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NOAA’s Coast Survey plans for new Arctic nautical charts

Less sea ice and more ship traffic means new charts needed for safety NOAA's Office of Coast Survey has issued an updated Arctic Nautical Charting Plan, as a major effort to improve inadequate chart coverage for Arctic areas experiencing increasing vessel traffic due to ice diminishment.The update came after consultations with maritime interests and the public, as well as with other federal, state, and local agencies."As multi-year sea ice continues to disappear, vessel traffic in the Arctic is on the rise," said Rear Admiral Gerd Glang, NOAA Coast Survey director. "This is leading to new maritime concerns about adequate charts, especially in areas increasingly transited by the offshore oil and gas industry and cruise liners.""Given the lack of emergency respon

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Great Barrier Reef Could See Tenfold Increase in Ship Traffic

Thanks to Booming Oil and Gas Exports A UN team is in Australia this week investigating what damage the mining industry is causing to the Great Barrier Reef, which is located off the coast of Queensland, Australia's largest coal-producing state. Officials have been told the reef could face a tenfold increase in bulk ship traffic as coal and gas exports boom, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.The delegation from UNESCO's World Heritage Committee and the International Union for Conservation of Nature follows ''extreme concern'' from the heritage committee last year over a proposed liquid natural gas plant near Gladstone, a small town near the Queensland coast. Or, as Greenpeace put it, "Approvals for new gas processing plants on Curtis Island off Gladstone in 2011 prompted a stinging rebuke from United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO)."Greenpeace and environmentalists are increasingly concerned that additional coal production, and the resulting spike in shipping traffic, could affect the World Heritage status of the Great Barrier Reef, an already-stressed but vital ecosystem.The Sydney Morning Herald has more:In a submission to the delegation, the conservation union's Australian committee warned that the dramatic growth of the Queensland resources industry had accelerated the threat to the reef ...

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