The Coast Guard’s Northeast District announced this week that they were revisiting the planned removal of some 100 buoys and channel makers between New York Harbor and the Canadian border. The move follows the initial announcement last May, which called for a public comment period. More that 3,000 comments were submitted from private and commercial mariners.
The new comment period reflects the modification of the buoy removal plan and seeks to further tailor the plan to the public’s needs in concert with the Coast Guard’s mission to modernize their buoy system. There are 5,460 buoys under the Northeast District’s Water Management Office.
“The most critical buoys we have are the ones that reduce the most risk for mariners. They mark rocks or shoals, mark the entrance to harbors, organize traffic – 80% to 85% of all of our buoys fall into that category of the highest risk reducers,” Matthew Stuck, the Northeast District’s chief of waterways management, told BoatU.S. Magazine.
“Every buoy is important to someone. We know that. But they don’t all provide that same level of risk reduction in the most critical places, and that’s really what these efforts are about.”
With the almost universal adoption, both private and commercial, of digital, satellite navigation, a certain percentage of the buoy system is redundant at best and obsolete at worst. The new comment period is designed to identify the difference between the two.
“The rationale is that these select buoys may be less necessary, and over time, fewer markers to maintain helps ensure maintenance resources best support the most critical navigational aids,” Stuck says.
