Terms of Reference

Once potential users and stakeholders for GCOOS have been identified, a Stakeholder Council will be established to ensure that GCOOS is developed with user benefits in mind. Stakeholder Council members will be appointed by the GCOOS Board of Directors and will reflect the broad spectrum of users and stakeholders interested in the products of ocean observing systems. The Stakeholder Council will provide advice on policies, identify potential new audiences for data and products, provide input to improve data and products, assist or advise on ways to support the activities and enhance the national resources of the National Federation of Regional Associations, and suggest improvements in disseminating data and products to users and decision makers. They will advise on other matters as may be requested by the GCOOS-RA Board and Committees. The chairperson and other officers, as may be determined to be necessary by the Council members or the Board of Directors, will be elected by the Stakeholder Council members through an election organized by the Membership Committee. At least one member of the Board of Directors shall serve on the Stakeholder Council.

Membership

* Sectors: A = Academic; G = Government; P = Private

Meetings & Reports

The Stakeholder Council met January 10-11, 2006 in Mobile, AL. The meeting report (with links to presentations given) is available.

Action Plan for February 2006 - January 2007

• In addition to identifying priority measurements and products and suggesting pilot projects to begin implementation of these, the Council recommended that the focused stakeholder workshops attempt to quantify the value of prioritized observations and products. To get this started, Board members Cort Cooper and Alfredo Prelat will attempt some quantitative estimates for observations and products suggested by the Oil and Gas and Related Industry workshop.
   
• Most county/state health departments make regular water quality measurements for human pathogens. These observations are placed into databases that could be made internet-accessible. Linking these together into a GOM-wide beach health indicator map would be very useful to beach managers. Ultimately, such observations could be linked with physical transport observations and models to give predictive capability. Bart Bibler agreed to work with the EPA Gulf of Mexico Program to push a pilot project to construct a prototype GoM web site for human pathogens. Assistance from the NCDDC may be needed to place data in common formats with common metadata.
   
• In Texas, coordination among state agencies with coastal mandates is carried out by the TX Coastal Coordination Council. Their meetings provide excellent venues to inform and engage state agencies. In Florida, coordination is by the FL Oceans and Coastal Resources Council. Determine whether similar groups exist in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Action with Robert Stickney, Council Chair. Arrangements should be made for regular briefing of existing coordinating groups. [Response from Louisiana was that there was no group similar to CCC. Since 1981, the Coastal Zone Management Program of Alabama has been overseen by the Coastal Resources Advisory Committee. No reply yet from MS, but will try again. Does anyone on the Council have information on MS?]
   
• There likely exists in each Gulf state a network of emergency responders. Bart Bibler and Board member Buzz Martin will identify for the GCOOS Office those networks for FL and TX, respectively. The Office will determine such networks in the other three states using Stakeholder Council and Board members as contacts.
   
• Bart Bibler suggested that the Council and Board should pursue getting the governors of the five states to endorse GCOOS. He suggested this should be done by obtaining endorsement of GCOOS by the lead Gulf of Mexico Alliance state agency and then obtaining endorsement by the governors themselves. A plan of action should be developed on this for each state. Assistance of the Stakeholder Council will be requested by the Office as needed.
   
• GCOOS needs a Communication Strategy. This should be suggested by the Stakeholder Council and the Education and Outreach Council and approved by the Board of Directors. As elements of that strategy the Stakeholder Council recommends the following elements/actions:
   
• Members of the Council, as well as other GCOOS advocates, should seize every opportunity for advocacy. To this end it was agreed that: (1) Information on meetings of interest will be assembled by Bob Stickney's office and passed to the GCOOS Office to maintain a calendar of such meetings on the web site; (2) A series of PowerPoints describing GOOS, IOOS, GCOOS Status and GCOOS Plans will be maintained on an ftp site for use by speakers attending such meetings; (3) Advocates will be matched to meetings; and (4) Speakers will be asked to provide feedback regarding how their presentations were received and whether follow-up actions are needed. [Action by the Stakeholder Council on this item has been completed]
   
• Stakeholder Council members should be involved in regular conference calls initiated by the Chair. [Contact has been via e-mail to date, but conference calls will be initiated as needed]
   
• Stakeholder Council members will review the GCOOS web site and suggest improvements. It is the responsibility of Council members to undertake this and report suggestions to the GCOOS Office. [All members should have done this some time ago]
   
• Bart Bibler will provide to the Office, for posting to the web, links to inventories of monitoring programs (e.g., water and beach quality) for Florida.
   
• Paul Kelly agreed to have a committee of the Offshore Users Council review the prioritized requirements for measurements and products from the November 2005 Oil and Gas and Related Industry workshop. Office will send lists to Kelly and remind him of this action. [This action has been taken by the GCOOS Office]