The unmanned barge adrift in the Beaufort Sea will be locked in sea ice north of Alaska's Arctic Slope through the winter, according to the U.S.Coast Guard.
Ice has closed in on the 134-foot barge since it broke from a Canadian tugboat on Oct. 21 during a severe storm. The two vessels were traveling to Tuktoyaktuk in Canada's Northwest Territories but separated before reaching the community. The tugboat continued east while the barge floated west into U.S. waters, said Cmdr. Shawn Decker, chief of response for the Coast Guard's Anchorage sector.
On Monday, the barge was floating at about 1 mph, 50 miles northwest of Prudhoe Bay, about 25 miles from the coast. At least 60 percent of the sea surface surrounding the barge had frozen, Decker said. With temperatures dropping into the single digits overnight, he said, the ice "is developing very quickly,"
Northern Transportation Corp. Ltd., the Canadian marine operator that owns the barge, chartered a helicopter out of Deadhorse on Friday to drop a GPS transmitting beacon onto the vessel. The beacon provides the company and the U.S. Coast Guard with daily updates on the barge's coordinates, Decker said.
By Monday evening, the barge remained undamaged and did not pose any environmental threats, according to Decker. The self-propelled barge is carrying roughly 950 gallons of diesel fuel in internal tanks. It had delivered fuel to a Canadian coastal community before separating from the tugboat, leaving its cargo tank empty, Decker said.
"We are doing periodic flyovers to ensure the barge is still intact," he said.
As ice continued to freeze from the shoreline out last week, the option of having a vessel recover the barge was eliminated, Decker said.
Now the plan is to wait for the ice to fully encase the barge, which could take six to eight weeks, he said. Once the ice thickens, track vehicles or a helicopter will be sent to remove fuel from the barge. He said the barge will spend the winter in the Beaufort Sea until temperatures warm, sea ice melts and a vessel can tow it to shore.