Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) - Boating season is approaching. And the Bush administration wants to enlist the country's 80 million recreational boaters to help reduce the chances that a small boat could deliver a deadly weapon somewhere along the country's 95,000 miles of coastline and inland waterways.

HADITHA, Iraq (July 7, 2006) -- In Iraq, a country where temperatures often soar above 110 degrees and terrain is mostly fine grains of sand, Cpl. Derek Metallo never thought he’d find himself patrolling Al Anbar province in a boat when he arrived three months ago. Metallo, a 27-year-old Marine reservist from Jacksonville, Fla., is part of a team of Marines who patrol the Euphrates River by boat, providing security to the Haditha Dam – one of the country’s largest sources of electrical power and home to the Hawaii-based 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment’s headquarters. The dam provides electricity to...

New Boats Help Iraqi Police Secure Waterways With five new patrol boats, the Iraqi police are now in a position to secure waterways believed to be used as insurgent supply routes. By U.S. Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class John J. Pistone Multinational Security Transition Command—Iraq BAGHDAD, April 24, 2006 — The Tigris River runs through Baghdad and, with more than 35 miles of waterways in the Baghdad area, many coalition advisors and Iraqis believe this is the major supply route for insurgents. Until recently, it has gone virtually unprotected. With five new patrol boats provided by the coalition, the...

Please post any information you have that relates to the current status of gulf ports - waterways - rivers - highways - townships - etc.

Years ago when I had a full head of hair, I worked for the New Jersey Institute of Technology and gained a great respect for engineers and architects. Without them, nothing gets built, nothing works, and we would all be back rubbing two sticks together to make a fire. In early March, my local daily newspaper ran a story that was four paragraphs long and buried at the bottom of the page. Engineers see U.S. Infrastructure Sinking. It was one of those stories deemed newsworthy enough to include since it cited a report by the American Society of Civil Engineers,...

WASHINGTON - More than one-third of the nation's lakes and nearly one-fourth of its rivers contain fish that may be contaminated with mercury, dioxin, PCB and pesticide pollution, the Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites) says. The EPA released a list of advisories issued by states that monitor lakes and rivers for pollution levels affecting fish caught during recreational and sport fishing but not deep-sea commercial fishing. "It's about trout, not tuna. It's about what you catch on the shore, not what you buy the shelf," Mike Leavitt, the administrator of EPA, said Tuesday. "This is about the health...

Private enterprise is honoring its commitment to properly care for the nation's locks and dams. The federal government is not. Deferred maintenance of our waterways could have a ripple effect on the region's economy and safety. Trib readers learned Tuesday in a dispatch from Sandra Tolliver that the infrastructure of the Port of Pittsburgh -- America's second largest inland port -- is living on borrowed time.

About 12.5 million tons of cargo move through three antiquated locks and dams on the lower Monongahela River each year, but lack of money to rebuild the dams threatens to halt those shipments. The reconstruction project, already 10 years in the making, will last 15 more years if the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers cannot devote $60 million to it annually. If anything happens to shut down river traffic, every household in the region would see higher utility and gasoline costs. Thousands of jobs directly and indirectly tied to river transportation could be jeopardized. "We think we're living on borrowed...

A local dive shop owner says FBI agents are wasting their time scouring Keys dive shops for information about suspicious people who took scuba classes. On May 23, the FBI released a warning that some terrorists had been seeking "an offensive scuba diver capability." Concerned that future terrorist attacks might come by sea, the bureau apparently is compiling a database of all the country's certified scuba divers. "Why spin your wheels interviewing the dive shops when they should be going right to PADI?" asked Capt. Bill Grosscup, owner of Captain's Corner on Greene Street. The Professional Association of Diving Instructors,...

United States Attorney Eastern District of Virginia District of Columbia TO: Anti-Terrorism Task Force FROM: Frank Shults Chief Information Officer RE: Kayak rentals The ATTF CIO in Milwaukee obtained the following information from an intelligence summary report of an Army CID ATTF rep. It is passed on to you for information purposes. (U//FOUO) California: On 21 May 2002, US Coast Guard (USCG) personnel were notified by a kayak distributor in Wilmington, CA, in metropolitan Los Angeles, that three or four men appearing to be of Middle-Eastern descent attempted to purchase four small "sit on top" kayaks several weeks ago. The...

PUTNAM CO., WV, Nov. 5 - With the world as it is now, an attack at a power plant gets even more attention. And it comes just days after the news leaked that the coast guard was already looking for a suspicious boat in our region. At this point, the coast guard is not sure whether the two things are connected. It could be a coincidence. But here's the good thing out of this whole mess: AEP says it was a test that security passed. Putnam County Sheriff Stan Farley says, "Someone tried to come on the property." They ...

<p>A Qatar native held on charges of lying to the FBI in an investigation into the September 11 attacks was designated yesterday as an "enemy combatant" and could be tried before a military tribunal for helping al Qaeda operatives relocate in the United States. Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri, 37, in Justice Department custody since late 2001, was given the new designation by President Bush and handed over to the Defense Department.</p>

Officials Ask Florida Residents to Watch Waterways Fri Aug 23, 5:01 PM ET By Kristin Roberts MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (Reuters) - The U.S. Coast Guard asked marina workers and private boaters on Friday to monitor South Florida's waterways, tracking suspicious activity and reporting to law enforcement in the name of homeland defense. Coast Guard Capt. James Watson compared the effort to a call during World War II for civilians to watch the coast line for German U-boats. "None of us can ensure the safety of our citizens without the active participation of our citizens," Steve Lauer, Florida's domestic security chief,...

<p>The hearts of the people of Western Pennsylvania go out to people in the cities and villages of the Czech Republic, Austria, Germany, Slovakia, Russia and Romania. They are suffering flooding of a magnitude in some areas unprecedented in more than 150 years. We here remember floods very well.</p>

Report: Corps Projects Need External Review WASHINGTON, DC, July 26, 2002 (ENS) - The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers should seek external scientific reviews of its most costly, complex and controversial planning studies, concludes a new report from the National Research Council. The reviews should be made public, and the Corps should respond in writing to each key element, added the committee that wrote the report. The report, "Review Procedures for Water Resources Planning," comes as the Corps faces heavy criticism from members of Congress and environmental groups for its handling of several massive projects, including a $1 billion...