[This post is back-dated to March 22nd, 2014, which is the date that CHAMP received word from PacIOOS that they would no longer be part of the Saipan/CHAMP/PacIOOS collaboration that was behind the deployment of the LLBP7 CREWS station at Lao Lao Bay, Saipan, CNMI.]
The CREWS station known as LLBP7, located in Lao Lao Bay in Saipan, was originally conceived as a collaboration between CHAMP in Miami, FL (the people who installed similar stations in the Bahamas, the US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands), Saipan's CRM and DEQ (which were later merged to form a new CNMI governmental agency known as BECQ), and PacIOOS (a program based out of Hawai`i that among other things installs CTDs at sites of interest throughout Hawai`i and the Pacific Ocean).
The station first became fully operational on August 27th, 2011, but lost power due to a short-circuit in the station's control package on October 4th, 2011. The PacIOOS CTD continued to log data locally following the station's loss of power, though. The station was subsequently reinstalled on March 19th, 2012 but again lost power on August 24th, this time as a result of seawater leaking into the PacIOOS CTD connector.
The station was reinstalled one more time on April 30th, 2013. At this point, all systems were working properly except the chlorophyll/turbidity sensors, which were part of an add-on package known as the FLNTUS, piggybacked off of the PacIOOS CTD. PacIOOS recommended that a continuity test be performed on the FLNTUS cable or, if that was unfeasible to do in the field, that the FLNTUS and its cable be removed and returned to land, and that its connector be dummy-plugged on the CTD so that the CTD could remain deployed and operational while further tests were performed on the FLNTUS. Unfortunately, the entire CTD was removed on August 2nd, 2013, and could not be redeployed as expected in September or October or even by the following January or March.
These station power outages and this prolonged CTD absence left the PacIOOS program with very little in the way of results to show for its efforts with the CREWS station, and as of March 22nd, 2014, the decision has reluctantly been made for PacIOOS to withdraw from this project. They have requested that the PacIOOS CTD not be reinstalled on the station and instead be returned to Honolulu at the earliest opportunity.
Another implication of this decision is for the station's communications. PacIOOS supplied not only the CTD but also the digital cellular modem by which data are accessed in near-real time by the CHAMP servers in Miami, FL. PacIOOS additionally covers the monthly costs of the Docomo cellular service for the modem. It is expected that PacIOOS will at some point wish to terminate their cellular account and recover their modem hardware, so in order for communications to continue long-term someone else must assume the cost of the modem hardware and monthly cellular service.