TCOON is presently operated in cooperation with the Texas General Land Office, the Texas Water Development Board, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The network utilizes the Next Generation Water Level Measurement System developed by NOAA's National Ocean Service (NOS) for the National Water Level Observation Network. Water-level data and other environmental parameters are made available in near-real time via packet radio, cellular telephone, and the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES). The TCOON system has been installed using the NOAA criteria for guidance.
The primary use of TCOON data has been to establish tidal datums for use in littoral boundary determination and to provide high-quality water-level information for water circulation studies of the bays and estuaries along the Texas coast, and to assist local officials with preparation for meteorological events. However, the information collected by TCOON has also been used for oil-spill preparation and response, recreation, marine and navigation safety, oceanographic and environmental research, and coastal engineering and construction. In 1995 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers became a TCOON sponsor to support its operations in dredging and management of Texas coastal waterways.
Today, the TCOON system has forty-two stations, including seven long-term stations established and operated by NOS as part of its National Water Level Observation Network. NOS guidance has been followed to obtain reliable water level data and to address legal concerns for the admissibility of the data in the determination of littoral boundaries. Most stations provide additional data such as wind speed and direction, air temperature, and water temperature, and some stations provide water current, salinity, pH, and dissolved oxygen data. This data is collected at six-minute intervals (0.1 hours). In order to manage this large volume of data, a database management system has been developed and continues to be improved. An Intel based workstation running UNIX is responsible for collecting, archiving, and decoding all source data received from the remote platforms. The data are supplied to sponsors and the public via the Internet at the Division of Nearshore Research Web site and through voice telephone response systems.
Several related projects have been established based on the data collection and management systems developed for TCOON. These projects include the Nueces Bay Salinity Project, the Oso Creek Water Quality Monitoring Project, the Corpus Christi Real-Time Navigation System, the Freeport FlowInfo System, and a National Weather Service offshore platform. The Nueces Bay Salinity Project and Oso Creek Water Quality Monitoring Project have thirteen platforms that assist local water management officials by providing near-real time water-quality parameters such as salinity and dissolved oxygen. The Corpus Christi Real-Time Navigation System and the Freeport FlowInfo System provide the Port of Corpus Christi and Port Freeport with real-time navigation data such as water level, water currents, and meteorological conditions. The National Weather Service offshore platform provides meteorological and wave data to help local forecasters create marine condition forecasts.
The Conrad Blucher Institute for Surveying and Science has developed one of the most sophisticated water level and environmental observation systems available. The system is providing data to assist current needs for hurricane preparedness, littoral boundary definition, water quality, real-time water level and meteorological monitoring for marine safety, and recreational users of the bays and estuaries of South Texas. The high quality of the data provides the potential to expand research initiatives into oil spill prevention and response, eustatic sea level, and shoreline subsidence monitoring, and a host of environmental studies related to water quality and circulation
Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi