Global climate change is melting the Arctic ice, opening up oil reserves as large as 90 billion barrels, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. But territorial claims to Arctic seabed are fuzzy, so for a couple years now everyone with even a rationale -- most notably Norway, Denmark, Canada and Russia -- has been racing around the North Pole, marching troops, building bases, flying planes, sailing ships and sending submarines to the ocean floor to try to see just how far their country's landmass actually extends into new oil fields.
Everyone, that is, but us. At least not to same extent.
For the federal agency that should be in charge of much of our Arctic affairs, the Coast Guard, has been busy elsewhere (Africa, anyone?) -- and, anyways, lacks the appropriate equipment for Arctic ops. "The Coast Guard presence in the Arctic historically has been episodic and superficial," Rear Admiral Gene Brooks, top Coastie in Alaska, said during a Pentagon teleconference yesterday. Alaska is the natural base for U.S. North Pole ops, but Coasties are all concentrated along the state's southern edge, rather than on the North Slope, where the action is.
But that's changing -- slowly. Last week the cutter Healy set sail on a three-week cruise mapping the Arctic seabed. And Brooks is sending out ships, boats, choppers and planes (Coastie C-130 pictured over the ice) to test out their suitability for North Pole conditions. For despite the receding permanent ice, the weather and geography remain unforgiving, and there's still "seasonal" ice -- lots of it. Plus nobody really knows how big ships will behave so far north. "The big challenges," Brooks said, "are ice and distance."
He said his Coasties have learned some important lessons:
- The H-65 choppers that his cutters carry lack the range for Arctic distances. The larger, longer-range H-60s are all busy down south, and don't even fit on most cutters.
- Coastie pilots are used to flying solo, but over the Arctic, that's a no-no, since there aren't enough local law-enforcement choppers to effect a rescue in case you crash.
- Existing Coast Guard facilities in northern Alaska have inadequate boat-launching equipment.
- "The American icebreaker fleet" -- just three versus Russia's seven -- "is inadequate, perhaps woefully inadequate."
It would take five years to fully establish Coast Guard operations up north, Brooks said, assuming he got more resources. "It’s going to take more units [ships] and more people."
(Photo: Coast Guard)
