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USCG chief questions spill response Commandant comments on general lack of support infrastructure for handling a major offshore oil spill emergency in the Arctic Alan Bailey Petroleum News
During a July 18 talk at the Symposium on the Impact of an Ice Diminished Arctic on Naval and Maritime Operations Adm. Paul Zukunft, commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, expressed concern about the practicalities of conducting a major oil spill response in the Arctic offshore. Zukunft, who had been the federal on-scene commander during the response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, questioned the possibility of recovering much oil following an Arctic spill, and wondered how a major response effort could be launched, given the general lack of support infrastructure in the Arctic region.
Zukunft said that, faced with diminishing sea ice in the Arctic and increased offshore activity in the region as a result, the Coast Guard has prepared a strategy for the Arctic, setting out the agency’s priorities for its involvement in the region.
Offshore oil spills Zukunft commented that despite the large-scale and successful use of oil dispersants and the use of in-situ burning in the Deepwater Horizon response, only about 15 percent of the Deepwater Horizon oil had been recovered. Referencing the seawater microbes that can devour dispersed oil, he questioned how much oil might in reality be recovered in response to a major Arctic offshore spill.
“I don’t know what the microbial action up there (in the Arctic) is in the event that you do have an oil spill, but I can assure you that if there is an oil spill we’re not going to recover all that oil,” he said.
And the Deepwater Horizon response involved a fleet of more than 6,000 ships conducting oil recovery operations, with an infrastructure capable of supporting that massive operation.
“You put that many people up in Barrow, Alaska, and they’d better be carrying polar bear spray because they’re going to be camped out with the mosquitos, because we don’t have the infrastructure up there,” Zukunft said.
Zukunft also questioned how much is known about the environmental impacts of an Arctic offshore oil spill.
“We don’t know what the long-term impacts will be to one of the most pristine environments in the world and it’s not an area we would want to oil and find out after the fact,” Zukunft said.
He said he has concerns about building new Coast Guard infrastructure in a region where the permafrost is becoming unstable and where there are problems with coastal erosion.
Zukunft also questioned how much offshore Arctic oil development is likely to take place with the current price of oil and with the high cost of producing oil in the Arctic region.
“Maybe some of the policy barriers are coming down but, if the price of oil is down as well, we will probably not see oil and gas move in any significant way offshore in the Chukchi Sea,” he said.
Marine tourism Zukunft also expressed concern about the growing interest in marine tourism in the Arctic, given the lack of infrastructure to mount a response in the event of an accident. The cruise ship Crystal Serenity, with some 1,700 passengers, is planning a second round trip through the Northwest Passage this year. And ecotourism vessels ply Arctic waters in the region of Iceland. However, only about 4.7 percent of Arctic waters have been adequately charted, Zukunft said.
In preparing for a search and rescue exercise in 2016 in Nome, ahead of last year’s Crystal Serenity cruise, the Coast Guard planned to have 200 people play roles as cruise ship passengers. The city of Nome responded that having more than 20 role players would overwhelm the city’s resources, Zukunft said.
On the other hand, the United States is planning the launch of some new geostationary satellites next year, to provide new communications capabilities in the Arctic, including the handling of distress calls, Zukunft said.
The Law of the Sea Zukunft argued for the need for the United Stated to accede to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the international treaty that sets, for example, rules for determining the outer limits of a nation’s outer continental shelf. While the Coast Guard Cutter Healy has been engaged in mapping of the extended continental shelf off Arctic Alaska, Russia is laying claim to much of the Arctic Ocean. And, while Russia and Canada view the Northern Sea Route and the Northwest Passage as internal waters, the U.S. views these waterways as international straits, Zukunft said.
He also said that he views as part of the U.S. strategic reserves the perhaps $1 trillion worth of oil, gas and minerals thought to exist in the U.S. Arctic economic exclusion zone and the extended continental shelf. In addition, with fish stocks tending to move north under the impact of global warming and a U.S. moratorium on fishing in the Beaufort Sea, the U.S. needs the capability to enforce fishing regulations.
However, to be able to exert sovereignty in high latitudes, the United States needs icebreakers, Zukunft said, referencing a continuing debate over government funding for new U.S. icebreaker construction. Currently there is only about $150 million in funding set aside for the icebreaker construction program. But it is necessary to build the first new icebreaker by 2023, Zukunft said.
Moreover, Russia anticipates commissioning two icebreaking corvettes, vessels with combat capability, in 2020, he said.
Climate change Zukunft also commented on climate change, saying that there are 31 Alaska villages threatened by the retreat of the sea ice that has in the past provided natural protection from buffeting of coastal storms. Given this situation, and the impacts of rising sea level in places like the Marshall Islands, the world is starting to see the emergence of what might be termed environmental refugees, he said.
Zukunft said that in August 2016 he had visited the huge Jakobshavn Glacier in Greenland to observe the impact of global warming on the Greenland ice sheet. Local Inuit elders told him that after 1,000 years of stability, the glacier had suddenly retreated 25 miles in the past five years. There is now year-round open water in nearby Disko Bay, where previously there had been ice, Zukunft said.
Thanks to icebergs calving off Greenland glaciers, in particular the Jakobshavn, there has been a sharp increase in the number of icebergs drifting south into shipping lanes in the North Atlantic, he said. The Coast Guard operates the International Ice Patrol that monitors the presence of icebergs in the North Atlantic region.
With the melting of land-based ice in polar regions, global sea level is rising. Zukunft said that he is now using a six-foot sea rise this century as a factor for planning what the Coast Guard may have to contend with in the coming years. Houses in some coastal communities are already being impacted by the sea level rise, he said.
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