ASTORIA, Ore. — When Julie Thomas first came to the mouth of the Columbia River a couple of years ago to talk buoys with a group of mariners, it didn’t take long for the bar pilots, fishermen, the U.S. Coast Guard and other river users to explain how she could help them.
There was just one
wave and weather buoy outside the bar, and it often quit functioning after winter’s early storms ran through, they told Thomas, program manager of the Coastal Data Information Program at Scripps Institute of Oceanography in San Diego.
“There were no observations for waves in the area for long periods of time,” she said.
A smaller Waverunner buoy could be more durable, Thomas told them, and could still provide live data about conditions on the bar. And two of them — one near the bar and another farther offshore to gauge incoming waves — would be even better. She could help them make that happen.
Now, that two buoy system is in place.
Last week, the second CDIP Waverunner buoys was deployed, laying sensors along the approach to the river bar and giving mariners the kind of reliable data they needed.
It was the second phase of the Columbia River Bar Safety Technology project, using real-time wave data sensors and state-of-the-art predictive modeling to give an accurate picture of current and future conditions on the bar. It’s a project that’s been years in the making, bringing together several local and regional groups and interests under a common goal – improved safety.
“The total picture has been completed,” Thomas said. Now, the inner Clatsop Spit buoy will measure local seas close to the treacherous bar while the new buoy will give a picture of waves an hour or more out as they are heading in.
“Mariners have a really good depiction of what conditions are,” she added.
In September 2009, the first of the small wave buoys was installed just outside the bar near the South Jetty by a Tongue Point Job Corps crew on the retired Coast Guard Cutter Ironwood. Funding came from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who knew the data could be useful with their ongoing dredging in the area. The new offshore buoy is approximately 30 nautical miles west of the mouth of the river, a prime spot to contribute crucial offshore data about wave height and direction to the data streams.
That’s important because of the thousands of tons of cargo, fishing fleets and recreational users that traverse the area all year round, said Sen. Jeff Merkley.
“These buoys allow us to work with the waves to ensure safer passages for ships and their crews and keep cargo moving efficiently across the Columbia River bar. I’ve supported this project since I came into office and I’ll continue to push for federal funding to keep these buoys in the water,” Merkley said.
Ongoing funding will be needed to maintain the buoys year after year, and several people have stepped up to keep the project a priority at the federal level, Thomas said.
Tom Towslee, state communications director for Sen. Ron Wyden, said the need is clear.
“It is very simple. These buoys save lives,” Towlsee said.
Funding the project took unprecedented cooperation from several regional and national agencies, Thomas said.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had an interest in using data from the buoy to help them with dredging, so they were able to help fund the first, inner buoy, deployed in 2009.
The Columbia River Bar Pilots secured a Connect Oregon III grant for two more buoys last year, the outer Astoria Canyon buoy and a spare.
Bar Pilot Capt. Dan Jordan hopes that two-buoy system will help forecasters refine the accuracy of their forecasting. The bar pilots pitched in 20 percent of the cost of the $120,000-each buoys. They were also able to secure donations from local tow boat companies Foss Maritime and Shaver Transportation for the 1,400 pounds of chain needed to secure the buoy to the sea floor.
This past winter, the first buoy, deployed in September 2009 at the Clatsop Spit location, broke free when it was hit by a boat. The buoy is attached to the ocean floor with a heavy sinker, chain and a flexible bungee-like cord, but the yellow orb itself appeared to have taken a solid hit, Thomas said.
“It looked like a propeller cut,” she said. The round buoys are more durable than their upright steel tower-type counterparts in the extreme weather conditions. They are close to the surface and have a very low profile, however, which can make them hard to see.
“It made it through all the seven meter waves — it’ll survive those days no problem,” she said. When it detached, the buoy drifted, eventually finding its way into the shipping channel, where the U.S. Coast Guard sent out a motor lifeboat to pick it up.
The buoys are not one of the Coast Guard’s own aids to navigation nor are they covered by the agreement that provides maintenance for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration buoys, but when the yellow ball was sighted in the channel it became a hazard to navigation. That one was sent to The Netherlands for reconditioning, and will wait at Tongue Point as a spare in case it is needed.
Lt. Cmdr. Chat Fait oversees the command center for the Coast Guard’s Sector Columbia River, and find himself looking at the data the buoys provide online, even from home at times. Having two buoys now will be even more helpful when they have to consider making decisions like closing the bar.
“Without those buoys, we’re kind of taking a guess,” he said.
Having more tools to use when making live-saving judgment calls, whether it’s the Coast Guard or a fisherman trying to decide whether to cross the bar, is always better, Fait said.
“Humans are not always as accurate as buoys.”
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