Coast Guard to Revolutionize Communication with Boaters
WASHINGTON, Sept. 24, 2002–As the U.S. Coast Guard braces for a massive shift in becoming a focal point of the proposed Department of Homeland Security, it also is about to dramatically overhaul its search and rescue communication system.
The Coast Guard announced Tuesday a $611 million contract to modernize its 30-year-old system of responding to mariners in distress. By improving search and rescue capacity, the new National Distress and Response System Modernization Project, or “Rescue 21,” will improve the Coast Guard’s ability to enforce maritime laws, reduce damage to the marine environment, and respond to mayday calls from boaters, according to U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Thomas H. Collins.
Using “Rescue 21,” a mariner in distress will make the equivalent of a “911” call for help, and the Coast Guard will be able to pinpoint the location of the caller, identify the closest rescue vessels and send help.
“‘Rescue 21’ will help us to overcome current challenges we have, challenges meaning blind spots in communication,” said Phyllis Gamache-Jensen, Public Affairs Chief for the First District Coast Guard, which oversees operations in Gloucester.
The new system also will help the Coast Guard discern between legitimate and illegitimate mayday calls.
“The Northeast has been plagued with fake distress calls for many years,” said Gamache-Jensen.
Under the current system, the Coast Guard communicates with mariners by way of radio transmitters, receivers, antenna high sites, and transmission lines. The current communication system covers the U.S. coastline, including the Great Lakes and other interior waterways, out to approximately 20 nautical miles from shore.
However, there are gaps in communication and the Coast Guard is unable to hear distress calls along the 95,000-mile-long U.S. coastline.
Once fully deployed, the new system will reduce those gaps from about 14 percent to less than 2 percent, according to General Dynamics, the Arizona company awarded the contract for developing the system.
“[‘Rescue 21’] will take the ‘search’ out of search and rescue,” said Admiral Collins.
The award announcement comes amid criticism that the Coast Guard has diverted many of its resources from search and rescue, as well as regulating fishing fleets, to preventing terrorism at the nation’s ports.
However, at a Department of Transportation press conference, Collins vehemently disputed these claims.
“If there’s any question that the Coast Guard might be abandoning search and rescue do to our increasing homeland security measures, let this $611 million contract be the clear answer to that question,” Collins said.
The system design comprises ground-based installations at approximately 270 Coast Guard facilities, more than 300 radio towers, new communications equipment on 657 Coast Guard vessels and 3,000 portable radios.
Boaters will use the same radios they have today to communicate with the Coast Guard.
General Dynamics will field-test the new system in Maryland and New Jersey in 2003, and it is expected to be completed across the United States by 2006.
Published in The Gloucester Daily News, in Massachusetts
