iii. Acknowledgment of receipt of Marine Casualty Reports - Currently those submitting do not receive confirmation that their reports have been received and that their obligation to report marine casualties has been met. iv. Streamlined Reporting - for oil spills the current requirement is for operators to report to incident to both the USCG’s National Response Center (NRC) and the USCG’s Captain of the Port (COTP) for the zone in which the incident occurred. A single report to the NRC should serve the purpose of notifying the USCG and reduce the burden on industry from dual reporting. Further, BSEE reporting requirements for spills should be aligned with the USCG. v. Clarification on what requires immediate notification (serious marine incident) vs. what is required to be reported within 5 days – current requirements are not well understood and often vary by USCG Sector, MSU, or Activity. Further, the SC believes the USCG, BSEE, and EPA should adopt similar notification requirements. vi. Changes to draft CG-2692 Marine Casualty Reporting form: 1. Block 19 of the form requests the “Date/Time (local) of Occurrence”. Since many ships operate on their own local time, or European/Maritime dating format, the SC believes it would be simpler to change the block to read “Date/Time/Time Zone” that incident occurred. 2. Block 20 of the form requests the location of the incident. The SC notes that this Block has blanks for “Name of Body of Water or Waterway”, “Latitude:”, “Longitude:” or “River Mile Marker:” The SC believes the USCG should add the option of identifying location by “OCS block.” Submitting this report ended the Sub-Committee’s activities. Perhaps the greatest benefit of this effort and participation has been maintaining the relationship and communication effort with the USCG. Dive In Day, Florida Florida Dive-In Day 2014 took place March 3 and 4 in Tallahassee, FL, the first day for new and returning legislators at the Capitol Building. DEMA arranged for space in the capitol building in which DEMA Member Businesses displayed their products and services. As new and returning legislators passed through the building they had the opportunity to see that Florida has a thriving diving business community. The effort made for a good PR opportunity and, as in the past, generated substantial press coverage for recreational diving and the DEMA Member businesses that participate. In addition to space in the building, DEMA also hosted a group of children from Florida’s PACE Center for Girls whose goals include educating others on the importance of sharks. DEMA assisted with the cost of transporting 15 kids to the capital and provided t-shirts to help draw media attention to the effort. Dive operators also had the opportunity to set up appointments with their local legislators, stay an extra day and meet these members of the Florida legislature face-to-face, and help DEMA advocate for divingrelated issues that impact these operators and the diving industry in Florida.
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