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agement of our land, sea, and air environment. These concerns of the 
Commission are manifest in their recommendations concerning the 
coastal zone and the global environment. 
It may very well be that these concerns and the recommendations 
that stem from them will be of greater importance to our Nation and 
mankind than even the recommendations dealing with the oceans’ 
resources, important as they may be. 
While other organizations within the Department of Commerce are 
more directly concerned with economic development and the manage- 
ment of the coastal zone estuaries, ESSA now has, and will continue 
to have, a significant role in providing the necessary physical environ- 
mental information required for the proper management and control 
of coastal activities. 
For example, the management and development of the shoreline and 
continental shelf require that State and shoreline boundaries be pre- 
cisely determined. ESSA traditionally has assisted both Federal and 
State Governments in boundary determinations and is currently en- 
gaged in such determinations. 
The coastal mapping, tides, and geodetic programs of ESSA have 
been assisting the Bureau of Land Management to solve Federal juris- 
dictional boundary disputes with the States of Texas, California, and 
Louisiana. We have just launched a 5-year cooperative program with 
the State of Florida to determine shoreline boundaries needed by that 
State for its land management, conservation, and offshore resources 
development. : 
We expect such requests from States to grow as the potential for the 
development of their coastal regions increases, and we are accelerating 
our program to meet these needs. 
The Commission has proposed that Congress establish a National 
Seashore Boundary Commission to fix baselines from which territorial 
seas and areas covered by the Submerged Lands Act of 1953 may be 
measured. The objective of this proposal is sound, and it is essential 
to resolve jurisdictional disputes. 
ESSA is the Federal agency responsible for determining the tidal 
datum planes and conducting the hydrographic and geodetic surveys 
necessary for establishing baselines. It is the logical agency ‘to assist 
in providing physical and cartographic descriptions on which legal 
coastlines and baselines can be delimited. 
The Commission also recommended that necessary monitoring in- 
strumentation be developed for the coastal zone. ESSA presently mon- 
itors the coastal environment and has the observing and communica- 
tions networks and facilities that can be used as a nucleus from which 
to develop the expanded system required to meet growing local, State, 
and Federal needs. 
We now maintain tidal stations and certain of the hydrologic net- 
works used to forecast river water levels, and we conduct tidal and 
circulatory current surveys in estuarine and coastal regions. ESSA 
also has recently acquired a unique national facility, the survey ship 
Ferrel with its “TICUS” buoy system, for conducting tidal current 
surveys for safety and efficiency of navigation. 
These tidal current surveys also provide circulatory data in estuaries 
useful in determining flushing rates to assist pollution abatement con- 
trol. The Ferrel is being deployed during this year in Penobscot Bay, 
