Justification - Environmental Monitors on Lobster Traps and Large Trawlers (eMOLT)

Project Title: Environmental Monitors on Lobster Traps and Large Trawlers (eMOLT)

Program Office Sponsoring or Conducting this CSC Project: NOAA/NEFSC Cooperative Research Branch

Authority for this CSC Project: CCSA

Purpose of this CSC Project: By supplementing the physical oceanographic data collected by NOAA vessels, this project improves the oceanographic models NMFS develops and uses for a variety of purposes.

Type(s) of Information Collected and From Whom It Is Collected: This project collects basic physical oceanographic parameters (primarily temperature by location and date/time) of the ocean from 1) commercial fishermen who have attached low cost sensors to both fixed and mobile gear and 2) collaborating scientists on non-NOAA vessels from a variety of academic and government labs.

Use of the Information: In addition to monitoring the environment on multiple time scales (hourly to decadal), the data are used for assimilation into and validation of numerical ocean models.

Method(s) of Information Collection: electronically

Affected Public: Individuals, business or other for-profit organizations, not-for-profit institutions, State, Local, or Tribal government, and Federal government.

Estimated Average Annual Number of Participants: 110

Estimated Average Annual Number of Responses per Participant: 2.74

Estimated Average Minutes per Response: 42.9

Estimated Average Annual Burden Hours: 215

Estimated Total Annual Cost to Participants in this CSC Project: $0

Estimated Average Annual Costs to the Federal Government: $169,995

Estimated Average Annual Number of Federal Government Employees (FTEs): 0.80

Recruitment and Retention Methods for Voluntary Participants (SSA item 1): Project staff at NOAA and our partner organizations are in regular communication with volunteers and use their feedback to develop ways of serving the data back that are most useful to the volunteers.

Gifts or Payments (SSA Item 9): Some grants pay for fishermen's fuel cost as a small stipend while most participants do the work on a volunteer basis without any reimbursement.

Annual and Multi-Year Schedules (SSA Item 16): eMOLT does not run on an annual schedule. Commercial fishing takes place year round, thus information collection takes place year round in most cases. For a subset of fishermen that only fish lobster pots and use non-real time loggers, the loggers are deployed in the spring, retrieved in the fall, and data are summarized and presented back to volunteers in the winter.

Display OMB Control No. and Expiration Date (SSA Item 17): This information will be provided when individuals sign up to participate in this CSC project.

Statistical Methods: This CSC project will not employ statistical methods.

Approval for Pretesting: This CSC project will not require additional pretesting with more than nine members of the public.

Supplemental Documents: There are two supplemental documents for this CSC project. One includes screenshots from the data entry app. The other provides educational and recruitment information.

CERTIFICATION: I certify the following are true.

1. The collection is voluntary.

2. The collection is low-burden for respondents and low-cost for the Federal Government.

3. The collection is non-controversial and does not raise issues of concern to other federal agencies.

4. The collection will not include highly influential scientific information, ,which is information NOAA or OMB determines: (i) could have a potential impact of more than $500 million in any year, or (ii) is novel, controversial, or precedent setting or has significant interagency interest.

5. The collection complies with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR 1320.8(b)(3).

6. T he collection will provide qualitative and quantitative data that help inform scientific research and monitoring, validate models or tools, support STEM learning, and enhance the quantity and quality of data collected to support NOAA’s mission.

Name: George Maynard