Updated: July 12, 2005

New York Harbor Lights Up

Partnerships between DEP, the New York Harbor Observation and Prediction System (NYHOPS), the Stevens Institute of Technology, and the South Street Seaport will allow new scientific, informational, and educational opportunities for New York City Harbor. DEP funding and donations have provided an educational wet lab on the South Street Seaport Museum's (SSSM) vessel Peking and a CTD (conductivity-temperature-depth sensor) on the SSSM vessel Pioneer. The CTD on the Pioneer allows for the compilation of oceanic data that can then be published on the Internet and the classroom on the Peking through wireless technology. The hope of this project is to create an observation system for the New York Harbor similar to the National Weather System, where short-term and long-term trends can be catalogued and predicted.

Soon DEP's Osprey, one of its water quality monitoring vessels with an onboard lab for water quality testing, will be outfitted with wireless technology which will allow the wide range of data of the Harbor Survey to be combined with data collected from the Pioneer and stationary probes of DEP, NYHOPS, the Stevens Institute, and Rutgers University. This collection of data will provide the information necessary for NYHOPS forecast system, DEP's Harbor Survey, and educational opportunities for academia and visitors on the Peking.

On Wednesday June 22nd, NYHOPS and the Stevens Institute invited members of the DEP and the local press on a tour of the Pioneer's operations. The Pioneer took her guests out of the South Street Seaport, around the Battery, and into the Hudson River before returning. The data was available for viewing immediately online and at the wet lab on the Peking. The data from this tour can be viewed at NYHOPS Mobile Stations. (Set the date and time parameters to 2005-06-22 09:00 - 12:00 to see data from the tour.