This story was co-published with NBC News.
The U.S. military’s only heavy icebreaker suffered more equipment breakdowns during its mission to Antarctica this season, adding urgency to the calls for Congress to approve long-delayed funding to replace the aging polar fleet.
As the icebreaker Polar Star led a supply mission to a research station in early January, its crew faced power outages that forced it to shut down the ship’s power plant and reboot the electrical system. Leaks forced the Coast Guard to send divers into the icy water to repair the seal around the propeller shaft. And one of two systems that provide drinking water for the crew also failed, the Coast Guard said.
In its previous trip to Antarctica, the crew scrambled to patch a leak in the engine room that at one point was pouring 20 gallons a minute into the compartment.
“If a catastrophic event, such as getting stuck in the ice, were to happen to the Healy in the Arctic or to the Polar Star near Antarctica, the U.S. Coast Guard is left without a self-rescue capability,” the Coast Guard said. Those are the military’s only icebreakers, and the Polar Star is 12 years past its life expectancy.
InsideClimate News reported late last year on the decades-long effort to build new icebreakers as a warming Arctic increases ship traffic and access to natural resources. Even as the ice melts, unpredictable floes can still trap ships. The opening of the Arctic has also emerged as a national security priority for the Navy. While Congress put off funding for new icebreakers year and after year, Russia built out a fleet of more than 40.
The future of the Coast Guard’s icebreaker program may now depend on President Donald Trump’s demand for funding for a border wall and how Congress responds.
Democrats released a budget negotiating document Wednesday warning that the icebreaker program is among a list of top priorities “which we will not have the funding to address if the President insists we set aside $5.7 billion for border barriers.” The Coast Guard’s most recent review determined that it needs six new icebreakers. And $750 million had been requested toward the construction of one new ship.
“Getting new icebreakers is absolutely imperative,” Coast Guard spokesman Nyx Cangemi said, noting that it will take at least five years to complete a new icebreaker once funding is approved.
“The U.S. just simply is woefully behind in terms of our planning and our vision for what is now a new ocean opening, a fourth coast,” said Michael Sfraga, director of the Polar Institute at the Wilson Center, a research group in Washington, D.C.
Sfraga said that protecting commerce and national security interests in the Arctic is emerging as a critical issue in coming decades, and that Congress should spend the money for a new icebreaker no matter what happens in the negotiations over a border wall. “From the perspective of our nation’s defense,” he said, “that’s not a lot of money.”
In December, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) proposed legislation that could provide some additional ship support in the Arctic. The bill aims to bolster the nation’s presence in the Arctic Ocean with what she characterized as “Uber for icebreakers.” It would create a development corporation that, among other things, would set up a system for contracting with private icebreakers and working with foreign governments to use their ships.
Sfraga said the system is a good idea whether or not the Coast Guard gets new icebreakers. He said nations have to work together to ensure the Arctic is safe for commerce when and if shipping companies decide to begin operating there regularly.
“We should probably scope that out now,” he said, “versus being reactive in a couple of decades.”