By Brian Bohl

The United States Coast Guard held a public meeting this week on a plan to install two communication towers on Long Island—at the Coast Guard station in Hampton Bays and the other on Fire Island.

As part of the Rescue 21 program, both communication towers would improve the Coast Guard’s search and rescue capabilities, homeland security procedures, and the ability for them to get the closest personnel available to the site of the distress, said USCG officials.

"This new system will allow us to get the location of anyone who calls for help, even if they cannot tell us where they are located to within a few hundred meters," said Coast Guard Environmental Manager Anita Allen.

"This (tower) is badly needed not only because it will help save someone who is on the water and in need of help but because we are part of homeland security, on call 24-7," said Paul Steinberg, Caption of Division 1 of the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary who spoke as a citizen and boater. "There have always been areas of problems (with communications) but it is now more essential than ever that we keep our equipment up-to-date and far reaching to protect the public’s safety and our country."

The tower will be located on the U.S. Coast Guard Station near the existing equipment shed. With the antenna attached, the height of the tower will be 411 feet. The scheduled completion date is September, 2006.

With the help of the new communication towers, boaters will be able to get a phone number for their digital radios that can be hooked up to a global positioning satellite. Similar to how a 9-1-1 call can be traced by police to the location of origin, the new Coast Guard will be able to determine where the distress signal originated. Coast Guard personnel could then locate the area and respond accordingly.

"The digital radios also have an emergency button that will automatically call the Coast Guard with a distress signal and the location of the boat," said Allen.

Another goal of Rescue 21, a $611 million program that will affect over 270 facilities nationwide, is for clearer lines of communication between all the government and law enforcement agencies. Every agency usually operates on a different frequency, but during emergencies, communications can sometimes be difficult.

"We will be able to push all those mismatched frequencies through the new system and everyone will be heard," said Allen. "Each agency can still talk on their own frequency, but everybody will still be able to hear you. We will be able to coordinate responses much better than we have in the past."

Ascertaining the whereabouts of distressed boaters will allow the Coast Guard to call for the vessels that are closest to the scene, which sounds simple enough but sometimes poses problems when the location of a ship calling for help cannot be verified.

"We will now be able to know which boats are closest, so we can dispatch the appropriate boats," said Allen.

"Anything that will help us with communications on the water is a plus," said Joe Slack a boater, Amityville resident and Bay Constable for the Town of Babylon.

Senior Chief Bob Plumpton, who has been an electronics specialist for 26 years agreed the system is needed.

"Now we have one system that will be consistent throughout the entire country," said Senior Chief Plumpton. "As a technician, this system is much more reliable. It increases our direction finding capabilities."

A potential impediment to the program would be the effect the new communications could have on the environment. To address that concern, the Coast Guard has prepared an environmental assessment for the two new towers. They have been working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service to make sure no animals are hurt during or after the construction process.

"We had a $350,000 independent study done to determine if any birds or wildlife will be killed," said Allen. "We have a tower that we’ve put up in Cape May. In the three years since its been there, we have one dead bird, but we are not sure if even that death was caused by the tower being there. We feel really good that we are doing the right thing as far as the power design goes."

West Islip resident Joe Marino said he believes the communications tower is long overdue.

"It’s about time that the communication technology over the water is updated," said Marino, a licensed boater. "It seems like just about everything has been stepped up a notch except for technology and security on the water and I am very glad to see that they haven’t forgotten about weekend boaters."

"The system will fill in existing coverage gaps, allow rescuers to quickly playback recorded communications, and provide enhanced interoperability with other federal, state and local communications systems," said Admiral Thomas H. Hollins in a released statement. "Rescue 21 represents a quantum leap forward in coastal command and control and distress communications."