Cooperative Charting
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Cooperative Charting
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• Cooperative Charting |
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Want to participate in a valuable service to the boating community and have some fun at the same time? Join this year's cooperative charting activites. Next to our public boating courses, it is the squadron's most important civic activity! For Information regarding this year's co-op charting activities contact Lt/C Andy Gray, AP  |
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Out These Additional Co Op Charting Links:
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What
is USPS® Cooperative Charting?
"Cooperative
Charting" refers to an agreement between the United States Power
Squadrons (USPS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA). The agreement was first executed in 1963 and revised in January
1971 and again in 1983. The current agreement is "...to produce
accurate and up-to-date nautical and aeronautical charts and related
products and to preserve geodetic control stations in the National Geodetic
Reference System (NGRS) through the use of well-trained volunteer observers."
NOAA
was established in October of 1970 as part of the Department of Commerce.
It is charged with providing weather forecasts, charting our coastal
and estuarine waterways, producing aeronautical charts and supporting
our marine fisheries industry. As part of these responsibilities, they
produce and maintain over 970 nautical charts and 9 Coast Pilots for
navigating our coastal waters and Great Lakes. The agency produces over
8,000 aeronautical charts and has installed and maintains over 750,000
geodetic control marks that provide the base geographic framework for
mapping and charting, boundaries and property lines, and setting precise
positions of space craft and satellites.
Maintaining
and up-grading this information against the changes made by nature and
mankind is truly a monumental task. Changes occur so frequently that
no amount of tax supported effort would be adequate to supply the corrections
necessary to keep these documents current. As participants in the Cooperative
Charting Program, USPS members observe these changes and submit corrections
to NOAA, thereby saving the government (and tax payers) millions of
dollars. In fact, Cooperative Charting
has
become the most effective user-participation program in all of the Federal
services.
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