Alaska's North Slope in Need of Attention

On August 22 a diverse group of Federal agency representatives returned to Washington after taking part in the Interagency Arctic Awareness Trip. The group, which included Admiral Thad Allen, the Coast Guard Commandant, flew to Alaska and then into the little known Arctic region of the state. Visits to Nome, Point Barrow and Prudhoe Bay were on the agenda as well as stops at several native Alaskan villages.

The Task Force had several tasks planned. They were gathering information on climate change in the Alaskan Arctic, and how it is affecting the native populations living there. They were interested in activities at Prudhoe Bay, the Alaskan oil production site. With sea bed and continental shelf sovereignty issues now becoming of greater concern, they wanted to develop a sense of what the U.S. was doing and need to do to establish national and commercial rights under the Arctic Sea. Various scientific projects were also asisted during the trip.

This is a trip that could only be made in the summer. For six months and more of the year this region is nearly inaccessible. Even the Coast Guard discovered on this trip that some of its helicopters were unsuited for the area, lacking de-icing gear that was used even in the summer.

When the nomadic Alaskan native tribes were persuaded to settle, it was often on the sea shore or a river. These locations allow them to continue hunting and fishing, their way of life. Recent climate changes have made many of these settlements increasingly untenable, as erosion and thawing permafrost combine to threaten buildings and lives. Construction of a seawall for the village of Shismareff on the Bering Sea is underway, as storms have eroded the beach threatening homes and the airport runway.

The Coast Guard has spent the last several summers staging northward into this region. Equipment is being evaluated under the extreme conditions found on the North Slope. This year, for the first time, the Coast Guard was accompanied by medical and veterinary teams which have been conducting an outreach to the isolated native villages in the area.

There are no roads, and contact with these villages is by air during the summer, and by dogsled or motorized sled in the winter. Natives lined up to get treatment for their dogs before they looked at the doctors who were present. Rabies is a serious problem and access to a vet is very rare for the sled dogs of Arctic Alaska.

The Commandant made a point, in a recent interview, that the Coast Guard has no permanent facilities or personnel north of Kodiak island. With the increasing popularity of cruises into Arctic waters, the possibility exists that an emergency could mean a response for a thousand miles away. The oil production facilities at Prudhoe Bay could require a CG response to a massive oil spill and the personnel and materials are just not close.

The Coast Guard has studied its need for ocean going icebreakers for some time. The current view is that the CG need three in operation. It has one, with another at the dock needing funds for refurbishment and crew. A third ship is merely reinforced and is used only for research.