improve his chances of surviving an accident if one should occur. 



The USCG is using part of its grant funds allocated to national 

 nonprofit public-service organizations to study and sponsor a pilot 

 program that will introduce boating safety education programs into 

 the public school systems. 



COE, DOD, affords recreational boating assistance through three 

 of its programs: aquatic plant control, small navigation projects, and 

 snagging and clearing for navigation. The Rivers and Harbors Act of 

 1965, P.L. 89-298, provides for the cooperation and assistance of the 

 COE with State and local government agencies to control obnoxious 

 aquatic plants in rivers, harbors, and allied waters through 

 specialized services and the dissemination of technical information. 

 Non-Federal interests must agree to hold the Government of the 

 United States free from damages and to finance 30 percent of the 

 costs of control operations. The program is designed to deal 

 primarily with weed infestations of major economic significance, 

 including such weeds as water hyacinth, alligator weed, elodea, 

 water milfoil, and others that constitute a known economic problem 

 of importance in the area involved. 



Small navigational projects, authorized through P.L. 86-645, 

 provide the most practicable and economic means of meeting the 

 needs of general navigation for projects not specifically authorized 

 by Congress. COE designs and constructs the project. Each project 

 selected must be technically feasible and economically justified. The 

 non-Federal sponsoring agency must (1) agree to assume full 

 responsibility for all project costs in excess of the Federal cost limit 

 of $1 million; (2) contribute toward project costs for construction 

 and maintenance of recreational benefits, land enhancement, or 

 other special local benefits; (3) provide all necessary land, 

 easements, and rights-of-way; (4) hold and save the United States 

 free from damages; and (5) provide adequate public landings or 

 wharves, piers, access roads, parking areas, and other needed public 

 facilities that will be open and available to all on equal terms. Local 

 cost participation requirements and procedures for determining the 

 local share of project cost are similar to those for navigation projects 

 specifically authorized by Congress under regular authorization 

 procedures. 



This program has become an important factor in providing for 

 boating facilities in many sections of the country, but has been of 

 particular importance in recent years in the Great Lakes system. 

 Here it has helped solve problems pertaining to boat access and safe 

 harbors, both of which are vitally important to the developing 

 salmonoid fishery of the Great Lakes. In addition to this program, the 

 navigational snagging and clearing programs of the COE, although 

 helping all aspects of marine navigation, have had an especially 



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