparation, and response. Each laden tanker is escorted through Prince William Sound to the Gulf of Alaska by response vessels capable of assisting a distressed tanker. Oil spill response equipment has been pre-stationed throughout the Sound for rapid response.

“Created in July 1989″…. It’s not a coincidence that date is just three months after the Exxon Valdez hit Bligh Reef on March 24, 1989. That mess was the impetus for creating SERVS. Alyeska was around before the Exxon Valdez wreck, but their capacity and state of readiness was more on paper than actually on the docks; 10 million gallons of goo got everyone’s attention though, and SERVS was born.

A slight digression here. There is some debate about whether the oil companies continue to shirk their responsibility to maintain a goo-free zone up in Prince William Sound (which is what they agreed to when they were granted permission to build the pipeline). SERVS makes for great press, but just like the oil business, if you dig too deep, you might get a dry well. I don’t want to debate that now. There is no debate, however, about the funding concept. No one thinks that the USCG should spend $60 million annually to mitigate the goo-risk for one small group of very profitable oil companies. Please don’t go to the “goo is harmless so it’s all the tree-huggers fault” argument. Can’t we just agree that 10 million gallons of goo is supposed to stay inside the tanker? End digression.

Are you reading my mind now? There are less than 100 boats fishing for King Crab in Alaska [2009 stats]:

Fish and Game at Dutch Harbor said 93 boats pre-registered for the red king crab fishery, and 62 dropped pots on opening day. The guideline harvest at Bristol Bay is 16 million pounds of red king crab, a drop of almost 22% from 2008. Another 1.2 million pounds of blue king crab can be harvested at St. Matthew Island this year, the first opener there for a decade…. According to the Inter-Cooperative Exchange (ICE), which represents nearly 70% of the king and snow crab caught in the Bering Sea, crabbers approved an advance price of $4.67/lb for red king crab.

Do the math with me…. 16 millions pounds at $4.67/lb = $74.7 million. Divide by 93 boats = just over $800k per boat. That is red crab only. They’ll get another $2.40/lb for blue crab. Figure a gross of $1 million per boat. 93 boats. I guarantee you there are more than 93 tankers going through Prince William Sound every year.

So, what am I proposing? Why don’t the Crab fishermen fund their own rescue agency? How is their business model drastically different from the oil company’s? A few companies taking BIG risks to exploit a resource for profit. Pumping oil or fishing crab; what’s the difference?

But who is underwriting the mitigation of the risk? For the crab fishermen, it’s the taxpayers, in the form of a huge Coast Guard expenditure for SAR in the Bering Sea. How can you argue that those USCG dollars aren’t subsidizing the full costs of running 93 boats?

I know, I’m comparing saving beaches to bodies. But the crab fishermen aren’t taking just ordinary run-of-the-mill risks; they are choosing to go way out on the edge, the fishing equivalent of climbing Mt Everest. If they are going to take those kinds of risk for a profit, then let their rescues be funded out of that profit.

I told you I was going out on a limb.

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Maybe they DON’T have the right of way?

Follow up to last week’s post about the City of Dana Point making up some rules that conflict with the Inland Rules or COLREGS. I wrote that the only place in the Rules that refers to human powered craft was in Rule 25, where there is a reference to “a vessel under oars” showing the [...]

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March 20, 2010 Read the full article →

Maine ski resort to charge for 9 rescues

Maine ski resort to charge for 9 rescues | The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram. It’s been a long hiatus for RRR, but we’re back. This story goes to an old topic of mine – charging for rescue services by gov’t agencies…. More later!

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March 4, 2010 Read the full article →

Fines for hiker rescue in New Hampshire

Maine Daily News – Portland Maine News | Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram. CONCORD, N.H. — New Hampshire plans to fine a Massachusetts teenager for the cost of rescuing him from Mount Washington in April. A planned day hike turned into three nights alone in the woods for Scott Mason, a 17-year-old Eagle [...]

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July 18, 2009 Read the full article →

Block Island Town weighs in on “fee for rescue” issue.

Most of you know that I run a towboat out on Block Island each summer (see About Me Page). Today, the Block Island Times reports that the town is considering charging for the services provided by the volunteer Rescue Squad. [click here for complete story] Rescue Squad may charge for services 05/16/09 – With the [...]

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May 18, 2009 Read the full article →