Daily Sitka Sentinel

CG Looking at Sitka As Base for New Ships

By Brielle Schaeffer
Sentinel Staff Writer
    Another U.S. Coast Guard vessel or two could be stationed in Sitka in the next several years, the Coast Guard has told city officials.
    Lieutenant Commander Michael Newell, the Coast Guard 17th District chief of waterways management officer, said Sitka has been identified as a possible home port for one or maybe two new fast response cutters.
    “There’s probably four to five home ports that they’re looking at right now and Sitka is one of them,” he said.
    But the Coast Guard is still trying to figure out if it would be feasible to station additional cutters here.
    There are some concerns about housing – both on base and off – and whether there is the support here that the cutters would need, Newell said. All those things are still being hashed out, he said.
    “We’re still in the planning phases to try to figure out how to best get the logistics done before we throw a new unit in at the home port,” Newell said.
    Each of the new 154-foot vessels would require a 24-person crew as well as 12 to 18 shoreside staff members to assist with maintenance, he said.
    Sitka City Manager Mark Gorman announced at Tuesday’s Assembly meeting that Coast Guard officers had met with city officials about the prospect of stationing another ship to town, which would bring more families here.
    Gorman and Mayor Matt Huunter met with Coast Guard Vice Admiral Fred Midgette, commander of the Pacific Area, on Monday morning, Gorman told the Sentinel today.
    “We discussed housing in Sitka and how this is a very popular location for Coast Guard men and women to try to get posted,” he said. “They were wondering if Sitka has housing capacity for 25 more families. ... We had general discussions about Sitka and how the Coast Guard is going to have more of an arctic focus in the coming decades, and because of that Sitka would be a great location to base another cutter.”
    Newell said that if Sitka is chosen as a home port, it would be a while before one of the new ships arrives, since they still need to be built.
    “Assuming that there’s no production delays we’re talking somewhere around 2022 to 2025,” he said.
    The vessels would be part of a fleet of six new fast response cutters that would be stationed in Alaska. Ketchikan recently welcomed the first two of the 154-foot vessels, the Bailey Barco and the John McCormick.
    The 225-foot buoy tender Maple stationed in Sitka is scheduled to depart this summer for its new port, Atlantic Beach, North Carolina, Newell said. It will be replaced in Sitka by another buoy tender in the same class, the Kukui, which is scheduled to arrive next May.
    The Kukui, which was stationed in Hawaii, is currently in Baltimore for a year-long maintenance project, Newell said.