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Message from the MARCO Management Board
Welcome to our most recent issue of MARCO News. This issue:
- Focuses on MARCO's stakeholder engagement activities, including recent and upcoming opportunities to engage with:
- the submarine cable industry,
- tribes in the region, and
- commercial fishers;
- Highlights MARCO's collaboration with NOAA to identify priority survey areas along the Mid-Atlantic offshore canyons;
- Exhibits advances in recreational use data for the Mid-Atlantic Ocean Data Portal;
- Showcases a new state/federal cooperative agreement to study marine mammals; and
- Welcomes a new MARCO staff member to the team.
The MARCO Management Board
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MARCO Recent Engagement Activities
MARCO Meets with the Submarine Cable Industry
Trans-oceanic submarine cables provide essential infrastructure for communication networks worldwide. On July 15, 2014, MARCO convened a meeting with the submarine cable industry (telecommunications cables and energy transmission cables) in Bedminster, New Jersey. The objectives of the meeting were to:
- Advance MARCO's and the Mid-Atlantic Regional Planning Body's understanding of the submarine cable sector.
- Advance the submarine cable industry's understanding of ocean planning and its status in the region, and the respective roles of MARCO and the MidA RPB in the process.
- Identify ways MARCO can further assist the submarine cable sector engage in the regional ocean planning process.
- Increase engagement, collaboration, and relationship building among the attending parties.
During the meeting, MARCO received an overview of the history and current state of the
 cable industry, existing laws and statutes, siting and permitting processes, and installation techniques. MARCO gave a briefing on its history, four shared priorities, and role in the regional ocean planning process. MARCO staff then provided a 'tour' of the Mid-Atlantic Ocean Data Portal features and functions. The meeting culminated with an on-site tour of the AT&T network operations center. Please check the MARCO website often, as a written summary of the meeting with be posted soon.
Tribal Engagement in the Mid-Atlantic
The Mid-Atlantic Native American Tribes have long-standing cultural and physical connections to the region's coastal and marine environments and it is MARCO's goal to expand and enhance Tribal engagement in the regional ocean planning process. While the Shinnecock Indian Nation is currently the only Federally-recognized Tribe in the coastal region and has been very active in the planning process, MARCO looks forward to further engaging the many other Tribes recognized at the State level.
As part of the grant award it received from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, MARCO is seeking to engage a consultant to provide facilitation services with Tribal entities in the Mid-Atlantic region. The consultant will design and implement ocean planning outreach activities and serve as a liaison between MARCO and the Mid-Atlantic Native American Tribes.
A Request for Proposal for this scope of work is posted on the MARCO website and can be found here.
Communities-at-Sea Mapping in the Mid-Atlantic
The Mid-Atlantic Ocean Data Portal team and Rutgers University, in coordination with MARCO, are working on a novel approach that integrates permitting and Fishing Vessel Trip Report (VTR) databases to create heat maps showing fishing labor intensity through the number of days commercial fishers spent at sea. This can help characterize the importance of ocean places to specific communities, explicitly linking fishing areas to coastal communities. These new data will help planners know which communities (e.g., gillnetters from Cape May, NJ and scallop dredgers from Newport News, VA) will be affected by particular ocean planning, management, or permitting decisions. To support this effort, the project team is hosting Communities-at-Sea workshops for the commercial fishing community to review and vet the maps of areas and resources in the Mid-Atlantic region upon which fishing communities depend. To date, workshops have been held in New Jersey, and most recently in Virginia on July 15. MARCO expects to put the Communities-at-Sea maps onto the Portal in late fall/early winter.
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Upcoming Okeanos Explorer Mission
In the late summer and early fall of 2014, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Okeanos Explorer will be conducting bathymetric mapping and capturing images using a telepresence-enabled remotely-operated vehicle in portions of the North Atlantic's submarine canyons. For a second year, MARCO has provided recommendations to NOAA to help identify priority areas not surveyed in previous expeditions. These recommendations reflect areas of interest identified by the five MARCO partner states.
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Mapping Regional Recreational Ocean and Coastal Uses
Tourism and recreation are vital to the communities and economies of the Mid-Atlantic. To quantify their economic contributions and social and spatial distribution, the Mid-Atlantic Portal team partnered with the Surfrider Foundation to document regional recreational ocean and coastal uses. The survey, which launched July 1, 2013 and ended on December 31, 2013, asked coastal recreation enthusiasts to share details of their trips over the past year.
Over 1,400 people completed surveys and contributed over 22,000 unique data points showing the locations where they participated in 16 different recreational activities during a 12 month period. The five most popular activities for survey respondents were: beach going (91%), scenic enjoyment/sightseeing (70%), biking or hiking (59%), photography (58%), and surfing (57%).
 To support the use of this information in the Mid-Atlantic regional ocean planning process, the coastal recreation survey results will be integrated with those of two other recent and related data collection efforts - the 2013 Recreational Boating Survey and the Participatory Mapping Workshops - to create a regional dataset covering seven activity groups (fishing, hunting, boating, diving, surface water sports, wildlife viewing and sightseeing, and shore-based activities) across the five Mid-Atlantic states. Click here to be notified by the Portal team when the final report, state fact sheets, and various data layers are available. We also invite you to learn more about how data visualization can be used to shape the future of ocean uses by joining the Portal team on September 2, 2014 at 2 pm for their How Tuesday Webinar.
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The State of Maryland Partners with BOEM to Track and Protect Marine Mammals in Offshore Wind Energy Area
 The Maryland Department of Natural Resources has entered into a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to study marine mammal populations off the coast of Maryland. This $2.2M Agreement will support deployment of passive acoustic monitoring systems to better understand the geographic distribution, abundance, and densities of large whales, dolphins, and porpoises. The study will collect two-years of baseline data that will provide vital information for siting, mitigation measures, and assessing environmental impacts of future wind energy developments, and ocean planning. The project is jointly-funded through the Maryland Energy Administration Offshore Wind Development Fund and BOEM. For additional information, see the Maryland Energy Administration press release here. |
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MARCO Hires a New Program Assistant
The Management Board would like to introduce MARCO's new Program Assistant, Kimberly Barber. After spending nine years working in program management at Junior Achievement,
a kindergarten-12th grade program to foster work-readiness, entrepreneurship, and financial literacy skills in students, she is shifting her efforts to focus on ocean and environmental issues. Kimberly earned an undergraduate degree from Arizona State University, and has returned to school to pursue a master's degree in environmental management. A desire to begin applying the skills she is learning in school led her to a short-term position at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation's Marine Conservation Initiative, and now to MARCO.
Kimberly joins the MARCO team of Kris Ohleth, Executive Director, and Michelle Lennox, Program Manager. MARCO welcomes Kimberly in her new role!
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ABOUT MARCO
Established in 2009 by the Governors of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia, MARCO provides a forum for our coastal Mid-Atlantic states to collaborate on shared regional priorities related to marine habitats, renewable offshore energy, climate change adaptation, and ocean water quality. MARCO initiated and oversees the Mid-Atlantic Ocean Data Portal to assist the region with ocean planning efforts. For more information about MARCO, visit our website, MidAtlanticOcean.org.
CONNECT WITH US!
Thank you for your continued interest in MARCO. We welcome questions and feedback you may have, including content for upcoming issues of MARCO News. To provide comments or suggestions, or to join our email distribution list, please click "Join Our Mailing List" below, or contact us at info@midatlanticocean.org.
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Photo Credits: Header (L-R): Coral, NOAA-OER/BOEM; Wind turbines, Ralf Hettler; Kayaks, Raul Rosa; Shipping container, Dan Barnes; Schooling fish, Jet Chen Tan; U.S. Naval ships, Gina Addison. Body (top-bottom): Map of submarine cables, provided by AT&T; the Okeanos Explorer vessel, NOAA; recreational divers, Surfrider Foundation; Minke whale, NOAA. Footer (L-R) Fishing boat, William Sherman; Diver, Michael Eversmier; Beach scene, Chris Parypa.
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