Most national security experts agree that bolstering U.S. icebreaking capability is essential to best position the United States in the Arctic, but views vary on how the Coast Guard should do it. Some lawmakers and industry leaders advocate for leasing or a lease/own mix, while others promote designing and building a unique platform, purchasing already built vessels, or collaborating with other countries on design and construction.
Regardless of how a national icebreaking capability is achieved, the Coast Guard still needs to effectively address the operational factors of space and time to be positioned for success in the Arctic. Infrastructure—including deep-water ports, improved communications, and transportation hubs—will be essential to this equation moving forward. For the Coast Guard, the greatest near-term return on investment after icebreakers would be to shorten lines of operation and establish forward-operating bases.
Isolation and Bad Weather
Defined by its geography, northern Alaska is sparsely populated. Lacking infrastructure that most Americans take for granted, Alaskan communities and commercial operations above the Arctic Circle contend with the tyranny of distance and the ebb and flow of severe weather to secure food, energy, and other basic necessities.
Travel throughout the region, especially on the Bering, Chukchi, and Beaufort seas, is often made more challenging by ever-present climatic extremes, especially along the expansive and inaccessible coastlines. Many communities are accessible only by sea or air, and very few have interconnecting road systems. During the spring and late fall, many lose the use of their ports because of ice, and they rely on air service for commodities and travel. The Bering Strait, a strategic maritime chokepoint shared between the United States and Russia, is 55 miles wide at its narrowest point and presents the only access to the Northern Sea Route and Northwest Passage from the Pacific Ocean.
Treacherous Conditions
If the Arctic ice continues to recede as predicted, annual maritime activity transiting the Bering Strait will continue to increase, and the Northwest Passage and Northern Sea Routes will quickly become two of the world’s most significant sea lines of communication. Although these transportation routes may be predominantly ice-free in the summer, Heather A. Conley, senior vice president for Europe, Eurasia, and the Arctic Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, believes that “as the Arctic’s multi-year ice pack diminishes, ice floes become more unpredictable and the intensification of Arctic storms make the region more dangerous.”1
The resulting accumulation at chokepoints or areas of reduced maneuverability may lead to vessels trapped in ice. The probability of these occurrences speaks to one of the main reasons for which an icebreaking capability is necessary for the United States. Even so, an icebreaker or fleet of icebreakers alone will not effectively mitigate the operational factors of space and time. As diminishing ice coverage effectively increases the Coast Guard’s area of operations, the service will need to address these factors to be positioned for success.
Currently, most Coast Guard and other federal and state response resources are located south of the Arctic in locations such as Anchorage, Kodiak Island, and Fairbanks. This can significantly reduce response time. Flights from Kodiak to Barrow along the North Slope are equivalent to flying from Boston to Chicago. The flying time between Kodiak and the Bering Strait is about the same as Boston to Washington, D.C. Dispatching surface assets such as a Coast Guard national security cutter from Dutch Harbor or St. Paul Island to the North Slope can take at least three days, depending on the weather and sea state.
To mitigate the operational factors of space and time, the Coast Guard forward-deploys assets during high-risk periods. Staging assets allows for quicker responses during planned events such as the Bering Sea crab fishery, as well as during the summer months, when maritime traffic increases. Having cutters patrolling the Bering Sea and aircraft staged at St. Paul Island during these periods has often made the difference between life and death.
The Coast Guard has also hosted Operation Arctic Shield, an annual interagency deployment, every summer since 2012, to execute operations, assess capabilities, and conduct public outreach along the Bering and Chukchi seas. Fixed- and rotary-winged aircraft, small boats, and Coast Guard personnel lease existing infrastructure to support on-scene presence during periods of increased maritime activity.2 However, the effort relies on reallocating capacity from around Alaska and at the national level to shorten lines of operation. Though laudable and reflective of the Coast Guard’s lean-forward character, in the long term this approach is insufficient.
Responsibilities and Challenges
Despite the forward deployment of response assets from around Alaska to mitigate risks, many incidents have occurred outside periods of heightened activity, or else responders could not arrive in time to mitigate the incident effectively. In the recent past, even though there have been no significant environmental spills or search-and-rescue events north of the Bering Strait, a number of incidents have occurred in the Bering Sea.
On 26 November 1997, the Kuroshima, a 370-foot commercial cargo ship, broke from its anchorage in Summer Bay near Dutch Harbor, Alaska. While Kuroshima was attempting to find a safer anchorage, winds believed to be in excess of 100 knots blew the freighter aground, damaging several fuel tanks. This resulted in the deaths of two crewmen and the release of approximately 39,000 gallons of fuel oil. The severe winter storm quickly spread the leaking fuel oil to nearby bays and coves, while high winds blew the fuel oil onto nearby dunes, contaminating sensitive ecological areas and a significant archeological site.
A unified command consisting of federal, state, and industry responders was quickly established to oversee the recovery of spilled oil and the stabilization of the Kuroshima. Immediate response efforts continued through December, when environmental conditions became unsafe for response personnel. Salvage operations resumed in January 1998, and after several attempts, the Kuroshima was refloated on 1 March 1998 and towed to Dutch Harbor. In April cleanup efforts resumed and were officially “completed” in July 1998, although residual contamination remains almost 20 years later.3
On 6 December 2004, the Selendang Ayu, a 738-foot bulk freighter carrying soybeans, took her engines offline to make repairs while transiting the Bering Sea en route to China. In the midst of a violent winter storm with 35-foot seas and 60-knot winds, the freighter was unable to regain propulsion and began drifting toward the Aleutian Islands. Over the next two days, three tugs and the USCGC Alex Haley (WMEC-39) attempted to take the Selendang Ayu in tow. Unfortunately, high winds and roiling seas kept the vessels from sustaining the tow.
On the afternoon of 8 December, the Selendang Ayu drifted into shallow waters off Unalaska Island. Shortly thereafter, despite successfully anchoring, the freighter grounded off the western shore of the island, approximately 54 hours after the main engines had been taken offline. During a Coast Guard effort to remove the ship’s crew, a USCG helicopter crashed, killing six Selendang Ayu crew members but sparing the aircrew. Pummeled by waves, the vessel split apart, spilling more than 60,000 metric tons of soybeans and 350,000 gallons of fuel oil.
With the freighter wreckage located in a remote cove 25 miles west of Dutch Harbor, cleanup efforts were often hampered by the winter weather. Pollution responders had to overcome logistical obstacles typical in Alaska, such as being far from infrastructure and having access to the site only by sea and air. Poor environmental conditions hampered waterside operations, and shoreline operations were limited to pollution assessments along the coast and isolating key salmon streams from contamination.4
When the weather did cooperate, controversial in situ burn techniques versus mechanical recovery were used because of the cost and logistics involved in transporting equipment and removing waste. Throughout the cleanup, commercial helicopters were used to deploy boom, as well as lighter fuel from the stern section of the Selendang Ayu. For 13 months, a heavy-lift helicopter made 70 round trips with a 2,000-gallon sling-loaded cube full of oil from the ship to Dutch Harbor, where it was shipped to Seattle for disposal.5
The challenges experienced during the Kuroshima and Selendang Ayu responses highlight the risks of operating in the Arctic maritime, which include responding to accidents in this complex and unpredictable environment. Both spills pale in comparison to the Gulf of Mexico’s 2010 Deepwater Horizon semisubmersible rig disaster, but an event anywhere near that magnitude would quickly consume Alaska’s available infrastructure and resources. The region’s weather and remoteness, distances between logistical hubs, and restricted modes of transportation would come to bear on the success of any large-scale responses.
Invest in Infrastructure
Operation Arctic Shield has allowed the Coast Guard to explore possible infrastructure locations and expose people and equipment to the harsh operating environment to inform future capability and resourcing endeavors. These operations have required that the service shift resources from other operational areas. During Arctic Shield 2015, the national security cutter USCGC Waesche (WMSL-751), originally tasked to conduct counterdrug operations in support of the Coast Guard’s Western Hemisphere Strategy, was instead diverted to provide a response capability in the Arctic.
As Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Paul Zukunft summed up the situation: “The biggest shortcoming in the Arctic is you don’t have the shore infrastructure. We don’t have those permanent bases that we operate from in the lower forty-eight.”6 A 2012 Alaska Northern Waters Task Force report to the state legislature noted that the nearest Coast Guard base to Arctic activity was more than 1,000 miles away, causing “untenable logistical problems that negatively impact response times and capabilities.” The report advocated “a greater overall [Coast Guard] presence in the Arctic, with the ability to stage assets closer to future shipping, oil and gas drilling, and commercial fishing activities.”7
In late 2014, the Department of Homeland Security hosted a workshop at the University of Fairbanks to review Arctic research projects. Infrastructure was identified as a priority. The group’s first project was to determine the design and construction criteria for building a large heated hangar. Though certainly an important capability, the Coast Guard would be better suited with a facility that could exercise command and control of Arctic operations, protect response assets from the elements, support large-scale responses to oil spills or mass rescues, and provide berthing and messing during operations.
Former Nome mayor Denise Michaels believed her city was the right location for a base.8 The current mayor, Richard Beneville, agrees. Located along the Bering Strait, Nome would provide quicker response times to both the Bering and Chukchi seas. As one of the last ports of refuge before entering the Arctic Ocean, Nome would provide Coast Guard vessels the ability to moor, replenish supplies, and avoid severe weather. With a forward-operating base alongside a commercial port, Coast Guard marine inspectors could examine ships making their first and only port call prior to transiting U.S. waters to the Northwest Passage. Inspectors could also conduct compliance inspections of commercial operations supporting local mining and oil exploration or taking excursion trips into the Arctic.
Funding a forward-operating base as part of an annual budget submission is likely infeasible in the near term, but public-private opportunities offer alternative ways to establish infrastructure. In the past decade, public-private partnerships have led to numerous infrastructure projects being completed throughout the United States.9 Nome recently constructed a $168 million hospital funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and other projects around the nation are starting to capitalize on these advantageous models.10
Obviously, forward-operating bases would not be a year-round necessity in the near future. However, it would be extremely beneficial for them to be available for emergent responses, as well as for planned and seasonal operational periods. To minimize operating expenses and provide revenue to local communities, Native corporations could maintain the facilities just as they keep other Department of Defense resources around the state. Seasonal use would also minimize local impact and allow the facilities to be used as emergency shelters or centers for managing responses locally until the Coast Guard or other assistance arrived.
The Arctic will continue to see an increase in shipping, exploration, and excursion activity as the ice recedes. With an icebreaking capability likely to be determined in the very near future, the Coast Guard will soon have the means to successfully maneuver within the Arctic. Yet to effectively address the operational factors of space and time in the region and shorten the service’s lines of operation, infrastructure investments are necessary for the Coast Guard to be Semper Paratus.
1. Heather A. Conley, “America in the Arctic,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, 4 June 2015.
2. Meredith Manning, “Coast Guard Initiates Arctic Shield 2015,” Coast Guard Alaska, 10 July 2015.
3. U.S. Department of the Interior, Restoration Program, “M/V Kuroshima.”
4. International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation Limited, “Selendang Ayu, United States, 2004,” 8 December 2004.
5. Ibid.
6. Jacqueline Klimas, “Interview: Adm. Paul Zukunft, Coast Guard Commandant,” Washington Examiner, 26 September 2015.
7. “Findings and Recommendations of the Alaska Northern Waters Task Force,” Alaska State Legislature, January 2012.
8. Mayor Denise Michaels, Nome, Alaska, “Arctic USCG Base Needed,” Institute of the North, 2012.
9. Andrew Deye, “U.S. Infrastructure Public-Private Partnerships: Ready for Takeoff?” Kennedy School Review, 16 June 2015.
10. “Nome Celebrates Opening of New State-of-the-Art Hospital,” Alaska Business Monthly, 16 November 2012.