Coast Guard confirms plans to buy polar icebreaker and station it in Juneau

The U.S. Coast Guard will buy a commercial icebreaker and station it in Juneau, the service has confirmed.

The confirmation, which had been expected after a preliminary announcement earlier this year, came days after the 27-year-old icebreaker Healy experienced an electrical fire that forced it to abandon its summer mission in the Arctic Ocean.

The Coast Guard has only two active icebreakers, and the other ship — the Polar Star — is committed to the Antarctic, where it maintains the sea lanes that supply American research stations in Antarctica.

The U.S. Navy does not operate any icebreakers, and Alaska’s congressional delegation has long called for the Coast Guard to be given enough money to build new icebreakers.

A 2023 study concluded that the Coast Guard needs eight or nine polar icebreakers in the near future, but only three new ships have been ordered and the first of those is not expected to enter service until at least 2029.

As a stopgap measure, Alaska’s congressional delegation inserted a $125 million appropriation into last year’s Coast Guard funding bill allowing the service to purchase an icebreaker.

Only one ship meets the Coast Guard’s standards — the Aiviq, originally built to support oil exploration in the Arctic Ocean.

Built in 2012, the Aiviq has had a mixed career: It was one of two ships towing the Shell drilling rig Kulluk when the rig broke loose and ran aground in Kodiak.

The Aiviq is currently owned by Offshore Service Vessels LLC, and the Coast Guard published a notice on March 1 that it intends to buy the Aiviq.

The Coast Guard has already acquired additional waterfront property in Juneau, anticipating the Aiviq, but until last week, the agency hadn’t confirmed its plans.

Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan made the announcement during a trip to Alaska with Sens. Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski.

“The United States is an Arctic nation, and the Coast Guard is vital to providing presence in our sovereign waters and the polar regions,” said Adm. Kevin Lunday, Coast Guard vice commandant, in a prepared statement. “As we continue to build the Polar Security Cutters, acquiring a commercially available polar icebreaker will enable the Coast Guard to increase our national presence in the Arctic, and homeporting this cutter in Alaska demonstrates the Service’s steadfast commitment to the region.”

The timeline for bringing the icebreaker to Juneau is not yet clear. Fagan said Friday during a visit to Anchorage with Sullivan that the federal government must first negotiate to purchase the vessel.

“I have a sense of urgency,” Fagan said. “We need to buy it. We need to get it painted red and a Coast Guard stripe on it and a Coast Guard crew.”

Fagan said the Coast Guard must prepare facilities for the icebreaker in Juneau. And she noted that housing must be made available for its crew. She said it’s possible the ship will spend time in Juneau while the facilities and housing are being finalized before it’s permanently stationed there.

Sullivan and Murkowski each praised the Coast Guard action.

“We’ve been working on this for decades,” Sullivan said. “The place in the Arctic for America needs an icebreaker, and we’re going to get one.”

Murkowski said in a joint statement she released with Sullivan: “As I repeat often, we are an Arctic nation because of Alaska and we require the assets and manpower to fully and competently carry out our mission in the Arctic.”

Editor-in-Chief Andrew Kitchenman contributed to this article.

Originally published by the Alaska Beacon, an independent, nonpartisan news organization that covers Alaska state government.