You’ve hit on something really critical here. It’s very trendy to use crowdsourced data for all manner of things. NOAA has obviously been using the Voluntary Observing Ship (VOS) Program for years and to great effect. It’s part of a world wide effort and it adds a significant amount of data in terms of real time observations and data points for use in models, especially in certain ocean areas where there is no other source of observations. However it is CRITICAL that crowdsource data is curated and QA/QC’d to ensure that you are not including erroneous or incorrect readings. The old garbage in, garbage out situation. This is where an agency like NOAA with rigorous scientific standards and technical experts plays a key role.
Now when we look to other uses for crowdsourced data this instance comes to mind:
As part of that discussion there’s the NOAA data which is up to date, entirely correct, and includes the rock involved in the allision:
Then there’s apparently a Navionics image with an unidentified source or collection of data:
No idea what data was or wasn’t used in the second image but the rock is nowhere to be found. To me this is a prime example of a competently surveyed and properly sourced chart product in stark contrast with a privately available product that comes from dubious or incomplete sources with zero ground truthing. If we cut, or even take away public, not for profit agencies like NOAA, we are destined to arrive at the cutting corners and good enough efforts that we too often see coming from the uninformed public or worse, private industry emphasizing profit over public safety or the public good.
You can bet that to survey just this little part of Alaska was not cheap. Putting actual people (NOAA mariners) out on the grounds for weeks at a time to entirely insonify an area for complete bottom coverage is a time consuming, laborious, and to extent dangerous task. But how else can you ensure that you have identified all the rocks and shoals present as well as their least depth? This location happened to be relatively close to Kodiak so, while the rest of the US considers this area isolated and remote, by Alaska standards this area was low hanging fruit and easy to access. Expand these survey efforts to all areas of Alaska including the Arctic and you are likely talking billions of dollars over decades to try and get up to date, accurate, and complete charts.
Here’s a summary of what NOAA is doing just this year through a combination of NOAA ships and private contractors.
NOAA Hydrographic Survey Projects 2025
Unfortunately the list of 2025 projects has changed from what was originally planned as NOAA has been forced to scale back their operations due to a shortage of mariners given that they remain unable to hire for any of their existing vacancies.
When cutting corners, arbitrarily firing ALL recent hires, and refusing to allow hiring of technical experts to fill critical vacancies, who will ultimately be responsible when resulting faulty data or products result in significant damage or even death?