407. OFFICE OF WATER RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY: OWRT 



OWRT was established in 1974 by a merger of the former office 

 of Saline Water (OSW) and the Office of Water Resources Research 

 (OWRR). It performs water resources research and development activi- 

 ties; administers the university Water Resources Research Institutes 

 (WRRI); and operates the Wrightsville Beach Test Facility (WBTF), 

 a world center of research on saline water conversion and 

 engineering. 



408. UNITED STATES FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE: USF&WS 

 Antecedents of USF&WS date back to the establishment of a Fish 



Commission in 187 1. First established as an independent agency, it 

 was later transferred to the Department of Commerce. A second prede- 

 cessor agency, the Bureau of Biological Survey, had been established 

 in the Department of Agriculture. In 1939 the two bureaus were 

 placed in the Department of Interior, where they merged into one 

 agency renamed the Fish and Wildlife Service (F&WS); in 1956 it was 

 renamed the Fish and Wildlife Service, and two Bureaus, the Bureaus 

 of Commercial Fisheries (BCF) and Sport Fisheries and Wildlife (BSFW) 

 were established within the Service. In 1970, BCF was transferred 

 to the newly created NOAA in 1974, BSFW was renamed the Fish and 

 Wildlife Service. 



It is responsible for wild birds, mammals (except certain commer- 

 cially important mammals), inland sport fisheries, and selected 

 fishery research activities. It sponsors the Fish and Wildlife 

 Reference Service (FWRS), a bibliographic data base that provides 

 support to programs concerned with fish and wildlife conservation 

 and restoration. Its Office of Biological Services (OBS) is respon- 

 sible for the National Coastal Ecosystems Team (NCET). 



409. UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY: USGS 



Established in 1879, USGS is responsible for collecting, 

 analyzing, and publishing detailed information about the Nation's 

 mineral, land, and water resources. It is one of the Government's 

 foremost mapping agencies, responsible for detailed topographic 

 mapping and for maintaining the National Cartographic Information 

 Center (NCIC). 



It provides hydrologic information and understanding needed for 

 the optimum use and management of the Nation's water resources. The 

 Office of Water Data Coordination (OWDC) in USGS maintains the Na- 

 tional Water Data Exchange (NAWDEX), a computerized data system that 

 identifies sources of water data; the Master Water Data Index (MWDI), 

 which identifies sites for which water data are available and the 

 types of water data at each site; the Water Data Sources Directory 

 (WDSD), which identifies agencies or organizations having water data; 

 and the National Water Data Storage and Retrieval System (WATSTORE), 

 which provides access to all types of water data. 



USGS enforces Department of the Interior regulations on leasing of 

 Federal oil, gas, geothermal, and mineral resources including those 

 on the Continental Shelf. It classifies these areas by their value 

 for leasable minerals and evaluates them for tract selection or 

 reserve inventory purposes. It supervises the operations of private 

 industry on leases in public domains. It sponsored Continental 

 Offshore Stratigraphic Tests (COST) in selected offshore sites. It 

 maintains an Outer Continental Shelf Events File (OCSEF) to collect 

 and organize oil spill and accident data. 



USGS has the responsibility for EROS — the Earth Resources Observa- 

 tion System, a program to develop techniques to obtain and analyze 

 remotely-sensed satellite data and data from aircraft imagery for 



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