Grants help keep research buoys afloat

A buoy bobbing in the ocean off Capers Island is a dream on life support.

The dream is the Integrated Ocean Observing System, a web of offshore buoys and platforms taking readings on conditions such as sea temperature, waves, currents and salinity — a hands-on tool to manage everything from fish stocks to forecasting rip currents, storm surge or tsunamis.

The real-time computer network ideally would feed data to and from instruments around the country and around the world, right down to the boater in his boat. The groundbreaking concept could eventually make life easier for everyone who lives or works along any coast.

The buoy is one of six put in place off South Carolina in 2003. One by one, they have been shut down as money to maintain them dried up.

That's the importance of nearly $2 million in National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration grants won by two regional coastal observing systems operating hand in hand in the Carolinas.

"It keeps us in the game and keeps us moving forward," said Richard DeVoe, South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium director, who oversees the Southeast Coastal Ocean Observing Regional Association, one of the systems.

Read more in tomorrow's editions of The Post and Courier.