NOAA to expand Alaska nautical charts

Petroleum News

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is embarking on a major effort to improve nautical chart coverage for some of Alaska’s most remote waters.

NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey plans to create 14 new charts to complement existing chart coverage. Several of the charts will cover areas stretching from the Alaska Peninsula northward into the Arctic Ocean.

NOAA sees improved charts as an imperative as Arctic ice diminishes.

“As multi-year sea ice continues to disappear, vessel traffic in the Arctic is on the rise,” said Rear Adm. Gerd Glang, NOAA Coast Survey director. “This is leading to new maritime concerns about adequate charts, especially in areas increasingly transited by the offshore oil and gas industry and cruise liners.”

Glang continued: “Given the lack of emergency response infrastructure in remote Arctic waters, nautical charts are even more important to protect lives and fragile coastal areas.”

NOAA charts and publications provide mariners with the latest information on water depth, aids to navigation, shorelines and other features.

“But many regions of Alaska’s coastal areas have never had full bottom bathymetric surveys, and some haven’t had more than superficial depth measurements since Captain Cook explored the northern regions in the late 1700s,” NOAA said in a Feb. 26 press release.

“Ships need updated charts with precise and accurate measurements,” said Capt. Doug Baird, chief of Coast Survey’s marine chart division. “We don’t have decades to get it done. Ice diminishment is here now.”

NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey is the nation’s nautical chartmaker, originally formed by President Thomas Jefferson in 1807. The office updates charts, surveys the coastal seafloor, responds to maritime emergencies and searchers for underwater hazards to navigation. Coast Survey has a blog at noaacoastsurvey.wordpress.com.

—Wesley Loy