Contact: Ltjg. Sym Colovos FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(206) 553-7597 7/28/95
Jeanne Kouhestani
(202) 482-6090
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration helped chart the way for Navy, Coast Guard and NOAA ships to parade through Seattle's Elliot Bay during the spectacular Aug. 2 kickoff of the annual SEAFAIR maritime festival.
As the federal agency responsible for the nation's nautical charting, NOAA's National Ocean Service sent out a hydrographic survey party to ensure that bay waters near the piers are deep enough to safely accommodate the huge naval aircraft carrier KITTY HAWK.
During SEAFAIR, the public will have an opportunity to tour the NOAA ship SURVEYOR, which is equipped to do both oceanographic research and hydrographic surveys for nautical charting. The SURVEYOR, part of the parade of federal ships, will be open to the public at its berth at Pier 70 with an open house and tours Aug. 3-6.
Officers of the NOAA Corps, NOAA's commissioned service, will conduct group tours for VIP guests through the SURVEYOR from 8:30-11:30 Aug 3-4, additional tours for the public from 11:30- 4:00 Aug 3-4, and 8:00-4:00 Aug 5-6, to give a first-hand look at the ship's bridge, science labs, scientific and diving procedures and other NOAA Corps operations.
The four-day open house onboard the SURVEYOR will feature exhibits from several NOAA programs, including:
* a computer display, from the National Ocean Service's Pacific Hydrographic Branch (that did the recent survey of Elliot Bay for SEAFAIR);
* a computer interactive display and a surface buoy that takes simultaneous atmospheric and oceanographic data from locations spanning the equator, from the Office of Global Program's Tropical Ocean and Global Atmosphere-Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TOGA-TAO) Array program;
* an exhibit booth and subsurface buoy that measures and collects data on ocean temperature, salinity, currents, and oxygen content, from the Fisheries and Oceanic Coordinated Investigation (FOCI) program of the Office of Atmospheric Research's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory;
* a touch-tank aquarium, from the National Marine Fisheries Service's Restoration Center;
* a project display from the Elliott Bay-Duwamish River Restoration program;
* exhibit booths with photo displays from the National Weather Service and the National Ocean Service's Sanctuaries and Reserves Division; and
* information from NOAA's Western Administrative Support Center (WASC), which provides personnel for the NOAA ships.
This year the SEAFAIR maritime festival coincides with NOAA's 25th anniversary celebration. NOAA was established in 1970 to describe and predict changes in the Earth's environment and promote global environmental stewardship. The NOAA Corps is the nation's seventh, and smallest, uniformed service. NOAA Corps officers command NOAA's oceangoing fleet, fly NOAA "hurricane hunter" and environmental monitoring aircraft, work on mobile field survey parties, and serve in a variety of technical and managerial positions throughout NOAA.