Looking at the vastness of the U.S. maritime Arctic, Trego said, reveals that it would take many decades, if not centuries, to chart it all to modern standards. “Given those constraints,” she said, “the best approach is to prioritize areas to be charted. Of the 568,000 square nautical miles in the U.S. Arctic exclusive economic zone, less than half are what NOAA considers navigationally significant.” Even surveying that area – a quarter-of-a-million square nautical miles (SNM) – would take decades, so NOAA has designated survey priority areas, totaling 38,000 SNM, in the Arctic. If resources remain at their current levels, Trego said, estimates for charting that area range up to 25 years.
NOAA has made significant progress in charting the highest priority area, the Bering Strait, with specific focus on the proposed routes identified in the “Port Access Route Study (PARS): In the Chukchi Sea, Bering Strait, and Bering Sea” being conducted by the Coast Guard – a study that aims to establish “rules of the road” and traffic lanes for Bering Strait transit that will protect marine life and reduce the risk of collisions and groundings. The PARS proposes a 4-mile-wide, two-way shipping route that starts at Unimak Pass in the Aleutian Islands and travels north through the strait.
In the meantime, the Healy, equipped with sophisticated bottom mapping equipment, is sending data from its transits to NOAA for use in charting. Healy’s summer missions include mapping the limits of the extended continental shelf off of Alaska, in preparation for a U.S. claim of undersea territory under the terms of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). As of summer 2016, the United States is the only Arctic nation that has not yet ratified the UNCLOS treaty – which it must do in order to have its eventual claim recognized by the United Nations.
Partnering for Arctic Stewardship
As the development of communications and navigational aids in the Arctic illustrate, the Coast Guard isn’t attempting – nor would it be able – to tackle the many problems of the region alone. While its District 17 personnel fulfill the service’s daily mission requirements, its leaders engage at every level to build awareness and capacity to protect the Arctic people, their environment, and their way of life.
Technical Sgt. Cody Inman, a pararescueman with the 212th Rescue Squadron, Joint Base
Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, is hoisted into an HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter during Exercise Arctic Chinook Aug. 24, 2016. Arctic Chinook was a joint U.S. Coast Guard- and U.S. Northern Command-sponsored exercise on the U.S. State Department-approved list of Arctic Council Chairmanship events. The Arctic mass rescue operation exercise scenario consisted of an adventure-class cruise ship with approximately 200 passengers and crew that experience a catastrophic event with the need to abandon ship. Arctic Chinook exercised elements of the Arctic Search and Rescue Agreement to include interoperability, cooperation, information-sharing, SAR services, and joint exercise review. U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. John Gordinier
In 2013, the Coast Guard outlined its “Arctic Strategy” for stepping up its presence and effectiveness, in alignment with the Obama administration’s “National Strategy for the Arctic Region.” The service outlined three near-future objectives for its work in the region: improving awareness, modernizing governance, and broadening partnerships. Because these goals are shared by all Arctic communities, the Coast Guard and its partners continue to devise policy and reach consensus about how to manage the region’s rapid pace of change.
Through the U.S. departments of State and Homeland Security (DHS), the Coast Guard already works with several international partners through bilateral agreements – including coordination with Canada and Russia under specific Joint Contingency Plans, focused on spill coordination across shared maritime boundaries, and a Letter of Intent with Norway to foster increased collaboration. Each of these nations was involved, to an extent, in the Arctic Chinook SAR exercise in August 2016: Canada as a direct participant, and Russia and Norway as observers.
One of the key drivers of international cooperation is the Arctic Council, the high-level intergovernmental forum for addressing issues shared by eight member nations with territory in the region: the United States, Canada, Russia, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland. The chairmanship of the council, which rotates every two years, is currently held by the United States. The work of the council is conducted in part through six working groups. The Emergency Prevention, Preparedness and Response (EPPR) group, for example, develops pollution response protocols and, through an agreement signed in 2013, coordinates exercises simulating spills that cross international boundaries or exceed one nation’s response capabilities.
The most recent of these exercises began in May, with a simulated tanker collision in Norwegian waters that prompted officials to submit a request for assistance through the EPPR. Lt. Cmdr. Wes James, who leads the International Coordination Division of the Coast Guard’s Office of Marine Environmental Response Policy, explained that the exercise then continued for more than a month: “For the next two weeks, all eight Arctic nations exercised internally how they would provide that assistance if requested,” he said, “and then on June 13, in Montreal, we all came together in person, and we had a tabletop exercise, where every country essentially revisited and exercised, how they would provide assistance to Norway, or any country that requested assistance.”