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GCN Home > July 30, 2001 issue

Fish Story

Service acts fast to build Web app for compliance

BY PATRICIA DAUKANTAS | GCN STAFF

The National Marine Fisheries Service is developing several interactive Web applications, including one for people who might be affected by enforcement of the Endangered Species Act.

Larry Tyminski and Jim Sargent
National Marine Fisheries Service CIO Larry Tyminski, left, and deputy CIO Jim Sargent create Web apps for their diverse bureau.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration bureau, known as NOAA Fisheries, took the Permit Consultation Tracking System live late last month at www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pcts. The Web application lets constituents of so-called Section 7 consultations check the status of the consultation process.

Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act requires that federal agencies conducting operations that could affect threatened or endangered species notify either the Fish and Wildlife Service or NOAA Fisheries, depending on whether the species live mostly on land or in water.

Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans sparked the project in early May, said Larry Tyminski, chief information officer of NOAA Fisheries. After Evans talked with personnel at the bureau’s Northwest Regional Office in Seattle, the Commerce CIO’s office asked the NOAA Fisheries application development team to build the site as quickly as possible.

Fish
“This was a real opportunity for us,” said Jim Sargent, deputy CIO for special projects.

“We got some fabulous feedback from the department regarding our ability to respond so quickly,” Tyminski said.

Although the main PCTS Web site isn’t password-protected, prospective users must enter a permit number to find out anything useful about that permit, Sargent said.

A password-protected management report section shows bureau managers the status of all consultations under way and helps them improve internal business processes, Tyminski said.

Bluefin—cast away

The permit system runs on Sun Microsystems Enterprise 3500 servers at NOAA headquarters in Silver Spring, Md. The developers used Oracle Corp.’s PL/SQL language to customize the site’s Oracle8i database, Tyminski said.

Fish
“It was a lot of fun,” Sargent said of the lightning development process. “The enthusiasm was very high.”

Following the success of the bureau’s online shop for Atlantic bluefin tuna fishing permits [GCN, Aug. 21, 2000, Page 51], NOAA Fisheries is considering expanding online sales to other types of permits, Tyminski said. He is organizing a group in the bureau to find ways to simplify constituents’ online experiences.

The permit systems were originally developed in stovepipe mode because of the bureau’s regional orientation. “We have Atlantic cod in the Northeast, but we don’t have it in the Northwest,” Sargent said. But the business process with the public is basically the same, no matter what the permit.



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