The Marine Transportation System is more valuable to the U.S. economy than most people are aware: The Coast Guard estimates that the Mississippi River, which drains water from 40 percent of the U.S. mainland, is a conduit for $50 billion to $60 billion of commerce each year.
In the spring of 2011, a record flood season on parts of the Mississippi River Basin kept the buoy tenders of the Coast Guard’s 8th District busy rebuilding and replacing thousands of navigation aids and buoys throughout the river system – but the summer and fall of 2012 presented these crews with a different challenge. As the worst Midwestern drought in 56 years reduced Mississippi waterways to near-record lows, the Coast Guard, with its partners in the Army Corps of Engineers and the shipping industry, struggled to keep commerce flowing. In midsummer, the Coast Guard issued advisories to shippers, encouraging them to decrease loads by 25 percent in order to allow barges to ride higher on the channel surface.
Workers contracted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers clear rocks from the river floor near Thebes, Ill., Dec. 17, 2012. The Coast Guard and USACE are overseeing rock blasting operations due to the low water situation on the Mississippi River. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Ryan Tippets
Despite these efforts, a total of 97 vessels had become stranded by lower water on the Mississippi River near Greenville, Miss., by late August. The service was compelled to temporarily close an 11-mile stretch of the river, to allow dredging crews to form an adequate channel while Coast Guard buoy tenders demarcated the channel and hazardous shallows with red and green navigation buoys.
As the drought extended into November and December – the Mississippi River at Cape Girardeau, Mo., sat at 7.5 feet on Dec. 10, more than 24 feet below flood stage – Coast Guard Marine Safety Units throughout the nation’s midsection worked to keep shipping channels open and clearly marked while doubling as traffic controllers, allowing one barge at a time through the shrinking channels. The efforts of these crews managed to keep commerce flowing on even the worst section of the Mississippi, a 180-mile stretch from St. Louis, Mo., to Cairo, Ill., until runoff from winter storms began to raise the water level in late December.
Drug Interdiction: Operation Martillo
The Coast Guard is the federal government’s lead agency for maritime drug interdiction, and in both approaches commonly used by smugglers – the Eastern Pacific and the Caribbean – Coast Guard law enforcement detachments (LEDETs) work in conjunction with the U.S. Navy and international partners to counter narcotics smuggling operations.
U.S. Navy and Coast Guard LEDET personnel, assigned to the guided-missile frigate USS Elrod (FFG 55), pick up bales of narcotics April 21, 2012, during recovery operations in the Caribbean Sea. Joint service operatives stem the flow of narcotics into the United States. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Andy Barrera
Over the past few years, increasingly sophisticated smugglers have employed difficult-to-track self-propelled semi-submersibles (SPSSs), more commonly known as “drug subs,” in the Eastern Pacific Transit Zone. Since 2006, the Coast Guard and its partners have interdicted 25 SPSSs in the region – but until July 2012, had never seen one on the Caribbean/Gulf of Mexico side of the Central American isthmus. On July 13, the Coast Guard Cutter Seneca interdicted an SPSS that had been spotted off the coast of Honduras by a patrolling C-130 Hercules airplane.
Counter-drug operations in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico are conducted by Joint Interagency Task Force-South (JIATF-S) – an organization established in 1989 explicitly for the purpose of countering illicit drug trafficking. Commanded by Coast Guard Rear Adm. Charles D. Michel and headquartered in Key West, Fla., the JIATF-S brings together people from regional partner nations and from the departments of Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security.
The patrol that detected the SPSS in July was part of a broad effort involving additional partners throughout Europe and the Western Hemisphere. Known as Operation Martillo, its patrols target the coastal waters of Central America, where the vast majority of illegal maritime smuggling is conducted. The operation yielded immediate results – including a March 3 seizure, involving the Coast Guard and U.S. and Dutch naval forces, of 3,500 pounds of cocaine. By the end of 2012, Operation Martillo successes included six SPSS interdictions, some of which, given the shallowness of the Western Caribbean waters, enabled the successful recovery of scuttled contraband by FBI dive teams. One submersible, scuttled off the coast of Honduras in late September, yielded 19,831 pounds of cocaine worth $238.3 million.