While Alaska dignitaries gathered in Nome on Sunday to sing the praises of the recent collaboration that brought the Coast Guard's icebreaker, the Healy, and the Russian icebreaker, the Renda, all the way to the Arctic in the dead of winter to fill the town's fuel tanks, others have been less impressed.
Around town, few people wanted to throw stones on the record, but some were unsure that a fuel shortage even existed. Others, including the town's newspaper, said the story was blown out of proportion by national media.
"The irresistible sitting-on-the-the-edge-of-chairs tidbit that Nome suffers a dire shortage of heating fuel in dark subzero weather — all untrue," wrote the Nome Nugget on its Web site post.
That's partly true, said Jason Evans, chairman of Sitnasuak Native Corp. The town had a 70 percent chance of making it to break-up with some heating fuel left in the tanks. But it had almost no chance of making it through the winter with enough gas and diesel to power the town's cars, trucks, sno-gos and machinery.
"We wouldn't have gone through all of this effort if there was no reason to," Evans said.
Perhaps part of the confusion is because the town has two suppliers of fuel: Crowley Maritime Corp., which has a tank farm in Nome that holds 4.6 million gallons of petroleum products, and Bonanza Fuel, a subsidiary of the Sitnasuak Native Corp.
Evans said, however, that Sitnasuak checked with Crowley to see how much fuel its tanks had left before determining that there would be a shortage without the outside delivery. The town's power plant also has tanks, and those reserves were accounted for. It was still not enough, he said.
The shortage was the result of a delivery failure by Delta Western last fall. Sitnasuak ordered 1.6 million gallons of fuel last May, with an expected delivery in late August. That delivery got pushed back to October and then further. A storm came in, followed by several days of cold weather, and shipping lanes froze up before the barge could make it to Nome.
As Sitnasuak considered its options, the idea of using a Russian icebreaker came up. Evans said a friend called and said, "You know, it is theoretically possible..." A discussion with Alaska Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell followed, Evans said, and still, the icebreaker delivery option stayed on the table. The U.S. Coast Guard's single icebreaker, the Healy, meanwhile, showed up on Nome's horizon by coincidence.
That by no means guaranteed the Healy's help. It wasn't until much later in the planning process that Evans said he knew the Healy would be able to assist the Renda, but the U.S. Coast Guard was involved all along with inspection of the delivery plan, the ship and working with regulations, he said.
Meanwhile, Alaska's elected officials, both state and federal, got on board with the effort. The delivery shown a spotlight on what many officials had been saying for years: the U.S. and Alaska need more icebreakers for the Coast Guard to do its job properly in the Arctic.
In a press conference Sunday in Nome, Sen. Lisa Murkowski noted that the world had been watching this historic event unfold.
"Their eyes have been opened to Alaska perhaps more than through reality TV shows," Murkowski said. "We are an Arctic nation — we might need some ice-breaking capacity."
Treadwell echoed Murkowski's sentiment, saying that the United States needed icebreakers to enjoy some of the same things other Arctic nations in the world enjoy, like the ability to protect their borders and respond to crisis efficiently.
While some comments on Alaska newspaper Web sites have been critical of the Coast Guard's involvement in the effort, saying it was a waste of tax-payer dollars and a glorified political stunt, Evans said many in Nome and elsewhere in Arctic communities agree with politicians that the United States needs to wake up to the need for icebreakers. Many Arctic nations in the world have fleets of a dozen or more heavy icebreakers, while the U.S. is down to one operational ship — the Healy, which is designed for scientific expeditions.
From the start, Evans said his corporation searched for a business solution to its fuel shortage. "We never asked the city of Nome or the state of Alaska to solve our problem," he said. What the corporation did was ask for help facilitating the extraordinary shipment.
Which is how the U.S. Coast Guard and its only in-service icebreaker, the research cutter Healy, became involved.
"The Coast Guard has a long tradition of helping villages," said Lt. Veronica Colbath, public affairs officer for the Coast Guard in Alaska.
Still, the Coast Guard took the job as part of its mission to protect maritime commerce. Generally in Alaska, that work is only year-round in ice-free waterways. Cutting a custom channel through hundreds of miles of sea ice to lead a heavily-loaded fuel tanker to Western Alaska was a first.
"It is not a traditional mission for us in Alaska, but is a traditional mission for the Coast Guard," said public affairs specialist David Mosely, referring to commerce ports in the Great Lakes region and on the nation's East Coast that experience ice and are maintained throughout the winter.
Having a Coast Guard cutter lead the way in, almost like a personal guide, could be viewed as the very kind of government handout Sitnasuak was hoping to avoid. But just how much money the nation spent assigning Healy to lead the way isn't known — and won't be anytime soon.
"We're not getting into numbers," said Lt. Colbath, who couldn't say how much of the Healy's $28 million annual budget the voyage will cost. "We are not going to give an amount of how much money it is costing for the Healy to participate in this mission because it is a worthwhile event for the Coast Guard."
The mission, Colbath said, was great training for what many believe is the future of the Arctic — less ice, increased human activity and the need for a bolstered Coast Guard presence. And, she said, it falls in line with the agency's mandate to maintain the safety and security of maritime transportation.
"I don't think we necessarily got any special treatment," Evans said. "We worked through the process that is in place for all Americans."
Evans said the decision to move forward with the plan to bring the fuel to Nome via a Russian icebreaker was unanimously supported by the Native corporation, although there were plenty of questions and concerns raised by the board.
"I think many people in the Native community and the Arctic communities feel there should be a greater presence by the Coast Guard in the Arctic waters of Alaska," Evans said, noting the increase in shipping as well as oil and gas activity taking place off the shores of the North Slope. "We are always sensitive to community perception, but we feel that it was necessary. I think most people are proud of this accomplishment."
http://www.thearcticsounder.com/article/1203renda_delivery_raises_questions
0 comments:
Post a Comment