The U.S. Coast Guard and the Department of Homeland Security issued an interim rule in July that requires the owners of certain vessels to purchase and install electronic gear that allows for identification, easy tracking and ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore exchanges of navigational information.
Rep. Paul Seaton, a commercial fisher who owns two fishing tenders that would be required to comply, wants Alaska's fishing boats exempted from the federal regulation, saying the new gear is too expensive and unnecessary be-cause existing onboard systems provide the most essential data already.
Called the Automatic Identifi-cation System, or AIS, the gear is intended to aid ships in avoiding collisions and protect security in the nation's ports and waterways. It also would aid vessels in complying with reporting requirements in certain locations served by monitoring systems such as the Vessel Traffic Service in Prince William Sound, where, among other things according to the Coast Guard, it would reduce the need for voice traffic between ships and shore-based vessel traffic centers.
"The AIS coverage capability and precision compared to other surveillance technology (such as radar and closed circuit television), makes it the sensor of choice for all future VTS operations," according to Coast Guard testimony in the July 1 Federal Register.
The interim rule is a result of passage of the Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002, as well as amendments to the 1974 Interna-tional Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, or SOLAS. The United States is accelerating implementation of the security act's provisions.
In Alaska, the AIS devices would be required by July 1, 2004, on certain vessels sailing in VTS areas, such as Prince William Sound. Those would include vessels longer than 65 feet, towing vessels longer than 26 feet with more than 600 horsepower, vessels weighing more than 100 gross tons and carrying one or more passengers, and vessels licensed to carry more than 50 passengers.
It also applies to vessels subject to SOLAS, such as tankers or passenger vessels carrying more than 12 people in international waters.
According to Seaton, however, it also would be required on fishing vessels transiting Southeast Alaska waters, such as boats heading to Puget Sound (another VTS-governed water body) for repairs, as well as Outside fishing vessels heading north to Alaska.
Eventually, Seaton said, the AIS requirement would be applied to all qualifying vessels in all domestic waters.
According to the Coast Guard, the intention is to "expand the safety and security benefits of AIS by extending the shore-tracking surveillance capability throughout our nation's waterways as a major element of maritime domain awareness and homeland security."
Further, the Maritime Transportation Security Act allows Home-land Security Secretary Tom Ridge to require an AIS system on any vessel if deemed necessary for safe navigation.
Just how many boats and ships plying Alaska waters would be affected is not known, but a list likely would include fishing boats, pleasure craft, shipping vessels and tankers, according to terms of the interim rule. In Homer Harbor alone there are roughly 50 boats more than 65 feet long that home port there. A quick survey of various classes of vessels noted by the Coast Guard in the Federal Register testimony indicated the number would be in the thousands nationwide. The Coast Guard estimated the cost to boat owners for purchase, installation and training at $66 million nationally.
The devices themselves cost about $7,000, according to the Coast Guard. Annual maintenance is estimated at $250, and they would be expected to need replacement after eight years. The U.S. Coast Guard estimated the first-year cost would be around $9,330 when training and installation are considered.
But is it worth the cost to insist the devices be on smaller vessels such as fishing boats and passenger vessels that are not cruising internationally and not subject to SOLAS rules? Testimony by Coast Guard officials published in the Federal Register in July casts some doubt, at least insofar as navigational safety is concerned.
A risk analysis conducted by the Coast Guard compared the types of accidents the AIS system is designed to reduce to the incident record of the non-SOLAS fleet, finding that typical accidents in that group did not result in severe damage, significant pollution or loss of life.
The Coast Guard concluded "the cost of the AIS installation for the domestic fleet far outweighs the benefit over a 15-year period."
Seaton said the cost isn't warranted for such slow, cumbersome, domestic fishing vessels as his two tenders. Alaska fishing vessels are often in voice communications with each other and with shore, and many already have onboard transponders feeding information about once a minute to the National Marine Fisheries about their location, course and speed. That monitoring system applies to anyone who has a federal fisheries permit and fishes Pacific code, and is, essentially, a fisheries law enforcement tool, Seaton said.
The AIS would broadcast its information about every six seconds, not only about basic navigation parameters, but also, according to the Coast Guard, a vessel's call sign, name, identification number, dimension and type, draft, cargo type, destination, estimated time of arrival, universal time, latitude, longitude, course over ground, speed over ground, heading, rate of turn and navigational status.
In addition, shore stations would be able to relay pertinent navigational data from other sources, such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Physical Oceanographic Real Time System.
Seaton said information beyond position, speed and direction would be of little use to fishers navigating crowded fishing grounds, where onboard radar and vessel-to-vessel voice communications suffice. For about $500, he said, some radar systems can be upgraded to provide collision-avoidance information as well.
There's no secret about his boat's cargo, either, Seaton said.
"We have fish. That's it," he said.
Seaton said as he understands it, AIS-influenced radar screens would show markers for each vessel with information like pop-up menus on a computer screen. On crowded fishing grounds, that might be too much information, he said.
If a driving force behind the new requirement is national security, Seaton said, then he questions the likelihood that terrorists would seize a vessel with a top speed of around 8 knots. He noted that the USS Cole was damaged in Yemen in 2000 by terrorists in a high-speed boat, not a slow-moving fishing tender.
"Hopefully, they will exempt fishing vessels operating in state waters," he said, noting the added cost would be a hardship in a suffering fishing industry.
Other vessel owners and marine organizations from around the country submitting comments on the rule offered similar criticism.
Michael Glasfeld, president of Spirit Marine, a Boston-based operator of 14 harbor cruise dinner vessels in ports around the U.S., said regulatory measures applied to large vessels were not justified for vessels of his industry's type and said he agreed with the Coast Guard's own economic analysis showing a negative cost-benefit ratio.
"Indeed, at a potential cost of $140,000 for the implementation in our fleet alone, the AIS proposition poses a considerable problem to our organization. The cost of such a system is, in fact, greater than our margins of profit in recent years."
He went on to say the idea that AIS on board cruise dinning vessels would increase security was "fundamentally flawed."
Robert Alverson is manager of the Seattle-based Fishing Vessel Owners' Association, which represents some 90 vessels, including many in the 54- to 85-foot range, some of which fish Alaska waters. He said the cost wasn't justified. But because their vessels transit Puget Sound ‹ a VTS area ‹ they would be required to install the gear.
"The use of the system would be very limited for our boats," he said. "It would be used twice ‹ once when they leave in the spring and again when they return in the fall."
He also predicted that vessel owners from elsewhere would seek repair work in non-VTS ports rather than install the equipment, a circumstance that would hurt the Seattle marine economy. He called for an economic impact study and noted there were more than 1,400 boats in the halibut fleet alone.
"In our view," said Garvey Barer of the North Pacific Fishing Industry Maritime Security Coalition, "the Coast Guard's cost-benefit analysis demonstrates that, rather than being expanded, the existing AIS carriage rule should be amended, at a minimum, to exempt occasional domestic users of the VTS system from the AIS requirement."
The National Association of Charterboat Operators, located in Alabama, represents more than 3,300 charter boat owners and operators from Alaska to the Gulf of Mexico to Maine. Bob Zales, chair of the association, said it was clear "that the risk associated with our vessels is extremely minimal at best." He called for the exemption of charter boats.
On the Kenai Peninsula, boaters associations are eying the new rule.
Roland Maw, executive director of the United Cook Inlet Drift Association, said the association had not taken a position, but speaking as its director, he said association members operate small vessels in domestic waters and there was no need for the AIS system.
"This is simply an unnecessary additional expense that people cannot afford," he said. "This is an example of a solution looking for a problem."
Tim Evers, president of the Deep Creek Charter Boat Association, which represents 55 members and more than 100 boats, said he discussed the issue with other charter operators and received some information about the new rule from the National Association of Charterboat Operators, with which the Deep Creek association is linked. As yet, however, the Deep Creek group has reached no decision on where it stood, Evers said.
Members of the public who wish to submit comments may do so online at http://dmses.dot.gove/submit by referring to docket number 2003-14878, or by fax to Docket Management Facility at (202) 366-9329. Comments are due by Sept. 29.
