Editorial: Coast Guard Should Revolutionize Navigation

Madness is often described as doing the same thing over and over again, while expecting a different result. It strikes us that the Coast Guard is on the verge of doing something over again which will produce the same result—when it could, instead, revolutionize navigation on the Western Rivers. We’re talking about 19th century technology. We’re talking about river buoys.

The Coast Guard maintains a system of aids to navigation on the nation’s waterways. On the Western Rivers, these are relatively simple, visual aids. Buoys are no more, no less than a visual indication of the limits of a safe way along the river. They do not mark every hazard. They do not indicate the available depth of water. They only serve to represent the approximate limits of either a nine-foot or a 12-foot channel. Due to servicing cycles, they are generally placed in anticipation of changing river conditions, based on experience and often in consultation with the users of the system (towboat pilots).

River buoys are a low-tech system and a decidedly limited means of providing navigation information. There are about 12,000 buoys on the Western Rivers on average. The number varies seasonally and changes in response to events such as floods and low water. Each buoy costs the taxpayers approximately $400. That’s about $5 million worth of equipment. River buoys are considered expendable. Unlike ocean buoys, they are not overhauled and reconditioned on a regular cycle. They simply stay on the river until they disappear or are damaged beyond further use. In a good year, at least in recent history, the Coast Guard has replaced about 20 percent of the river buoys. In a bad year, the number could approach 50 percent.

But even $2.5 million—if they have to replace half of them—is a drop in the federal fiscal bucket, until you consider the long term and the Coast Guard’s claim that it is chronically underfunded.

And what about the servicing units? There are 18 buoy tenders, each manned by a crew of 13, which are paid and provided benefits. There is an extensive support organization to ensure that the crews are indeed paid, and provided benefits and logistic support. Real property is required, too. Mooring and support facilities are located throughout the river system. None of this is cheap.

The buoy tenders are currently being maintained and some replacements may be in the works, a Coast Guard spokesman said this week.

We’re used to river buoys, in spite of their inherent limitations and questionable reliability. But along came Congress in 2004 with a mandate that, in the name of public safety, all towboats be equipped with electronic navigation systems. River buoys must not be up to the task. Why else should we be anticipating a new regulation requiring an Electronic Chart System (ECS) sometime after the new year? What will the new ECS do for rivermen that buoys don’t already do? Will the new ECS equipment provide a visual indication of a safe way along the rivers? If not, then why have the ECS at all?

At the same time that one part of the Coast Guard is preparing regulatory requirements for ECS equipment on towboats (rules to be in place by 2007 and the requirement to actually have the equipment on the boats would come later), another part of the Coast Guard is busy justifying funding to renovate or replace its existing fleet of river buoy tenders—to set the buoys that should be made obsolete by “virtual buoys” displayed on the new equipment.

This strikes us as a little maddening. Instead of replacing or renovating the river buoy tender fleet to support 19th century technology, the Coast Guard should be developing, funding and deploying the infrastructure necessary to fulfill the promise of 21st century technology. All that is needed is a reliable way to obtain and disseminate navigation information electronically. Not a difficult concept. Experiments have been going on with electronic charts since the 1980s.

Will the Coast Guard continue to do the same things the same way? We hope they won’t but are betting they will.

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