HQ 111418: Coastwise Trade; Valueless Material; Seawater; 46 U.S.C. App. 883.

Native CBP ruling rendition. Applicability is fact-specific; modification/revocation relationships and original publisher date are retained. Publisher sentinel year0001 means unknown date, not a historical legal adoption.

                            HQ 111418

                         March 11, 1991

VES-3-17   CO:R:IT:C  111418  JBW

CATEGORY:   Carriers

Catriona V. Smith
Lone Star Hatchery, Inc.
Route 2, Box 469
San Benito, Texas  78586

RE:  Coastwise Trade; Valueless Material; Seawater; 46 U.S.C.
     App. 883.

Dear Ms. Smith:

     This letter is in response to your request, dated November
1, 1990, for a ruling on the application of the coastwise laws
to the use of barge and push-boat for the transportation of
seawater.

FACTS:

     Lone Star Hatchery, Inc., operates a shrimp hatchery at Port
Isabel, Texas.  You state that Loan Star Hatchery intends to
purchase a barge and a push-boat to transport seawater from the
Brazos Santiago Pass to the hatchery site.  Both of these points
are in intercoastal waters.

ISSUE:

     Whether the transportation of seawater between points in
intercoastal waters is coastwise trade as defined in 46 U.S.C.A.
App. 883 (West Supp. 1990).

LAW AND ANALYSIS:

     The coastwise laws of the United States prohibit the
transportation of merchandise between points in the United States
embraced within the coastwise laws in any vessel other than a
vessel built and documented under the laws of the United States
and owned by persons who are citizens of the United States. 46
U.S.C.A. App. 883 (West Supp. 1990)(referred to as "the Jones
Act").  Generally, the coastwise laws apply to points within the
territorial sea of the United States, defined as the belt, three
nautical miles wide, seaward of the territorial sea baseline, and
to points located in internal waters, landward of the territorial
sea baseline, in cases where the baseline and the coastline
differ.  Headquarters Ruling Letter 111275, dated November 13,
1990.  These waters include the intercoastal waters of the United
States.

     The term merchandise is defined in the coastwise statute to
include valueless materials.  46 U.S.C. App. 883.  The statute
further provides that the transportation of valueless material,
regardless of its commercial value, from a point or place in the
United States or a point or place on the high seas within the
Exclusive Economic Zone, as defined in the Presidential
Proclamation of March 10, 1983, to another point or place in the
United States or a point or place on the high seas within the
Exclusive Economic Zone falls within the ambit of the coastwise
statute.

     Applying these rules, we determine that the transportation
of seawater between points in the intercoastal waters would be a
transportation under 46 U.S.C. App. 883.  Headquarters Ruling
Letter 109788, dated February 21, 1989.  Only vessel documented
with a coastwise endorsement may engage in such transportation.
46 U.S.C. 12106 (1988).

HOLDING:

     The transportation of seawater between points in
intercoastal waters is a coastwise transportation under 46
U.S.C.A. 883.



                              Sincerely,



                              B. James Fritz
                              Chief
                              Carrier Rulings Branch