CoOperative Charting

 What is Cooperative Charting?
      Cooperative Charting is the name of the civic service performed by the USPS in cooperation with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), administered through the National Ocean Service (NOS).

 What types of Civic Service are performed?
     All types of service in support of our nation’s charting authority. We report corrections to nautical charts, smallcraft charts, coast pilots, and related nautical documents. As a further service to mariners, NOS acts as a clearing house on boating related reports such as nonfunctioning aids to navigation - maintained by the USCG -, cable crossing reports - monitored by the U.S. Army’s Corps of Engineers , and corrections  to other government agencies charts and maps - such as The Defense Mapping Agency, - Corps of Engineers, and many others. Further, because of our success in those efforts, other parts of NOAA/NOS have requested our services, such as Aeronautical Charting, Geodesy, and the office of Earth Science - the agency which produces the tide and current books we all use).

 How Big is Our Civic Effort? 
     It has been estimated that each year, USPS contributes an estimated value of service to the government of $15 – 20 million of effort in our reporting program. In a time of decreasing NOAA budgets, this figure could increase as the requests for our services only grow as the NOAA resources shrink.

How Does USPS Efforts Benefit the Public? 
     USPS members act as field observers for NOAA. They are uniquely suited to this role because of the outstanding education and training they receive through the USPS educational program. As the number of official NOAA observers decrease with further budget cuts, USPS members report on many items that would otherwise go undetected or unreported. Many of these reports are of a critical nature requiring immediate distribution through the Coast Guard’s broadcasted or published, Local Notice to Mariners.  Without these observations, any hazards would go undetected until tragedy struck through a nautical mishap. Thus, through efforts to improve the quality of our nation’s chart’s, USPS members save lives and property. Safe boating requires accurate charts and the USPS Squadron’s are dedicated to safe boating through education and public service.

    Other reports are not so dramatic but they support NOAA’s efforts to produce quality products. This is true, too, of our efforts to supply information on non NOAA products, such as Coast Guard aids to navigation. 

    The USPS Squadrons are dedicated to safe boating. While it is true that our major and most well known efforts are through education, the Cooperative Charting Program is an integral part of the USPS, commitment to safe boating and are deserving of our support and public recognition.

   Our chairman for Co-Op Charting is Don Roman. You can contact him if you're interested in confirming/charting details of Lake Pontchartrain.  Don's number is 386-453-6456

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This page was last updated on 16 Jan 2009 11:10:21 -0500 .