Charleston

PORT OF CHARLESTON, SC

PORT LIMITS/INFORMATION

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Maximum Depths - (Fresh)

Harbor Entrance - 47.0 ft

Main Channel - 45.0 ft

BERTH LIMITS/INFORMATION:

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Current maximum drafts allowed at berths:

Buckeye ( formerly Hess ) - Max draft - 40'00

Delfin - Max Draft - 38'00 Max LOA 690'

Chem Marine - Max Draft - 38'00 MLW

Kinder Morgan - berth 1 - 46'00 - all vessel arrivals require tide

Kinder Morgan - berth 2 - 40'00

Kinder Morgan - berth 3 - 30'00"

Kinder Morgan - berth 4 - Max draft 40'00, tide needed for anything deeper than 38'00

BP - Max draft 30'00" Low water

Wando Terminal - Max draft 43'00 MLW - tide needed for anything deeper Than 43'01" Max BM No restriction

North Charleston Terminal - Max draft 45'00 MLW - Max BM No restriction

CST - Max draft 45'00 MLW - Max BM No restrictions

Veterans Terminal 35' MLW tidal restricted

Nucor - Max draft 25'00 (movements daylight & tidal restricted), Max LOA 550', Max Beam 52'

Pier J Max Draft 30 FT

Airdraft under the Don Holt Bridge 155 ft per pilots

Per pilots - restrictions for Tanker movements:

Drafts of 38'00 or less may transit at anytime

Drafts of 38'01 to 40'00 -window:  Start in 1 Hour before low water until 2 hours before high water

Drafts of 40'01 to 41'00 - window: start in 2 hours after low water until 2 hours before high water

Drafts of 41'01 to 42'00 - window:  start in 3 hours after low water until 3 hours before high water

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<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black">TANKER VESSEL TRAFFIC:     

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KMI<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D"> 4   -              <span-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">ALPINE LOYALTY - IN ETD 0800/31

<span-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">                        ATC BROWNSVILLE – 12/30

<span-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">                        OSG 214 – 01/05-07

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<span-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black">BUCKEYE / HESS –<span-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black"> <span-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black">FREEPORT / CHEM TRANS - IN ETD 0800/30

<span-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black">                               CHALLENGE PEARL – 01/02<span-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black">

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FEDERAL, STATE & LOCAL FILING REQUIREMENTS:

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96 Hours - advance notice of arrival required by USCG

48 Hours - advance receipt of crew list by Immigration for any vessel arriving from a foreign port, or arriving coast wise with detained crew.

24 Hours (minimum) - Foreign cargo must have manifest submitted to Customs & Border Patrol AMS.  Bond must be filed for Foreign flag vessels or U.S. flag arriving with foreign cargo aboard.  24 Hours - advance notice to Pilots

24 Hours - advance fax of crew list and approved visitors required by Terminal.

72 Hours - post port call, the Port Authority requires bill of lading figures for all bulk cargo.

Port Security - All persons doing business within Port Authority property must have security pass from SCPA.  All persons wanting unescorted access to any vessel must have a valid TWIC.

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<span-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black">CURRENT ARTICLES --

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<span-size:24.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Safeguards not enough to fully protect imperiled right whale, researchers say

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Wildlife Trust<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">A 24-year-old mother right whale swims with her fourth calf three miles out from the Savannah River entrance buoy in 2008.

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">A controversial rule forcing ships to slow down in right whale waters has been adopted permanently and is roundly cited for at least contributing to a reduction in the number of fatal strikes.

<span-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Right whale sightings offshore

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">2012-2013

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">25 sightings.

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">18 individual whales including 7 mother/calf pairs.

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">5 in S.C. waters.

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">2011-2012

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">70 sightings.

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">42 individuals including 4 mother/calf pairs.

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">16 in S.C. waters.

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">2010-2011

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">47 sightings.

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">36 individuals, 5 mother/calf pairs.

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">18 in S.C. waters

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">2009-2010

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">84 sightings.

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">58 individuals, 3 mother/calf pairs.

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">18 in S.C. waters.

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">2008-2009

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">121 sightings.

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">95 whales, 14 mother/calf pairs.

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">16 in S.C. waters.

Sea to Shore Alliance<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">But the approval is little more than a make-good effort from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Survey flights that alerted mariners to the imperiled whales' presence have been cut back because of tight NOAA budgets. The agency approved renewing Navy warfare and sonar training without significant new restrictions in the whales' waters, despite evidence that the noise can deafen an animal that communicates and navigates by echolocation.

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<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Meanwhile, some 70 percent to 80 percent of the whales still get entangled in fishing lines at least once in their lives, sometimes killing them, scientists say.

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">As it stands, the only real chance for the rare, critically endangered mammoths to survive on the East Coast might lie in how well they can adapt on their own - as other species have done - to human impact. But they roam an "urban" ocean that is rapidly becoming far noisier and more hazardous than the species has ever known.

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Wildlife advocates aren't hopeful.

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">A calculation biologists now use to determine just how endangered a species is sets the number of individual animal deaths the species can sustain annually and survive, said Richard Delaney, president of the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies. For the right whales, that number is one.

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">"We're right on that fine line of extinction right now," he said. "We can't imagine how much the whales' acoustic world has changed. Entanglements remain a very serious threat. In the long run the biggest threat to the species might be shifting habitats. Warming seas are taking away phytoplankton food sources."

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Right whales are the rarest of the large whales, 40-ton creatures hunted close to extinction a century ago. Today fewer than 500 are known to exist in the north Atlantic Ocean, a slight improvement in recent years.

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The improvement followed a decline to a low of few more than 300, a decline that continued for years after commercial whaling ended in 1935. The recent uptick has been credited to a series of efforts that include heightening public awareness, innovative programs such as listening buoys in the Northeast and the survey flights.

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Off South Carolina, the flights have ended because of budget cuts. In those flights, observers first noted the presence of moms and new calves - establishing the waters as part of the winter breeding grounds previously thought to be confined almost exclusively to Florida and northern Georgia.

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Partly because of the aerial survey work, NOAA in 2008 mandated that until 2014 large ships within 23 miles of the coast must slow to half-speed when the whales are around. That rule was made permanent late this year.

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Shipping and ports interests fought the rule and its permanent adoption, maintaining that it had little effect because whales were not often struck before it was implemented.

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">NOAA scientists disagreed.

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">"Since the ship-speed restrictions went into effect, no known fatal ship strikes of North Atlantic right whales have occurred in the management zones," said Mark Schaefer, deputy NOAA administrator, in a news release. "This rule is working. Before this rule went into effect, 13 right whales died as a result of being hit by vessels in the same areas during an 18-year study period."

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">But the rule is no fix. Observers say it is sometimes violated by military and commercial vessels. The survey flights have been a de facto sheriff keeping watch.

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Last year, 18 whales, including five mother-and-calf pairs, were spotted off South Carolina. Without the flights, the only time commercial ships will be alerted to watch is if somebody happens across one or more of the whales and reports it.

'A fighting chance'<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">

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Along with ship strikes, line entanglements are considered the leading cause of death. In Southeast waters, a number of agencies collaborate to try to free a whale reported tangled. But they are dependent on the whale being spotted and reported. In the Northeast, the coastal studies center is a prime agency in charge of freeing tangled whales.

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Its federal funding also has been cut back, Delaney said, while the number of entanglements appears to be on the rise.

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The whales' numbers are increasing in recent years. But the threats are increasing along with them, said Michael Moore, a senior research specialist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The whales do appear to be adapting somewhat to the urbanizing ocean. A recent study suggests that they sometimes deepen their vocalizations when man-made noise in the ocean increases, in order to hear and be heard better. But boat traffic, noise and other disruptions are likely increasing faster than the animals can adapt, Moore said. They simply won't be able to make it on their own.

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">"As whales are forced to adapt ... any management efforts will have to be dynamic to remain effective," he said.

<span-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">"There are steps we have taken and there's more we should be taking to at least give them a fighting chance to survive," Delaney said.

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