Resources Research and its Office of Saline Water, supports more 

 than 20 academic and industrial research projects devoted to 

 describing and predicting the environments of coastal areas and the 

 Great Lakes. These projects deal with subjects such as water-quality 

 management; the effects of heated discharges, heavy metals, urban 

 runoff, and other pollutants on marine organisms; and improved 

 management models for estuaries and the Great Lakes. FWS 

 continues to support the Fish Pesticide Monitoring Program by 

 operating 100 monitoring stations throughout the United States. 



Icebreading operations, to facilitate domestic commerce in coastal 

 waters, have been continued by the USCG. USCG polar 

 icebreadkers, as well as smaller icebreading vessels, have helped to 

 keep marine traffic on the Great Lakes moving for longer periods of 

 the year than ever before in history. In December 1974, as part of the 

 Great Lakes Demonstration Project, a memorandum of understan- 

 ding was entered into by NASA involving the USCG C-130 Hercules 

 equipped with NASA sidelooking airborne radar and ice-thickness 

 measuring equipment. An anticipated 55-day schedule during the 

 season will allow flights to traverse the lakes, and the instruction 

 readouts will be transmitted via satellite to a USCG/NOAA ice- 

 navigation center. At the center, charts will be annotated and 

 transmitted by facsimile in real time to vessels on the lakes. Vessel 

 masters will then be able to navigate in areas containing the least ice, 

 thereby reducing transit time and the need for icebreaker assistance. 



The USCG is developing systems for pollution control and cleanup 

 and systems for all-weather pollution detection, classification, and 

 quantification from airborne and in situ platforms. The development 

 of prototype oily and sanitary wastewater systems is also un- 

 derway. 



A National Weather Service project is directed to plotting more 

 accurately the course of the Gulf Stream off the U.S. east coast from 

 Florida to the mid-Atlantic States (to 38° N). This project will 

 provide mariners with routine depictions of the Gulf Stream from 

 which they may estimate current velocities for navigation purposes. 

 Through the analysis of sea surface temperatures and bathyther- 

 mograph data, the Weather Service provides all-weather informa- 

 tion about the location of the inner wall of the Gulf Stream. Mariners 

 can then approximate the band of maximum velocity currents that 

 parallel the inner wall and thus plan their routes accordingly. USGS 

 provides raw data and the use of its broadcasting facilities to the 

 project. 



NOAA embarked on a new effort in 1974 to improve its 

 capabilities in tropical-storm surge prediction. A concerted effort is 

 being made to improve existing numerical models, develop new 

 models for application to broken coast features (for example, bays, 



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