Cooperation is requested of the fishing industry to avoid moored instruments in the area outside Block Island Sound to the south of the opening between Montauk Point and Block Island. Boundaries of the area are Latitude 41^o 05' to 40^o 52' N and Longitude 71^o 30' to 71^o 47' E.

This announcement aims to minimize the potential for costly damage to trawling and dredging gear and to the moored instruments. Entanglement with these instruments could interfere with your limited number of days at sea.

The Southern New England Fishermen's and Lobstermen's Association is cooperating on this project with scientists from the Navy, Coast Guard and several New England universities. The project goal is to make predictions of water currents and temperature patterns, similar to the way that weather is predicted. Maps of ocean currents and temperatures produced using measurements from these instruments will be distributed free of charge for the use of the fishing community. The study is being carried out with no connection to monitoring, regulation, or management of the fishing industry.

The instruments will lie inside low-profile pyramid-shaped cages. These weighted cages will rest on the sea floor with no surrounding cabling. They are 7 feet wide and 2 feet high, with smoothly sloping upper surfaces specifically designed to limit snaring of fishing gear. Some of the cages will be equipped to send a tethered float to the surface, and then retrieve it minutes later, a few times a day.

Several instruments will be set for preliminary deployments in November and December of 1999. Starting in March of 2000, an array of up to 20 instruments will be deployed. Further announcements, with more specific dates, will follow.

For more information, contact Art Medeiros (Southern New England Fisherman's and Lobsterman's Association) at 860-535-3150 or Ivar Babb (University of Connecticut) at 860-405-9121. A description of the project and a chart showing the region of interest is at http://www.nopp.uconn.edu/Proposal/index.html.