The Coast Guard, "Running on Empty"

[Ryan Ruck]

The Coast Guard, "Running on Empty"


Coast Guardsmen aboard the cutter Bainbridge Island work on the balky motor of the ship's Zodiac intercept boat. "Almost always, ... something is not working," says Lt. Cmdr. Peter Van Ness, the cutter's commanding officer. (Photo by Jerry McCrea)

Struggling for years with an aging fleet, the Coast Guard is facing millions in unexpected repairs and upgrades on old patrol boats, helicopters and planes it once planned to replace through a modernization program called Deepwater.

The problems arise just as the Coast Guard -- which won widespread praise for its response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita -- is being saddled with more and more responsibilities, stretching a patched-up fleet even further.


Coast Guardsmen from the cutter Bainbridge Island, in background, check a commercial fishing boat off Sandy Hook, N.J. (Photo by Jerry McCrea)

"By any measure, the Coast Guard is in an absolute world of hurt," said retired Vice Adm. Howard B. Thorsen, former commander of the Coast Guard's Atlantic Area. "In many ways, the Coast Guard is running on empty."

Earlier this year, Congress was reluctant to fully fund the agency's modernization program, threatening to slash the $966 million Deepwater budget request for fiscal 2006 by nearly half.

But then came Katrina. The quick response of the Coast Guard -- captured live in dramatic footage of hovering helicopters plucking stranded families from the roofs of their flooded homes -- contrasted sharply with the well publicized failures of the Federal Emergency Management Administration.

The Coast Guard performed 24,117 rescues and 9,403 hospital evacuations following Katrina and Rita, marshaling 62 aircraft, 30 cutters, more than 110 boats and 3,470 personnel from as far away as Alaska. And in the wake of harsh criticism, responsibility for post-hurricane relief efforts were unceremoniously yanked from FEMA and handed over to Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen. Both FEMA and the Coast Guard are part of the Homeland Security Department.

Last week, Congress agreed to restore most of the Coast Guard's 2006 Deepwater budget as part of a $30.7 billion homeland security bill.

"Breaking that funding logjam, frankly, was one of the most fortuitous results of the Coast Guard's outstanding performance in the Gulf of Mexico," said Scott Truver, a defense analyst for Anteon Corp. in Fairfax, Va.

Hurricane heroics aside, more and more is being asked of the service, especially in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. An examination of how the Coast Guard allocates its resources shows a vast increase in mission hours -- much of it for coastal security and the interdiction at sea of illegal aliens -- that has been particularly punishing on equipment.

The Coast Guard's renewed focus on national security and defense readiness also has been at the expense of its traditional missions: keeping foreign fleets out of U.S. exclusionary fishing zones, intercepting drug smugglers, even search and rescue, agency numbers show.

While no one claims those missions are being ignored -- indeed the number of drug seizures is up -- the expanded duties are taking a toll. In the past three years, the Coast Guard has dry-docked vessels at least 22 times to repair leaking hulls.

At the same time, it is operating without some three dozen Coast Guard vessels and 1,195 personnel deployed overseas to Iraq.

An analysis by Congress' Government Accountability Office found many Coast Guard assets are in even worse shape than has been reported. The report found:

-- Serious engine problems on the Coast Guard's workhorse Dolphin HH-65 short-range helicopters have forced flight crews to dump fuel or temporarily leave rescue swimmers in the water.

-- The surface radar on the Coast Guard's HC-130 surveillance planes, used to search for vessels in distress or monitor ships for illegal activity, frequently fails. Flight crews then must rely on visual contact -- a situation one crew member described as "trying to locate a boat looking through a straw."

-- One 378-foot cutter, the Jarvis, lost one of its two gas turbines while on patrol in the western Pacific in May. It completed its mission but was restricted to speeds that would have left it unable to respond to a crisis.

Rep. Frank LoBiondo, R-N.J., chairman of the House Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation subcommittee, has long been pushing for far more funding to replace the Coast Guard fleet, which includes cutters that are more than 30 years old.

"We don't have time to fool around," LoBiondo said.

Unveiled in 2001, the agency's Integrated Deepwater System was envisioned as a $17 billion program to replace aging ships and aircraft over 20 years, tying them all together with a sophisticated communications and data network.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, expanded homeland security responsibilities led to major revisions and a shortened timetable in the Deepwater plan. New classes of cutters -- including those made from composite materials -- as well as unmanned drone aircraft were added and the price tag rose to $25 billion.

But many people, including some members of Congress, say they have reservations about the plan.

RAND Corp. analyst John Birkler, in a report commissioned by the Coast Guard, urged last year that the agency accelerate its acquisition plans. He also recommended it look to new technologies, such as underwater surveillance sensors, to enhance its existing fleets.

"Deepwater's assets are not sufficient," Birkler said in an interview. "Not by a long shot."

Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., who sits on the Coast Guard and Maritime subcommittee with LoBiondo, complained that the Coast Guard's modernization plan seems increasingly focused on patching up old equipment instead of buying new.

Nearly 30 percent of the Coast Guard's proposed Deepwater budget for fiscal year 2006 is earmarked for fixing, maintaining and converting existing ships and planes.

Among those fixes are the expensive upgrading -- including new engines and instrumentation -- of the Coast Guard's Dolphin helicopters, which have remained in service despite continuing in-flight power failures.

One such engine loss nearly led to disastrous consequences near Syria two years ago, when Cmdr. Robert "Magic" Makowsky, a veteran pilot stationed at Atlantic City, N.J., was flying patrol off the cutter Dallas in the Mediterranean. Makowsky was in the left seat of his Dolphin with three other people aboard when warning lights suddenly blinked on.

The instruments showed a loss of power in one of two turbine engines -- what pilots call a "torque split," which leaves the aircraft unable to hover or to descend vertically.

The Dolphin is a military version of the French Aerospatiale Dauphin, and has a reputation for such control issues because of problems with the American-built engines substituted to meet the "Buy American" requirements of the contract.

Makowsky's choices that April night were limited. He could land on the beach in Syria, 40 miles away, and risk a diplomatic incident or even arrest. Or he could attempt a risky landing on the Dallas by having the cutter steam into the wind, possibly giving the helicopter enough forward speed to maintain lift until touchdown.

It was a one-shot proposition.

"There's a point where you either get a `9.5' from the judges, or land in the water," Makowsky said.

With co-pilot Kyle Armstrong calling out numbers on the instrument panel, and crew chief Terry Cowart watching the approach angle, Makowsky landed safely, just inches off the center line of the cutter's deck pad.

The aviator was later decorated and the exploit became the focus of a congressional hearing. The Coast Guard consequently opted not to wait for a Deepwater replacement for the Dolphins and began making major modifications to the 20-year-old aircraft.

Other stopgap measures have been less successful.

A plan to modernize 49 cutters -- including lengthening the hulls and replacing the superstructures -- recently was abandoned.

Coast Guard officials claim the contract was canceled because the modified patrol boats could not meet post-9/11 mission requirements.

However, serious structural shortcomings were discovered after the first eight conversions. One of the modified cutters, the Matagorda, sustained extensive hull damage last year -- including a 6-inch crack in the main deck plating -- while trying to evade Hurricane Ivan.

Coast Guard officials said the patrol boat's hull deterioration turned out to be greater than originally estimated, requiring more extensive repairs.

Four of the cutters already modified were immediately placed under operational restrictions, allowing them to get under way only in an emergency.

[Ryan Ruck]

Coast Guard Missions In Doubt As Aging Ships Wear Out

October 8, 2012

The U.S. Coast Guard is on the front lines of national security, but it struggles to complete its missions with one of the world's oldest maritime fleets and a multibillion dollar replacement program years behind schedule.

The cash-strapped service operates with frequent breakdowns and obsolete gear in what one U.S. congressman has called a "death spiral," of too few ships and too many missions.

If forced to give up some of its many jobs patrolling U.S. waters, that could mean more cocaine and illegal immigrants entering the United States, and fewer ships protecting boaters and fisheries and cleaning up oil spills, experts said.

More money from Congress to bring its $29 billion replacement program up to date is unlikely, given the belt-tightening U.S. budgetary environment.

"If you have limited resources for operations or for capital assets, something has to give," U.S. Representative John Mica, a Florida Republican and chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, told Reuters.

Signs of out-of-date gear were clear aboard the 270-foot (82-meter) cutter Tahoma, now hauled out of the water to undergo an 11-month makeover at Baltimore's Coast Guard yard.

A yard inspector, Lieutenant Commander Gary Hillman, scrambled to reach a control room through an engine space cluttered by snaking hoses and cables and ringing to the sound of welding.

XBOX, NOT ATARI

Dominating the gray-painted control room was a gleaming new propulsion control system, which monitors the 25-year-old cutter's engines as well as propellers' speed and pitch.

The computerized gear replaces a version dating from the 1970s that constantly needed fine-tuning, especially when a big wave smacked the Tahoma.

"It's like you had an Atari (analogue video game player) before and now you've got an Xbox," Hillman said.

The fuel purifier also is being replaced. It was so old that parts were no longer available for it, he said.

Docked nearby was the Harriet Lane, another cutter built in the 1980s and with a history of equipment trouble. In one case, a broken gear on its anchor windlass was so old that a new part had to be custom built, causing a six-week delay.

Admiral Robert Papp, the Coast Guard commandant, told Congress in March that equipment breakdowns in the 77-vessel fleet were so common that the biggest cutters go to sea more than half the time with major gear out of order.

DRUG BUSTS, BREAKING ICE

The Coast Guard's 11 missions range from busting drug smugglers to icebreaking. In the last fiscal year, it carried out 20,000 search-and-rescue missions, seized 75 tons (tonnes) of cocaine, detained almost 200 smugglers and conducted more than 10,000 vessel inspections.

The burden falls mostly on the fleet of 378-foot (115-meter) high-endurance cutters, 270- and 210-foot (82- and 64-meter) medium-endurance cutters, and 110-foot (33.5-meter) patrol boats. Some may be twice the age of the sailors on board. The service also operates about 1,400 boats under 65-feet (20-meters) long.

At average ages of about 43 and 23 years, respectively, the high-endurance cutters and patrol boats are three years past the ends of their estimated service lives, according a report by the General Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, released this summer.

The mid-sized cutters also are fast nearing the ends of their estimated service lives.

In fiscal year 2011, the fleet fell about 40,000 hours, or 23 percent, short of its benchmark for operating without major equipment problems, the GAO said.

The number of hours the biggest cutters spent on drug interdiction fell by almost two-thirds from fiscal years 2007 to 2010, mostly because of equipment breakdowns.

The fleet "is in overall poor condition and is generally declining," the GAO said.

The shortfall in operating hours would "likely result in more cocaine and illegal migrants reaching U.S. shores and a decreased capability to protect U.S. waters and fish stocks from the encroachment of foreign fishing vessels," it said.

Representative Frank LoBiondo, a New Jersey Republican and head of a House subcommittee on the Coast Guard and marine transport, told a hearing last month the service was caught in a "death spiral" of too few ships and too many missions.

Rear Admiral Ronald Rabago, the head of engineering, responded that individual ships were meeting performance goals, but added: "It is true that in the aggregate our fleet is not achieving those objectives, those targets."

JUGGLING PRIORITIES

Captain Scott Buschman, the Coast Guard's deputy assistant commandant for capability, knows the ships' weaknesses firsthand. While he was chief of staff for the southeastern United States and Caribbean district in 2010, 10 of the 12 cutters sent to help after the Haitian earthquake suffered serious equipment failures.

"We can never do everything that people ask us to do," he said.

The Department of Homeland Security rejected a GAO recommendation this summer that the Coast Guard reduce its overall benchmark for operating hours without major breakdowns. The target has remained unchanged for at least eight years despite the maintenance headaches.

To deal with equipment problems, the Coast Guard has streamlined maintenance operations and is nearing the end of a 10-year, $453 million program to refurbish some patrol boats and upgrade mid-sized cutters until new ships come on duty.

But a new fleet is barely on the horizon despite a recapitalization plan for ships and aircraft the Coast Guard has estimated could reach $29.3 billion, a forecast price that is up $5 billion in the past five years.

The Coast Guard received only three of four new cutters in the biggest class by the target date of the end of 2011. The last of the six planned might not arrive until 2020, the GAO reported.

The new mid-sized cutters have a final delivery date of 2034 - 13 years late. The last of the patrol boats will not arrive until 2021, five years overdue, the GAO said.

The GAO last year blamed the rising price on schedule slippage and cost overruns, such as an extra $1 billion for shore facilities and spare parts for fast response cutters, which will replace the patrol boats.

The Coast Guard also was rapped by the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general in August for rushing construction and purchase of 12 fast-response cutters before they had been thoroughly tested.

Six boats under construction then had to be rebuilt, resulting in 270 days delay for each one.

[Ryan Ruck]

Senate Committee Puts Ninth National Security Cutter on the Table

August 6, 2015

Congress took another major step in revitalizing the U.S. Coast Guard recently when the Senate Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee voted to provide funding for a ninth national security cutter (NSC).

While the official U.S. Coast Guard program of record remains at eight NSCs, a ninth hull in this fleet is merited for a number of reasons.

The addition of another NSC would be a major benefit to Coast Guard capability, according to the Heritage Foundation’s Brian Slattery.

NSCs “provide critical capabilities for the majority of the Coast Guard’s 11 core missions” and “extend the service’s operating range, amplify its surveillance capabilities, and allow it to operate in adverse conditions such as Arctic waters and high sea states.”

Moreover, “nine cutters would reduce risk and fulfill the NSC’s mission requirements.”

As “the largest and most technically sophisticated” vessel in the Coast Guard’s white-hull patrol cutter fleet, the NSC provides critical maritime security capabilities, including “robust command, control, communication, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance equipment.” In essence, “the NSCs are afloat operational-level headquarters for complex law enforcement and national security missions” in the “most demanding open ocean environments.”

More specifically, adding a ninth NSC bolsters the Coast Guard’s operational range and ability to execute drug interdictions, perform search and rescue operations and provide additional maritime domain awareness in the Arctic.

According to Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss., “[t]he current Coast Guard production goal for only eight National Security Cutters is based on dated assessments and is insufficient to meet current or future requirements.”

He is also “pleased that the Senate bill would maintain the national security cutter production line in order to give the Coast Guard more certainty and capabilities to meet its operational requirements.” Sen. Cochran’s remark alludes to a recent Congressional Research Service publication.

Written by naval affairs specialist Ronald O’Rourke, it details four fleet mix analyses (FMAs). Tellingly, each FMA, including “the objective fleet mix,” advocates the procurement of a ninth NSC to address the Coast Guard’s mission gaps.

A bipartisan 26-4 Senate Committee on Appropriations vote in June approved the bill, putting it up for consideration by the entire Senate. The Senate variation of the bill places “an emphasis on border security and hazard mitigation” by investing in “the role of the USCG to protect the nation’s maritime borders.”

Not including Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funding, the bill would provide $10.3 billion for the Coast Guard, a bump of $496 million compared to FY2015 and $570 million more than was requested by the Coast Guard.

The $640 million appropriated for the construction of a ninth NSC represents the largest portion of the funding hike.

One of America’s Founding Fathers lauded the benefits of a capable Coast Guard fleet. In the earliest recorded reference to the Coast Guard, Alexander Hamilton wrote that “a few armed vessels, judiciously stationed at the entrances of our ports, might at a small expense be made useful sentinels of the laws.”

Hamilton would have likely found the utility of a ninth NSC obvious. Hopefully Congress will recognize its value as well.