How will the 14 C-27Js be employed?

In years past, we flew the Falcon jet, but we are taking those aircraft out of service. The C-27Js will fill that niche. But where we site them we’re going to have to do that a little bit differently, because we used to have maybe two Falcon jets at one station, one at another, maybe three at another, and so on across the country. Well, once you do that, the maintenance piece consumes you. We really need to look at consolidating where we place these 14 aircraft, maybe at two or three select locations so we can realize better efficiency and how we maintain them. You also then have a workforce that may not have to move as much, either. It really works both sides of that equation.

We already recognize that there’s been a surge in human activity in the Arctic. If oil permitting goes forward, that human activity will increase exponentially. With increased activity, when we look at risk, one element we look at is exposure, which is really the number of repetitions. The more repetitions you have, the greater the likelihood that somebody is going to drop something.

I think I had read in one of your previous interviews that you had hoped to decrease the number of moves with personnel. So I think you said you’d moved 21 different times during your career?

Twenty-one times in 37 years. I guess I can’t hold onto a job. This will actually be my longest assignment in the Coast Guard if the president allows me to serve all four years.

The service has many challenges and roles in the Arctic. Could you please speak about that?

We rolled out an Arctic strategy right on the heels of the national strategy for the Arctic region. Our strategy was much more operational, with an implementation phase to it to address some of the near-term threats that we see in the Arctic. We already recognize that there’s been a surge in human activity in the Arctic. If oil permitting goes forward, that human activity will increase exponentially. With increased activity, when we look at risk, one element we look at is exposure, which is really the number of repetitions. The more repetitions you have, the greater the likelihood that somebody is going to drop something. What if you have in the offshore oil industry a helicopter that crashes at sea? Who is going to rescue those folks? If you have an oil spill contingency, we have a regulatory requirement under the Clean Water Act to be the federal on-scene coordinator. How do you coordinate that activity in the Arctic?

We can’t wait for one of those events to happen. The commercial sector can move faster than we can. So it’s imperative that we get in front of this. If we don’t have the enforcement means, those regulations become a “paper lion.” It really is in maritime safety and maritime stewardship, of ocean resources, and then the cleanliness of the ocean. Those are some of the near-term threats that we see in the Arctic region right now.

What do we have to contend with those threats? In the ice-free season, we do send a national security cutter up to the North Slope. In fact, the Coast Guard Cutter Stratton, our newest national security cutter in commission, just completed a deployment to the North Slope supported by two HH-60 [Jayhawk] aircraft from Air Station Kodiak, again on a seasonal basis. If you look at oil production and if that takes place, it will in all likelihood be a year-round evolution. So then what do we have for year-round endurance in the Arctic? We only have two icebreakers in our nation’s inventory. One is a medium icebreaker, and that’s the Coast Guard Cutter Healy, and then the Polar Star, which was reactivated two years ago, but is our nation’s only heavy icebreaker. Clearly we have some daunting resource constraints as we look at the near-term challenges in the Arctic.

 

Beyond the icebreakers, obviously, it seems like there are some serious operational and logistical challenges. You have the tyranny of distance working against you in the Arctic, and what about things like infrastructure building? Is it even possible to be able to station more assets up near the North Slope?

A great question. And that’s where this partnership piece plays in. We work closely with the state of Alaska. In Barrow, the state recognizes this as well. They’re looking at building out a hangar space in Barrow that we would be able to lease, but adding some extra capacity so it could also serve as their emergency operations center during a contingency. We did a series of studies of where would you place a deep-water port in the Arctic, and we identified two locations – one in Nome, and the other in Port Clarence. Now, the Coast Guard is not in the business of building deep-water ports, but we’re going through the analytics of where you might put that. The other big logistic challenge beyond having a deep-water port is: What’s the other intermodal transportation piece, namely road, to ultimately service a deep-water port?

We also work closely with our Canadian partners as we look at a mass rescue contingency, and recognizing Canada may have to call on us or vice versa, depending on who may have emergency response, in this case maybe an icebreaker that could respond up in that area. We really need to take that a step further. One of our objectives under the Arctic strategy is to create an Arctic Coast Guard Forum with the eight Arctic council nations to build upon another best practice that we have with the North Pacific Coast Guard Forum. We do a combined operation each year looking at illegal under-reported fisheries. And we operate together. We fly. We share information. We have shiprider agreements. So that might be a practice as we look at resource constraints of how we maximize this multilateral approach to the Arctic, when right now the threats are primarily on the safety and stewardship side, not necessarily sovereignty. That might be a good model, and one that we’re looking to build out, especially at a time where the U.S. will chair the Arctic council in years 2015 and 2016.