It is critical that PAWSA be viewed as the beginning of a process , rather than something complete in and of itself.

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There are clear signs of a growing tension between safety concerns, as voiced by mariners such as pilots, and economic imperatives voiced by other stakeholders.

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The matter of results rests with the communities concerned, constituted as they are of members from the public and private sectors.

The long-term impact of PAWSA may be to serve as the catalyst to form HSCs where none exist now.

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By Robert G. Moore
President, Coastwatch, Inc.

I have some general remarks about the PAWSA process, from the perspective of someone who participated both in the development of the process and in its application.

• PAWSA, as conducted to date, has been ambitious, packing a large amount of "stuff" into three four-hour sessions. The total of 12 hours was selected in recognition that all of the invitees were busy people in responsible positions, and that asking for more time at a single sitting might well be an unmanageable imposition.

• A critical corollary is that the time thus available permitted little more than exposure to a methodology, and development of a "snapshot" of risks and possible ameliorations. Thus it is critical that PAWSA be viewed as the beginning of a process , rather than something complete in and of itself. A substantial amount of time is required for a port community to isolate and agree upon specific risk factors, identify and prioritize the ones to be addressed because the risks are unacceptable, and reach consensus about what is necessary to ameliorate those risks.
• It must be kept in mind that the alternatives by which to achieve "necessary" actions may be limited to those achievable in the required timeframe. Sorting through options in that light, and agreeing to who will do what, is time-consuming.

• A series of concerns are emerging which are common to most of the ports assessed to date. I will not comment on those because the Coast Guard is still evaluating them. There is, however, two common elements that I do want to address.
  
  
• First, there are clear signs of a growing tension between safety concerns, as voiced by mariners such as pilots, and economic imperatives voiced by other stakeholders. The trend echoes the theme voiced by Intertanko’s 1996 U.S. Port & Terminal Safety Study. A number of examples come to mind.
• "Just-in-Time" inventories coupled with other efforts to minimize goods and products held in inventory are exerting increasing pressure to move cargoes, and thus the vessels – whether barges or ships - carrying those cargoes in accordance with predictable and regular schedules. In a number of areas the existing infrastructure – whether channel configuration or vessel management tools – do not permit this.
• Competition within industries have created strong desires to move vessels at the greatest possible draft, and in some cases even a relatively few inches can represent profit or loss. Safe maximum draft movements require substantially better information than is now available in many ports.
• In some cases plans for the expansion of facilities ashore are being developed without close coordination with operating companies, pilots or others from the maritime profession. Without such input, facility changes can affect vessel traffic patterns in ways which decrease either safety or efficiency of movement, or both.

• Second, PAWSA has created certain expectations in the ports where it has been accomplished. A near-universal voice was "I hope this is not just an exercise from which we will see no results." I suggest to you that the matter of results rests with the communities concerned, constituted as they are of members from the public and private sectors.

No discussion of PAWSA is complete without comment on the assessment process and harbor safety committees.

• The approach used in PAWSA is not new. Functioning harbor safety committees, by whatever name, have long been involved in the identification of risk and the selection of ways by which to address them. The PAWSA process, as conducted so far, added an element of complexity in order to facilitate use of the results in federal decision-making. That is probably unnecessary in many cases since the judgment of experts can, for local actions, usually stand on its own two feet.
• Every successful harbor safety committee type organization that I know of has required two things:
• First, a catalyst of incidents, problems or economic considerations which convinced the port community that some form of action was required;
• Second, someone within the community with sufficient stature to get and keep the community together while solutions were worked out.

I feel the long-term impact of PAWSA may be to serve as the catalyst to form HSCs where none exist now, or to strengthen and structure the actions of existing HSCs so that their ports can better compete for resources. Success remains dependent, however, upon where each community takes the process from there.