IWR and PIANC-USA Coordinate with OAS Interamerican Committee on Ports

ALEXANDRIA, VA — July 2, 2009. PIANC USA and Organization of American States Interamerican Committee on Ports (OAS-CIP) leaders have agreed to speak at July events in Pittsburgh and Brazil.

CIP Executive Board, Corps and PIANC USA representatives met in April with Mr. Carlos Gallegos, Executive Secretary of the OAS-CIP, at the CIP office. In addition to being a get-acquainted session, the main purpose of the meeting was to follow up on the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between PIANC-USA and OAS-CIP and to develop specific areas of cooperation. As a result of this meeting, the following upcoming events were decided:

Mr. Gallegos agreed to be a featured speaker at the PIANC-USA annual meeting in Pittsburgh on 15 July.
Ms. Lillian Almodovar from IWR will be a speaker at the OAS-CIP First Hemispheric Convention on Environmental Port Protection, to be held 21-24 July at Iguassu Falls, Brazil.

At the First Hemispheric Convention on Environmental Port Protection, Ms. Almodovar will focus on harbor improvements underway in the U.S. to prepare for changes in the world fleet and environmental mitigation issues associated with those improvements. PIANC-USA will also work on further coordination with Latin American participants in various CIP Technical Advisory Groups and subcommittees where the Corps/PIANC-USA can offer expertise, including dredging, environmental issues, emergency response, harbor development, and inland waterways.

More about the Tenth Meeting CIP Executive Board

In March, IWR staff participated in the Tenth Meeting CIP Executive Board, held in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Delegates from 34 OAS nations attended.

The conference included meetings of all four of the CIP Technical Advisory Groups (TAGs), including Logistics & Competiveness, Port Security (chaired by the U.S.), Navigation Safety, and Environmental Port Protection. In addition, twelve subcommittees on various maritime topics also met and reported on their activities to the general assembly, including the first report of the new Subcommittee on River and Lake Ports, chaired by Paraguay. The TAG on Port Security was chaired by Greg Hall from the U.S. Maritime Administration and reported primarily on the proceedings of the Third Hemispheric Conference on Port Security, which it sponsored in Spring 2008 in the Dominican Republic. Other U.S. attendees included representatives from the Coast Guard and the State Department.

The general sessions of the conference included reports regarding:

Progress toward a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the International Maritime Organization
Efforts to centralize data and information on port statistics and investments
Promulgation of a Declaration on Guidelines for Environmental Port Protection (Panama has the lead)
Improvements at the Port of Buenos Aires
Development of the Parana-Paraguay inland waterway
Impacts of the current recession on ports and development projects throughout the region
Efforts to coordinate security and emergency response capabilities
Growth in the cruise ship market despite the economic downturn

More about the Memorandum of Understanding

IWR, on behalf of the Corps, serves as host agency to the U.S. Section of the World Association for Waterborne Transport Infrastructure (previously International Navigation Association), or PIANC-USA. In December 2005 PIANC-USA signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for cooperation in joint activities with the Organization of American States Interamerican Committee on Ports (OAS-CIP). As a further step to implement the MOU, IWR and PIANC-US staff have participated in meetings of the CIP Executive Board and in specialty conferences on issues such as Port Security.

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