Meeting Minutes
UNOLS COUNCIL – Phone/Web Conference
Wednesday and Thursday, June 21 & 22, 2006, 1:00 pm – 4:00 PM EDT (each day)
A copy of these minutes can be downloaded as a pdf <200606cncmi.pdf>
Executive Summary -
The UNOLS Council convened a phone/web conference on June 21 and 22, 2006. This conference served as the summer meeting. The primary focus of the meeting was to review the UNOLS Subcommittee draft document that recommends a process for considering ship lay-ups and early retirements. It was agreed that UNOLS would provide criteria and values to the federal agencies. The agencies in turn would use these to develop recommendations regarding ship non-operational periods. A UNOLS Subcommittee of un-conflicted members would review and respond to the agency recommendations. Following the phone/web meeting, revisions, based on the Council comments, were incorporated into the document and circulated for Council approval. Peter Wiebe then prepared a cover letter forwarding the draft document and criteria/values to Mike Reeve. The final document on “Criteria and Process for Recommending Non-Operational Periods in the UNOLS Fleet” was circulated to the UNOLS membership.
Other Council items reviewed and discussed included:
· Ship time demand for 2007 along with agency budget projections
· Annual Meeting plans
· Council approval of the Criteria for Adding New Assets to the National Deep Submergence Facility (NDSF)
· Council approval of the addition of ABE/Sentry to the NDSF.
· Committee and Subcommittee activities
· FOFC Fleet Renewal Update and FIC Fleet Improvement Plan Update
· UNOLS objectives, priorities and goals for 2006/2007
Action Items
| New Items |
|
| Recommendations for Non-Operational periods of ships in UNOLS Fleet: · Finalize white paper on criteria and process. · Provide agency reps with criteria and values · Appoint Sub-Committee on non-operators · Implement process |
· McNutt, Collins, Gardner, and Ortner with input from Council · Council · Peter Wiebe · Sub-Committee |
| Arrange for an Annual Meeting Keynote Speaker back-up plan |
Peter Wiebe and Office |
| Invite speaker on Scientific Ethics, the impact of research activities (Lee Kimball, IUCN) |
Peter Wiebe, Cindy Van Dover, Office |
| Establish priorities and goals for 2007. |
Council, Office, & Committees |
| Finalize Council March Minutes – review and provide comments to Office by 6/30/06. |
Council and Office |
| Addition of ABE/Sentry to the NDSF: · Send UNOLS recommendation to NSF, ONR, NOAA · Send announcement to Community · Revise ship time request form with check-box for ABE |
· Wiebe and Kelley · Kelley and Office · Office |
| DESSC nominations - Send letters to Mike Tryon and Marsh Youngbluth appointing them to DESSC. |
Peter Wiebe |
| Continuing Items |
|
| Review draft UNOLS brochure and provide comments to Peter Wiebe. |
Council |
| 2006 Council Nominations: • Prepare Slate for Council approval (July 06) |
Tim Cowles, Wilf Gardner, and Margo Edwards |
| Follow-up on USFWS importation regulations. |
Peter Ortner |
| Implement priorities and goals for 2006, especially finding ways to improve communications with the community. |
Council, Office, Agencies, & Committees |
| Mooring locations, release codes, set up information page/database in protected Web location |
Office |
Appendices
| I |
|
| II |
|
| III |
Guidelines for Incorporating Assets into the National Deep Submergence Facility (NDSF) |
| IV |
|
| V |
|
| VI |
|
| VII |
|
| VIII |
Day 1: Wednesday, June 21st
Call the Meeting: Peter Wiebe, UNOLS Chair, called the meeting to order at 1300 and provided an opportunity for introductions. The list of participants is included as Appendix II. Peter reviewed the agenda (Appendix I). A major portion of the meeting was to focus on the process for ship lay-up recommendations. The March Meeting Minutes will be distributed later in the day for review.
Committee Activities and Issues requiring Council Attention:
DEep Submergence Science Committee (DESSC) - Debbie Kelley introduced two DESSC items that required Council endorsement: 1) Criteria for adding assets to the National Deep Submergence Facility (NDSF), and 2) Whether or not to bring ABE/Sentry into the NDSF. Deb explained that DESSC was asked by NSF to come up with a set of criteria for adding assets to the NDSF in anticipation of new assets such as ABE requesting to become part of the NDSF (Appendix III). Council discussion followed.
· John Bane asked if an asset must have a proven record of operation or could a new asset with no previous use be added. Deb explained that the committee was interested in assets that were not in the development phase. Assets should be proven with a strong demand and reliability.
· Curt Collins asked if an asset must be supported from a specific ship, or can it be used from multiple platforms? Deb – As long as the asset has broad demand, the committee doesn’t feel that it is as important that it is or is not ship specific. Deb said that she would add words to the criteria requesting that the applicant specify if the asset is ship specific, of if DP was needed, etc.
· Eileen Hofmann recommended that words be added to better define “timely fashion” in item #7.
· Cindy Van Dover asked for clarification on how the guidelines would get implemented. Deb explained that agencies and/or institutions could propose adding an asset and would seek a recommendation from DESSC.
· Deb will make edits to the document for presentation to the Council on day-two of the meeting.
DESSC Recommendation to add ABE/Sentry to the NDSF (Appendix IV) – Request for Council Endorsement - Deb Kelley reported that about a year ago, Dana Yoerger (WHOI) came to DESSC with a request to add the AUV ABE/Sentry to the NDSF. Their proposal was to transition DSL-120a and Argo out of NDSF and bring in ABE. Once Sentry is in service, it would replace ABE. Woods Hole has put together an information package about ABE/Sentry. The package was provided to the Council prior to the meeting. Dana Yoerger would oversee the first year ABE operations, and then a junior engineer or manager would be hired to oversee operations. This person would report to Barrie Walden (or replacement). Deb reported that there is a lot of endorsement from the community for adding ABE/Sentry. ABE has had about 180 missions.
Discussion followed:
· Cindy Van Dover asked if is there any sense in waiting to have Dana turn over operation to a junior engineer before bringing it into the community. Deb replied that Dana is in the process of training individuals.
· Deb reported that WHOI would like to be able to announce that ABE can be requested as part of the NDSF for the August 15th NSF proposal deadline.
· Question - What platform can support ABE? Reply - As long as there is deck space for a van it can operate from many UNOLS vessels.
· Since the August 15th proposal deadline is for facility operations in 2008, the earliest that ABE/Sentry would go to sea as part of the NDSF is probably 2008. All Council members voted in favor, except Peter Wiebe and Carin Ashjian of WHOI, who abstained.
DESSC Nominations – Deb continued with a request for confirmation of two DESSC nominees. The nominations are included in Appendix V. Deb Kelley reviewed the backgrounds of the two nominees, Michael Tryon (SIO) and Marsh Youngbluth (HBOI). The Council concurred with the nominations. Peter will send letters appointing them to DESSC.
Research Vessel Operators’ Committee (RVOC): Tim Askew reported that new members have been appointed to the Safety Committee and they met just prior to the April RVOC meeting. Work on the Research Vessel Safety Standards is progressing.
Safe Working Loads (SWL) on Wires – The RVOC will use the UK model and modify it to fit with the UNOLS safety standards. The goal is to have it completed by the next RVOC meeting.
Peter Wiebe questioned if the wires are meeting the user specifications. Reply - Some of the wires are not meeting the test specifications, but some of the specifications may not be realistic.
Mike Prince said that one thing to keep in mind is that there are some operations that we do now that would not be allowed under the UK rules. The UK rules indicated a SWL of 2:1. We need to be careful in developing the criteria for testing. Peter suggested that we start thinking about motion compensation systems so that the wires never see these loads.
Gender Climate - The last issue is the climate on board ships regarding harassment. The RVOC meeting addressed this issue through a report by Liz Caporelli and through a workshop. There are incidents that go unreported. All institutions have policies and the effort will be to make sure these policies are made known to science users and employees on a uniform basis. This has the deadline of April 2007. Rose Dufour stated that after the last Council meeting, SIO added a harassment section to their policy information form. Their harassment policy is consistent with California law. They require signatures from scientists embarking on their ships to be sure they are all aware of the SIO polices regarding drugs, alcohol and now harassment.
Subcommittee Report on Recommendations on Ship Lay-Ups and Early Retirements –Marcia McNutt, Chair of the ad-hoc committee, presented their draft recommendations on ship lay-ups and early retirements. Other Committee members included Curt Collins, Wilf Gardner, and Peter Ortner. Marcia said this was a difficult task. Much effort was put into defining the values that would be used in making recommendations. They created a list of values and put them into a prioritized order rather than giving them different weights. The document begins with findings and a discussion of realities. Marcia reviewed the values that they are recommending. “Meeting science needs” was the highest priority. Other considerations include geographic availability, quality of operations (weighting the more recent), spreading the pain, diversity of operators. The relative cost of operations is not the biggest driver.
Marcia also reviewed the recommendations for the other questions. Marcia discussed at length the reasoning behind who would make the recommendations and how they would arrive at consensus. The subcommittee recommends that the non-operator (un-conflicted) members of the Council make up the subcommittee. The decision should be made based on what is best for the community. If the operators made the decision, it might be seen as being in the best interest of the operators. Yet, the committee should consult with the operators – operators can still play a very active role.
Linda Goad suggested that the subcommittee meet with the agency program managers before making lay-up recommendations. This would be in late July to early August.
Liz Brenner asked what would be a definition of reasonable demand for the special purpose vessels, such as Atlantis or Marcus Langseth.
Rose asked if the definition of a single ship operator applied if an institution operated UNOLS vessels as well as other vessels. Marcia thought that institutions such as Hawaii would be considered a multi-ship operator.
Julie Morris joined in and commented that she will join the phone conference for parts of today and tomorrow. NSF will take the recommendations seriously.
Liz Brenner stated that during the last few scheduling conference calls ONR and NSF indicated that non-agency owned ships would not receive lay-up funds. Is this a consideration of the recommendations? The ships impacted include New Horizon, and Seward Johnson. Marcia replied that only considering lay-up of federally funded ships is not one that is good for the community. Linda Goad commented that the ships that came into the fleet that are not owned by the agencies are not the responsibility of the agencies. NSF cannot tell a privately owned ship to lay up; the operator can still chose to operate the ship. Bob Knox stated that SIO received a letter that New Horizon was welcome into the Fleet and that it was not brought in just to serve SIO’s needs. SIO worked with UNOLS to bring the ship in.
The issue of institutional money that would be lost if a ship was laid up was raised. The subcommittee discussed this and decided it was not a large differentiating issue, but should be taken into account. Mike Prince suggested that UNOLS explore a new funding paradigm. Lay-ups that span over two operating years could be considered, but the agencies would have to be receptive to this. There would be a partial lay-up and partial operating year with the costs divided over two years. This should be looked into as a way to avoid losing state funds.
The discussion will continue of Day-2 of the meeting.
Break
Nominating Committee Report –Wilf reported for the Nominating Committee, which also includes Tim Cowles as Chair and Margo Edwards. They have a partial list of people interested in standing for election. They need to find nominees for Chair-Elect, an At-Large position, an Operator position and a Non-Operator position. Wilf pointed out that the response is not overwhelming. Marcia suggested that they call institutions that are not represented on the Council and solicit specific recommendations for nominees.
UNOLS Brochure - Peter Wiebe said that he would like to finalize the brochure and circulate it. Comments on the draft can be sent to the UNOLS Office. A list of suggestions was made for circulation, such as potential ship users (NAVO, NUWC, etc), Congress, The House Science Committee, The Senate Ocean Policy Committee, the NOPP Office, CORE, etc. There was a suggestion to update the brochure yearly, post it on the website, and circulate it both in hard copy and as a URL. It should be sent to the UNOLS membership and in included in any mailings.
John Freitag asked that Navy be dropped from the statement about funds not appropriated for Ocean Class vessels.
UNOLS Issues - A brief written summary of various UNOLS issues was distributed prior to the meeting (Appendix VI). These were quickly summarized during the phone conference.
Federal Oceanographic Facilities Committee (FOFC) Fleet Renewal Update – Peter reported that the draft FOFC plan was provided to Mike Prince, Dave Hebert, Annette DeSilva, and him for review. Minor changes will be incorporated into the document then it will be circulated to the agencies for approval. Peter asked if the Naval Research Advisory Committee (NRAC) report would impact the FOFC plan recommendations. Reply - The NRAC report will impact Navy’s report to Congress in early July. The report will impact what the official Navy view will be as reflected in the FOFC report. Rob Pinkel asked if UNOLS lay-up recommendations would have a negative impact on Navy planning. Bob Houtman replied, “definitely” and they are working hard to find full utilization for their ships.
Fleet Improvement Committee (FIC) Fleet Improvement Plan (Reclassification of Ship Classes) – FIC has worked with FOFC to establish a reclassification of the Ship classes along with the definition of full utilization numbers. The new classification is included in Appendix VI. The FIC is also staying engaged with ORION to get new information on observatory facility needs. The FIC hopes to finalize their draft Improvement Plan this summer and distribute it in early fall for Council and FIC review.
Regional Class Acquisition Process – The plans and timeline were reviewed (Appendix VI). Mike Reeve believes that NSF can go forward with the operator selection process before they down-select to final design and construction contractor. The exact timing will depend on how the details are approved. If all goes as planned the contract for construction of the first ship would be awarded in fall 2007.
Ocean Class Acquisition Status: The Ocean Class funds for design that were appropriated in FY06 will only be used if the Navy decides to build ships. The funds are NAVSEA funds and would be executed by them, but the timing may dictate turning them back and getting them in a later Fiscal Year.
Marcus Langseth Conversion Status – Paul Ljunggren provided a written report on the status of the Langseth conversion. It is included in Appendix VI. The report describes the shipyard activities that have been completed and that are planned. Mike Purdy (LDEO) has withdrawn their plans for a ship welcoming ceremony in September 2006, citing some uncertainties in the conversion schedule.
UNOLS STR/Scheduling Database – Mike Prince reported on the status of the UNOLS STR/Scheduling database project. Science users would have a login name and password. Mike showed a sample form. There is a form for submitting comments. There is a page for science program managers. Essentially, the ship time request form and scheduling form work fine and by the end of the year it should be available for use. Mike would like to synchronize the introduction of the form with the start of a particular scheduling season. It has been a challenging project.
US Fish & Wildlife Service Importation Policy – NSF and NOAA have worked to investigate the importation policy, but no additional information has become available.
Frequency Spectrum Management – No status report was available.
UNOLS Annual Meeting – The Annual Meeting is on October 6, 2006 and will be held at NSF. The Keynote Speaker is Leon E. Panetta. A list of Annual Meeting topic suggestions was reviewed.
Codes of Conduct - The Impact of Scientific Studies on the Environment – This item was tabled until day two.
UNOLS objectives, priorities and goals for 2006 – 2007 - Mike Prince discussed the need to review existing goals and priorities. He asked the Council to provide remarks on any needed changes. The draft objectives, priorities and goals will be reviewed, discussed, and finalized at the next Council meeting.
Bill Martin asked if the Council could report to the RVTEC on the progress made in achieving last year’s goals. He feels that it would be useful for the RVTEC to hear what has been done.
Adjourn Day One
Day 2: Thursday, June 22nd
Day 2 - Opening Remarks – Peter Wiebe opened the second day of the Council phone/web conference. The meeting participants introduced themselves and are listed in Appendix II.
Eileen Hofmann and Marcia McNutt pointed out some typos in the March Council minutes. The typos will be corrected and the revised minutes will be re-circulated for approval.
Criteria for Incorporating New Assets into the NDSF – Deb Kelley reported that she incorporated the revisions to the Criteria that were suggested on day one. Marcia McNutt indicated that the revision looks good. A motion was made and approved to accept the criteria (McNutt/Gardner).
Codes of Conduct - The Impact of Scientific Studies on the Environment – The Council discussed the importance of this issue and the need to stay informed. It was decided to invite Lee Kimball of IUCN to the fall Council meeting.
Subcommittee Report on Recommendations on Ship Lay-Ups and Early Retirements – Discussion continued from Day 1 - Curt Collins raised the issue about whether or not the Council would even want to make specific recommendations. Many of the Council members are from institutions that operate vessels and would potentially be conflicted in decisions regarding lay-ups. Lengthy discussion centered on whether the Council should make the recommendations, the subcommittee, or perhaps that the Council only makes recommendations about the factors and process, but not the specific recommendations. Another alternative would be to suggest possible scenarios or to suggest priorities. Linda re-iterated the benefit of having the subcommittee meet with the agencies. Discussed how to proceed with the process.
Marcia suggested the following process:
· Council approves the criteria and values.
· Agencies with Schedulers develop specific recommendations back to the subcommittee
· Subcommittee considers the recommendations, considers arguments and suggestions from operators and the agencies and then concurs, and/or suggests alternative solutions.
· UNOLS Recommendations will be vetted by the Council.
Liz Brenner stated that the schedulers would like to avoid this situation of determining ship lay-ups every year. They thought that it would be useful to have out-year recommendations and perhaps a rotational lay-up plan. John Freitag pointed out that rotational lay-up plans might not be feasible. Demands for ship classes and geographic research areas vary annually. Fleet operations would need to be revisited each year.
There was some discussion about the graphs and what to present in the recommendations document. It was decided to review the ship utilization graphs first.
Break
Agency Budget Projections:
UNOLS Fleet schedules, estimated operation costs, and 2007 ship scheduling – Mike Prince reviewed the status of the ship scheduling process and estimated costs for 2007. Slides are included in Appendix VIII. There are about 4500 days requested for 2007. Mike has applied a 1.35 factor when calculating the ship days required (this is to account for port days, etc). The ship schedules at the time of the Council meeting include double and triple bookings of requests. The schedulers have been directed to construct consolidated schedules.
Mike provided a chart of the 2007 operating days and estimated cost by agency. The Navy ship time is low, but there is likely more to come. The NSF cost is higher than in 2006 because R/V Langseth is scheduled to begin service. In 2007, NSF would have 75 percent of the fleet cost.
A chart showing funded requests for 2007 through 2011 was displayed. Mike Reeve cautioned that this chart could send the wrong message. People unfamiliar with the process, might think that the funded requests are going sharply down. Instead the chart shows that there is already funded work into the out-years.
The Council consensus was that the UNOLS Fleet Utilization (2000-2007) chart and the 2002 – 2007 UNOLS Fleet Operating Days and Costs chart do a good job of illustrating the ship scheduling situation.
Break
There here was further discussion on the draft criteria document for recommending ship lay-up periods.
· Bruce Corliss recommended that the subcommittee size be at least three members. Additional words were added to indicate that it is the responsibility of the UNOLS Chair to supplement the committee as needed to maintain a disciplinary balance and appoint additional non-conflicted members as needed to have more than two members. These individuals should be appointed from past Council members who served in the previous three years.
· Eileen Hofmann recommended to change the word “would” to “will” in the document.
· It was recommended to adjust the timeline so that it specifies, “within 30 days of receiving the agency recommendations, the subcommittee will provide the response to the agencies.” The agency recommendations would be circulated to the operators and Council and Subcommittee at the same time.
· All types of alternate utilization recommendations should be considered, such as, stand-downs, lay-ups, and giving a ship up for Navy use. Any out year considerations should be identified.
UNOLS will send the criteria to the agencies following the Council meeting.
Summary of process:
1. The Council would make recommendations regarding the criteria and process.
2. The substantive recommendations, using the recommended criteria, should be made by the Agencies to the subcommittee of the UNOLS Council consisting only of members from non-ship-operating institutions. The UNOLS Chair may appoint past Council members or other UNOLS committee members if necessary.
3. The subcommittee will share the draft recommendations from the Agencies with UNOLS ship operators, the Council, and any other interested parties (e.g., the UNOLS office, users, etc.). Based on input from those groups, the subcommittee will prepare a response to the Agencies on the recommendations and possible alternative scenarios to consider.
4. Within 30 days of receiving lay-up and/or retirement recommendations from the Federal agencies, the subcommittee will conduct their review and then provide a response back to agencies after vetting their response through the full Council.
5. The subcommittee recommendations to the Agencies should be approved by the subcommittee by simple majority. Minority opinions in the case of less than unanimous consent should be transmitted as well.
Additional comments:
· The benefit of the recommended process and decision is that it is more open. It will also give the Council a better feel for the match of science to the mix of ships.
· Agencies recommendations would be circulated to everyone at the same time.
Agency Reports:
NSF - Mike Reeve reported that the 2007 NSF budget includes a 6.5 % increase. There is a $4.5M increase requested for ship operations. Peter Wiebe asked that if the budget increase were received would there be additional NSF work approved to go to sea. Mike Reeve – Yes, there were many requests for 2007.
ONR - John Freitag reported that the ONR budget for 2007 is expected to be the same as this year.
NOAA – The NOAA/PMEL programs that require large ships; will continue to want to use UNOLS ships if the money is available. However, the NOAA Ocean Exploration usage of UNOLS ships is expected to go down. For 2007 there is one request for Jason2. The budget for the DART mooring is about half of what NOAA had previously expected it to be. Originally Shannon McCarthy had wanted one designated ship (Charter or UNOLS), now multiple ships including Wecoma, Ron Brown, Seward Johnson, Pelican, and ships of opportunity will support the DART work. At best, NOAA’s budget will be level, with perhaps a dip in the near term.
Peter Wiebe extended a UNOLS farewell to John Freitag. He stated that we have appreciated John’s efforts over the years and we thank him. John said he has enjoyed his time with UNOLS.
Committee Reports and Comments – Written reports were provided by Committee Chairs and are included as Appendix VII.
Bill Martin suggested that the RVOC Safety Committee strongly consider a phone/web conference meeting before the next RVOC meeting. Tim Askew seconded that idea. Peter agreed and stated that an agenda for the meeting should be drafted and circulated. Mike Prince reported that Tom Althouse will be retiring in a few years and would like to step down as Chair of the Safety Committee in another year. He is looking for a replacement. The members of the committee as a group need to step forward and come up with a Chair replacement.
Bill Martin continued by stating that the document drafted by the ship-layup subcommittee seems to be just ship related, and does not address the impact on crew and marine techs. If an operator lays-up a ship, they stand to lose their marine technicians and a wealth of education/training investment. If an operator cannot keep the technicians employed at their institution, they stand to lose a lot. Marcia McNutt explained that the subcommittee was not asked to consider the effects of the lay-ups. They looked at the aspects raised, but in more general terms. She gave the example of the multi-ship operator considerations and that they would have the ability to move people around more easily if only one of their ships were layed-up. Marcia suggested that perhaps another document is needed to address the impacts of lay-ups. This would include the impacts on graduate education, the value of the trained professionals – crew and technical. Linda Goad encouraged operators to contact Sandy Shor regarding marine technician lay-up issues.
It was recommended that the title of the lay-up document be changed to “Criteria and Process for Recommending Non-Operational Periods in the UNOLS Fleet.” John Bane suggested that the definition of the term “non-operational periods” be defined somewhere in the document.
There was a long discussion on which ships would be excluded from consideration for lay-up. Rob Pinkel stressed that UNOLS should consider the Agency recommendation on both lay-ups and stand-downs. He expressed concern as to why Melville was selected by the agencies for a stand-down.
The subcommittee will take the recommendations from the phone conference and incorporate them into the document. The revised document will be circulated to the Council one last time before finalization.
Linda Goad thanked the Council for their thoughtful consideration of this topic.
A motion was made and approved to adjourn (Collins/Askew).