10 FOGHORN Through the recent birth of our Harbor Safety Committee (HSC), I soon discovered there was an entire community of people from different waterways sectors who were fo- cused on reducing the overall risk within our waterway. By engaging this group to discuss known issues and develop solutions, I found we could make a real difference in re- ducing navigational risk on the Chicago River. This meant I was successful at my job in decreasing risk, but it also helped the company’s bottom line. In my 38 years in this industry, I had never seen such an opportunity for collabo- ration between waterways users and agency partners. So, what is an HSC, you may be asking? Simply put, an HSC is a forum for all of the different users of a shared waterway to come together to compare information and express con- cerns about what is happening within that waterway. What sets HSCs apart from other port or waterway-level commit- tees is that these are typically industry or community led and not led by the federal government. They have a broad membership; anyone is welcome, and no one group or sector is any more important than the others. A shared waterway is everyone’s to use, and that mindset is key to encouraging committee members to work together to address local chal- lenges. HSCs also have a broad focus, which includes topics related to the safety, efficiency, security, mobility, and en- vironmental protection of the waterway. The diverse set of partners and broad suite of issues explored means that for any issue that arises, you generally have the right people in the room to assess blind spots and develop innovative paths forward. In my own HSC, I have seen this be successful in reducing risk and finding compromise time and again. Although HSCs do not have any inherent authority, they provide a sort of peer governance for the maritime commu- nity. Many HSCs develop best maritime practices or stan- dards of care, which are designed to sensitize mariners to unique local conditions and operating practices within the region. These provisions are non-regulatory; they comple- ment and supplement existing laws and regulations where appropriate. Often, they emerge as solutions to a known is- sue, and the HSCs that develop them typically refer to them as a form of “self-regulation.” Within HSCs these guidelines emerge as solutions to an observed issue and reflect a bot- tom-up approach; a mindset that self-regulation is best. It’s the committee getting together and deciding what it thinks is a good guideline for mariners operating in region. It’s not the Coast Guard or any state authority telling them what to do. It’s the committee with true local knowledge deciding what they are going to ask each other to do. They can be tailored exactly for a specific situation in the port and are of tremendous value to the HSCs that choose to develop them. At my HSC in recent years, we have focused on making gains in several areas. I’ll highlight two here: deconflicting waterway use and running port-wide exercises to prepare for potential emergency scenarios. USE DECONFLICTION At the Chicago HSC, we believe that transparency and common ground provide the foundation for addressing user conflicts in the waterway. More often than not, users in conflict simply do not understand how the other oper- ates. It’s all about sharing perspectives. Once we can shine a light on how each operates and the challenges one group might be creating for another, we have found great success in identifying solutions. One multi-faceted example is how we have worked to engage recreational boaters, specifically within the human-powered sector (rowers, kayakers, pad- dleboarders, etc.). One of the first conflicts we observed and worked to ad- dress was between the human-powered sector and the com- mercial vessels on the river, and one of the first strategies we tried was to get the stakeholders in each other’s shoes. That is, we worked with the local rowing community and put FOGHORN FOCUS The diverse set of partners and broad suite of issues explored means that for any issue that arises, you generally have the right people in the room to assess blind spots and develop innovative paths forward.
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