would often risk running aground unless they had extremely 

 accurate charts of bottom depths and contours. Such exact and 

 detailed charts do not exist. Erecting the terminals farther off shore 

 in deeper water would solve this problem but, because construction 

 and operating costs increase progressively with distance from shore 

 and depth of water, this solution is economically unfeasible. 



One of the objectives of the charting program of NOAA's National 

 Ocean Survey is to provide special format navigation charts and 

 tidal current charts for each terminal or superport before it becomes 

 operational. Because of the importance of these installations and the 

 danger of oil spills, detailed hydrographic and possibly wire-drag 

 surveys of all proposed sites and the fairways leading to and from 

 the terminal areas are being planned. As tidal currents are also 

 critical to terminal and ship operations, extensive tide and current 

 surveys will be made. 



In the meantime, an attempt is being made to make the best use of 

 presently available data and of survey efforts now in progress. Some 

 2,700 hydrographic charts, prepared in non-machine-readable form 

 before 1965, are being digitized by the National Climatic Center. The 

 National Ocean Survey is currently conducting hydrographic 

 surveys in Prince William Sound, Cook Inlet, and Shelikof Strait, 

 Alaska, and Puget Sound, Washington. These surveys were 

 programed in anticipation of increased Alaskan maritime activity 

 and mineral exploration. 



NOAA nautical charts covering the Gulf of Mexico and other areas 

 where the Bureau of Land Management is selling mineral leases have 

 been overprinted, or are being compiled as the need arises, with 

 designated navigational fairways and oil field blocks delineated by 

 special symbols. 



Other charting projects include coastal surveys and the 

 preparation of charts for the use of coastal shipping and recreational 

 boating interests. In this connection a total of eight National Ocean 

 Survey vessels have been scheduled to conduct operations in U.S. 

 coastal waters, and one will be employed in nautical surveys in the 

 Great Lakes. 



NOAA also supports an R&D program to improve the quality of its 

 charts and to lower their production costs. One of these efforts has 

 provided a method for expediting the production of charts of certain 

 warmwater areas. Research in the use of colored aerial photographs 

 for charting purposes has made it possible to rapidly and 

 economically survey semitropical waters containing only a 

 minimum of suspended sediment. Bathymetric mapping by 

 photogrammatic means, however, is not at present suitable for use in 

 most waters of the temperate zone. 



Another project is directed to adapting orthophoto techniques and 

 random dot printing to the production of. harbor charts. 



67 



