[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 158 (Thursday, September 29, 2022)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E995]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




CONGRATULATING MAJOR GENERAL TOM MULLIKIN ON A SUCCESSFUL DEPLOYMENT OF 
                         THE SMART REEF PROJECT

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. RALPH NORMAN

                           of south carolina

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 29, 2022

  Mr. NORMAN. Madam Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Major General 
(Ret.) Tom Mullikin, PhD, JD and the SC7 Team for successful deployment 
of the Smart Reef Project. This project increased integrated real time 
environmental observations and advanced modeling supporting an array of 
beneficial applications. A secondary focus was on technology 
development to enable cost effective distributed observing.
  The Smart Reef Initiative advanced numerous goals of the South 
Carolina Floodwater Commission recommendations: data collection to 
advance modeling for predicting and engineering of coastal environments 
to deal with issues of sea level rise and flooding; exploring the 
utility of artificial reefs to potentially be designed to effect 
coastal beach erosion while also supporting recreational fisheries; 
and, data collection for similar ideas of ``living shorelines'' such as 
oyster reef restoration projects to help mitigate marsh erosion in 
estuaries as well as the potential to employ further up the watershed.
  The Smart Reef system adds data and facilitates real-time data feeds 
into the Coastal Carolina University Center's interactively coupled 
ocean-atmosphere-wave-hydrologic modeling system to improve the 
advanced model applications to help inform discussions about tropical 
storm impacts (e.g., flooding, and storm surge) and eventually broader 
pressures and threats to our coastal environmental and economies. The 
data also supports broad research interests related to the growing of 
reef system interactions with waves and currents as well as a wide 
range of natural resource management concerns.
  The SC7 Team Expedition along with the South Carolina National 
Heritage Corridor, Coastal Carolina University, University of South 
Carolina, South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, Force Blue, 
Medical University of South Carolina, South Carolina Office of 
Resiliency, South Carolina Department of Veterans Affairs, Toadfish and 
other private sector partners successfully overcame rough seas to 
deploy the Smart Reef technology to protect the Palmetto State. A 
special thanks to my friend MG Tom Mullikin for his continued and 
tireless efforts to protect South Carolina's beautiful environment.

                          ____________________