The HSRP recommends that NOAA work within the CMTS to establish consistent federal datums and NOAA should pursue a leadership role in coordinating these efforts. Programs such as V-datum and Height Modernization must be fully funded.

The HSRP recommends that NOAA work within the CMTS to require full bottom coverage surveys following regular channel maintenance, and upon the completion of all navigation projects in federally maintained channels, anchorages and approaches to piers and berths.

The HSRP recommends that NOAA work within the CMTS to require the regular monitoring and publishing of water depths in approaches and alongside piers, either by the federal government, public port authority, or private terminal operator. This information should be provided to NOAA for possible inclusion on charts, coast pilots or other navigation tools, as well as published in notice to mariners. This requirement should be enforced by the local USCG Captain of the Port.

The HSRP recommends that NOAA work within the CMTS to require hydrographic surveys upon completion of artificial fish havens and other dumping permits in navigable waters. If permits allow dumping over time, then hydrographic surveys should be required at periodic intervals to ensure compliance with the permit terms for safety of navigation.  Placement of fish havens and dumping sites should not interfere with navigation safety.

The HSRP recommends that NOAA work within the CMTS to encourage involved Federal Agencies to complete an inventory of federal products and services that support the MTS. NOAA has already undertaken this inventory of its Navigation Services for the HSRP and also has completed an inventory of its programs that are included in the ‘backbone” of the proposed Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS). Agencies should then look for areas of overlapping services and coordinate to improve efficiency thereby increasing the return on public investments.

The HSRP recommends that NOAA work within the CMTS to broaden funding for navigation projects to provide for re-evaluation of aids to navigation, hydrographic surveying, and updating the waterway’s hydrographic model for accurate water level and current information.

The HSRP recommends that NOAA work within the CMTS to encourage the federal government to continue to accelerate the completion of the backlog of hydrographic surveys. NOAA needs more resources to increase in-house and contracting for hydrographic services.

The HSRP recommends that NOAA work within the CMTS to balance its resources including partnership efforts with other federal agencies, to produce its hydrographic products. For example, to produce a navigational chart, NOAA needs to balance its efforts between surveying, charting, shoreline and other production elements. Funding for the Marine Charting Division must be coordinated up with funding for hydrographic surveys, otherwise a backlog of survey data will simply back up “in the can” because NOAA does not have the resources to compile the chart. Not only is this inefficient, it gives rise to potential liability from accidents where it can be shown that NOAA had knowledge of hazards to navigation but did not disseminate this information to mariners. NOAA’s ability to balance its resources is crippled by earmarks.

The HSRP recommends that NOAA work within the CMTS to accelerate the production of its ENC database to complete work in sufficient time to meet ENC carriage requirement implementation.

The HSRP recommends that NOAA review the ESF Table and its Homeland Security Capabilities Matrix for completeness regarding NOAA's All-Hazards Response and Recovery capabilities. NOAA must add all hydrographic services such as fully equipped, self-contained Navigation Response Teams (NRT) to the ESF Table (#5 Emergency Management) or these critical capabilities may not be available for future emergencies.

The HSRP recommends that NOAA assess the readiness of its response and recovery capabilities for all of its mandated emergency support functions. This Assessment should include a review of NOAA's capabilities to execute each of the five Incident Command System (ICS) functional areas: Command/Management, Planning/Intelligence, Operations, Logistics, and Finance/Administration.  

The HSRP recommends that NOAA fully train its Incident Command Center and response and recovery personnel in all aspects of the Incident Command System and that NOAA fully participate with its other federal agency partners to ensure NOAA's unique emergency response and recovery role and capabilities are fully utilized in any federal response.

The HSRP recommends that NOAA undertake additional work to expand and clarify its guidance on the agency's interaction with maritime industry and other local coastal resources stakeholders. This guidance should include, at a minimum: 1) Prior to an emergency, identify and contact the local maritime industry and coastal zone stakeholders that are users of or otherwise concerned with NOAA's primary Mission Essential Functions (PMEF) 2) The development of procedures and guidance for these stakeholders and the appropriate NOAA representatives to coordinate emergency response and recovery efforts. 

The HSRP recommends that NOAA identify and, whenever possible, recover significant unbudgeted expense incurred by NOAA's navigation services programs in responding to natural and man-made disasters. The HSRP notes that NOAA must recoup significant unbudgeted expenses incurred in the provision of emergency response and recovery operations or the agency will not be able to sufficiently execute its primary mission essential functions for navigation services.

The HSRP supports NOAA's proposed approach for the NOAA Fleet Recapitalization Study including in house and outsourced capability.