F. Shiptime Support An adequate research vessel is an absolute requirement for the transportation of personnel and equipment to the Atolls and for support of personne? and the program during residency at any Atoll]. There are no adequate vessels available for short-time charters in the Marshall] Islands at the present time. Currently DOE provides support for its on-going programs through an annual lease arrangement. The current 1981 estimated annual operating costs for the vessel is $900,000. It is estimated that this cost will increase annually by at Teast 15% primarily because of rising fuel costs. The home port of the vessel is Kwajalein Atoll. This Atoll is a convenient staging area for scientists and equipment since it is accessable by air from the U.S. mainland. Shiptime is a valuable commodity and presently there is little flexibility "in the schedule to accomodate any significant additional use of the current vessel. Unless part of the on-going DOE programs in the Marshalls were reduced in effort, the present vessel would be inadequate to provide the support required for current programs and any additional program requiring several months of independent operation in the field. provide a separate vessel to support this EMRD. One option is to However, since charters are not available, it would cost approximately $1,000,000 annually to maintain an additional vessel at Kwajalein. During the first few years it is estimated that, with the program as described herein, the ship would not be used by any new group of investigators for more than 3 to 4 months of the year to collect baseline information and conduct regular sampling. It could be idle during the rest of the years unless Supplementary charters could be found. 49