United
States Lake Survey
[19]
The incorporation
of the United States Lake Survey into NOAA brought another organization
with a long and colorful history to the Department of Commerce. This
Survey's activities began on March 31, 1841 when, in an effort to
support westward expansion, an Act of Congress provided $15,000 for
a "hydrographical survey of the Northern and Northwestern Lakes."
To do the job, the Lake Survey was created within the U.S. Army Topographical
Engineers which was later merged into the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Like the Commerce Department's Coast and Geodetic Survey, the Lake
Survey had responsibility for the preparation and publication of nautical
charts and other navigational aids.
The Survey,
housed in Detroit, Michigan, published its first charts in 1852 --
covering all of Lake Erie. By 1882, the Survey had completed the original
Congressional mandate, producing some 76 charts. The original Survey
was then disbanded. By 1901, however, it became clear that the original
survey and charting products required revision. For example, since
the deepest draft vessels used in the Great Lakes in the mid-late
1800's drew only 12 feet of water, the Survey's charts only showed
depths of 18 feet or less! By the early 1960's, deeper draft vessels
were in use which required additional information on waters of the
Great Lakes. So, the Lake Survey was reconstituted and its mission
expanded to include responsibility for lakes and navigable waters
of the New York State Barge Canal System, Lake Champlain and the Minnesota-Ontario
Border Lakes. In addition to traditional survey, charting, and navigation
information responsibilities, the Lake Survey also brought to NOAA
responsibilities for studies on lake levels and associated river flow.
Originally initiated to support navigational needs, the stream measuring
stations and Survey's water level and precipitation gages enabled
engineers to make six-month forecasts of lake levels and build a data
base dating back to 1860 which supported the needs of public planning
agencies and private sector interests like construction firms.
The Survey
greatly expanded this effort in 1962 with the establishment of the
Great Lakes Research Center. At the time of NOAA's creation, the Center
was conducting strong programs in coastal engineering (water
motion, including tides, currents, waves, seiches, and shore processes,
like sedimentation) and water resources (water quality, water
quantity and ice and snow conditions). This work was supported by
a suite of facilities including: the Great Lakes Regional Data Center,
a Technical Library and Instrument Office, an Ice and Snow Laboratory,
a Chemical Laboratory, and a Sedimentation Laboratory. The Lake Survey
brought all of these capabilities into the new NOAA.
National
Data Buoy Project [20]
In December
1967, the United States Coast Guard established the National Data
Buoy Development Project to develop a national system of automatic
ocean buoys to gather oceanic and atmospheric data. By the 1960's,
scientists had recognized the need for more detailed information on
environmental conditions over vast marine areas which remained largely
uncovered except for occasional observations from ships or aircraft
of opportunity, oceanographic research expeditions, or the few existing
ocean station vessels. As a result, a number of Federal agencies and
universities began programs to develop and implement networks of buoys
which could routinely and automatically report environmental conditions
like temperature, wind speed and direction, etc. Unfortunately, these
disparate efforts were largely designed to meet individual agency
or research needs.
In 1966,
the Panel on Ocean Engineering of the Interagency Committee on Oceanography,
convened a group of Federal agency representatives to address the
problems and possibilities associated with automated data buoy networks.
This group recommended a national system of ocean data buoys
and the Committee asked the Coast Guard to conduct a feasibility study.
After ten months of work, the study report made the following conclusions:
•
extensive requirements exist for oceanographic and meteorological
information to satisfy both operational and research needs in the
oceanic and Great Lakes environments;
•
automatic, moored buoys were capable of meeting a significant
portion of those needs; and that
•
a network of such buoys, would be an essential element of an overall
environmental information and prediction system. [13]
The National
Council for Marine Resources and Engineering Development (established
by the same law which created the Stratton Commission) took these
conclusions seriously and in November 1967, asked the Coast Guard
to accept lead agency responsibility for the research, development,
testing and evaluation required to support future decisions on national
data buoy systems. The National Data Buoy Development Project was
established to do the job. The Project Office drew on existing capabilities
in a number of disciplines from oceanography to communications and
began an effort to develop a single, national system capable of providing
key observations required to describe conditions in the marine environment
(including the Great Lakes). Reorganization Plan No. 4 brought this
responsibility and challenge to NOAA.
National
Oceanographic Data Center [21]
The National
Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) was established by the Department
of the Navy in 1960 to aggregate and disseminate the oceanographic
data being collected by all Federal agencies. Although established
by the Navy, NODC was actually sponsored by the ten agencies with
interests in the marine environment: the Atomic Energy Commission;
Bureau of Commercial Fisheries; Coast Guard; Coastal Engineering Research
Center; the Department of the Navy; ESSA; the Federal Water Quality
Administration; the Geological Survey; the Department of Health, Education
and Welfare; and the National Science Foundation. Policy and technical
direction for NODC was provided by an advisory body of representatives
from those agencies and the National Academy of Sciences. Established
to provide a mechanism to process, exchange and store global data
from Government, industry, academic and research organizations, NODC
brought to NOAA the world's largest useable collection of oceanographic
data. Using data received from national and international sources
(including a network of liaison offices in key regions of the country),
NODC provided a variety of services including: data processing; data
reproduction; analyses and preparation of statistical summaries; and
data record evaluation on a cost reimbursable basis. The addition
of NODC to the ESSA Environmental Data Centers provided the new NOAA
with the key components of what would become the Nation's premier
environmental data service.
