SECTOR PUGET SOUND: A CASE STUDY IN COAST GUARD PARTNERSHIPS

BY EDWARD LUNDQUIST

Partnerships with other federal, state, local, tribal, international and private entities are a critical enabler for the Coast Guard in carrying out its missions. Nowhere is that more apparent than Sector Puget Sound, where partnerships are paramount.

Led by Sector Commander Capt. Linda Sturgis and Deputy Capt. Michael Balding, Sector Puget Sound covers 12 counties in Washington State with commercial maritime interests, and ten ports, including the three major commercial shipping ports of Seattle, Everett, and Tacoma, which together make up the third largest shipping port in the U.S.

Puget Sound encompasses 3,500 square miles of waterway – including a 125-mile maritime international boundary with Canada – and nearly 5,000 commercial deep draft vessels transit the waters each year destined for U.S. and Canadian ports.

Sector Puget Sound, as with the other 37 sectors within the Coast Guard, deals on a day-to-day basis with safety of navigation, environmental stewardship, emergency planning, law enforcement and maritime security. Because all of those functions involve other entities, the stakeholders meet together regularly in the Area Maritime Security Committee (AMSC); the Area Committee, which deals with oil spills and other environmental issues; and the Harbor Safety Committee, to name the big ones, and other more specific committees and working groups. The Coast Guard also participates in the Regional Coordinating Mechanism (ReCoM), which brings together the federal agencies in the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security.

The U.S. Coast Guard, alongside local partner, state, and federal agencies, participated in an Area Maritime Security Training and Exercise Program (AMSTEP) event Sept. 23, 2019, on Puget Sound near Seattle. The law enforcement agencies utilized various small boats to board a Washington State Ferry that participated in the training.

U.S. Coast Guard Photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Steve Strohamajuer

Sector Puget Sound currently oversees the operations of Air Station Port Angeles, five stations, eight Coast Guard cutters, an Aids to Navigation Team, and the largest Vessel Traffic Service (VTS) in the United States. The sector also helps protect critical U.S. Navy facilities and assets in Puget Sound.

Stakeholders at all levels are involved in everything the sector does, demonstrating the importance of partnerships for planning, prevention, preparedness and response.

VESSEL TRAFFIC SERVICE

Successfully managing an international boundary requires cooperation and collaboration on both sides of the border – especially when that border is at sea. Canada and the U.S. have developed a close partnership – and a shared responsibility – at all levels of government to ensure the safety, security and sovereignty of both nations. The shared responsibilities result in the U.S. and Canadian Coast Guard each managing a portion of another nation’s waters.

VTS monitors traffic in Puget Sound for navigation safety, but it also ensures the efficiency of the port so pilots, tug operators, stevedores, line handlers, customs officials, and husbanding agents can meet a ship on arrival and turn it around as quickly as possible so it can get back to sea.

Sector Puget Sound’s Vessel Traffic Center is the largest in the U.S. and is a key traffic center in the Cooperative Vessel Traffic Service (C-VTS) shared between the U.S. and Canada. Sector Puget Sound’s VTS includes 3,500 square miles of waterways and supports more than 218,000 annual vessel transits.

Seamlessly managed on an international basis in partnership with Canada, the Puget Sound VTS is a unique example of governmental cooperation.

The Coast Guard’s Joint Harbor Operations Center in Seattle engages with local, state, federal, tribal, and international agencies, all staffed by representatives of those organizations so that quick and direct lines of communication are available. Across the border, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s (RCMP’s) Marine Security Operations Centre (MSOC), located in the provincial capital of Victoria, British Columbia, provides integrated marine-related intelligence products for both Canadian and U.S. law enforcement agencies.

All of the response agencies throughout the sector have a presence or connectivity with the Coast Guard’s Joint Harbor Operations Center (JHOC) in Seattle, and if there is a marine or maritime “911” call, the JHOC will determine and dispatch the asset that’s closest and best able to respond.

The Sector Puget Sound JHOC is co-located with theVTS so they can coordinate if needed. A recent case involving a U.S. Navy ship requiring a boat transfer in the middle of the shipping channel during a medical emergency was made possible because the Cooperative VTS operation center in Prince Rupert, Canada, was able to direct traffic to stay clear of the Navy ship during the evolution.

There’s a great deal of diversity among the sector’s five multimission boat stations and location of cutters. On the coast, Stations Quillayute River and Neah Bay, while always ready to perform all missions, are uniquely trained to perform SAR in surf and heavy weather conditions, while employing the 47-foot motor lifeboats for rescues. Similarly, Stations Bellingham and Port Angeles have unique law enforcement training, frequently working with the Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine and Border Patrol stations in their areas of responsibility. Station Seattle, located in a busy port and population area, is uniquely trained to conduct armed escorts and patrols in support of Ports, Waterways and Coastal Security missions. Additionally, the sector has eight coastal patrol boats constantly patrolling the sector’s area of responsibility in support of the statutory missions.

The Coast Guard conducts joint “Shiprider” patrols with counterparts in the RCMP, providing trained and certified crews to jointly man boats with the authority to patrol and pursue on both sides of the maritime international boundary. Stations Port Angeles, Bellingham, and Air Station Port Angeles all participate in Shiprider missions.

When operating as part of the Shiprider program, the boats are jointly crewed and fly both the American and Canadian flags. Qualified Shiprider crews are highly trained, and certified by both governments, enabling the patrols to pursue and apprehend suspicious vessels on either side of the border.

Members of Coast Guard Station Bellingham an the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) participate in a Shiprider operation that allows members of each agency certain jurisdictions, under the opposing agencies guidance, when conducting operations in American/Canadian waters. The program allows members of the RCMP ride on Coast Guard boats and members of the Coast Guard to ride on RCMP boats.

U.S. Coast Guard Photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Jordan Akyanna

For native communities, fishing has been a way of life, and the tribes are granted certain fishing rights by treaty. Salmon, halibut, crabs and geoduck clams have long been important subsistence foods or a source of income for the tribes.

A number of the tribal entities are waterway users, and many have fishing and whaling rights in their “usual and accustomed areas’’ in Puget Sound. The Coast Guard has special trust responsibilities to all the tribes in any Coast Guard mission areas that could potentially affect them.

According to Andrew Connor, a civilian in the 13th Coast Guard District External Affairs Office where he focuses on tribal, international, and DHS partnerships, the Pacific Northwest is a region with a myriad of agencies that have authorities and a presence on the water, to include police, sheriff, fire and rescue, fish and wildlife, parks and recreation, environmental, and others.

The sectors work with their local counterparts on a day-to-day basis. “We know who has assets and where they are, so if one agency needs help, or is unable to respond, we can find someone on the water or who is able to get underway and has the training and authority to assist. We use quick-response sheets to determine who can be dispatched, and how to get them to the scene,” Connor said. “That goes for the public, too. They represent an important part of our partnership. We can issue an urgent marine information broadcast and alert fishermen, boaters and ferry operators. They can be our eyes and ears.”

PLAN AND PREPARE FOR THE WORST

Cmdr. Xochitl Castañeda is the chief of the Sector Puget Sound Emergency Management Department. That includes planning and preparing to manage disasters, large and small, with all of the stakeholders in the sector.

“It’s important for all the participants to meetperiodically and get to know each other and their challenges and capabilities,” Castañeda said. “When something happens, you need to know the right people. Calling for assistance in a crisis shouldn’t be the first time you reached out.”

One example is “Cascadia Rising,” a long-term series of exercises designed to prepare for responding to the worst-case earthquake disaster that could be expected to occur in the Northwest. That disaster is a magnitude 9 earthquake on the Cascadia Subduction Zone running off the coast and a resulting tsunami, and many people are concerned about how the region would respond after such a devasting event.

As the Chief of Emergency Management, Castañeda said that “of all the disasters to prepare for, this is the big one. The threat of a 9.0 earthquake and resulting tsunami is daunting. We’re prepared for more routine disasters, but for something of this magnitude we will likely need external support to the region.”

Coast Guard District 13 staff holds a simulated area command briefing during Cascadia Rising 2016.

U.S. Coast Guard Photo by Petty Officer Andrea Anderson

Cascadia Rising 2016 was a major national-level exercise, and the next one, planned for 2022, will be even larger, incorporating a “spill of national significance.”

Castañeda said one of her main planning objectives is helping to restore the Maritime Transportation System (MTS) – the ports, waterways, railways, roads and bridges that move commerce – to full capacity after a major disaster, including risk assessments and mitigation efforts. Building resiliency into the MTS now can reduce risk for future events.

ACTIVE SHOOTER DRILL

Bo Stocklin works with Castañeda in the Emergency Management department, and was the lead planner for the sector’s September 2019 active shooter exercise involving dozens of agencies around Puget Sound. “The scenario involved an active shooter on a Washington State Ferry, and the at-the-dock-day live exercise involved 160 individual participants, and the day we were underway on a ferry we had more than 80 law enforcement personnel conducting boardings from 12 boats and two helicopters.”

The U.S. Coast Guard alongside partner local, state and federal agencies participated in an Area Maritime Security Training and Exercise Program (AMSTEP) event in Seattle, Washington Saturday, Sept. 21, 2019. Coast Guardsmen practice tactical interdiction methods for use in the event of an active shooter scenario.

Stocklin said the exercises are risk-based, and the Coast Guard works with its partners to determine what the highest risks are. To maximize coordination across the entire spectrum of partners, Stocklin said the key is to design the exercise to involve everyone. “We validated that we need to continue to work together,” he said.

Washington State Ferries are the largest ferry system in the U.S., carrying 25 million passengers a year. “They could be a target, and they take safety and security to heart,” said Stocklin. “They work closely with us and the Washington State Patrol, as the ferries are considered part of the state highway system.”

The community was warned in advance that they should expect a large number of first responders, equipment, sirens and simulated gunfire around the Washington State Ferries Eagle Harbor Maintenance Facility and surrounding waterway, and later aboard the M/V Kittitas while underway in Puget Sound. The Kittitas did not have passengers aboard during the exercise.

RESPONDING TO OIL SPILLS

Response Department Head Cmdr. Torrey Bertheau said his department works closely with the Prevention Department to oversee, respond to and plan for any incident that should happen in the maritime environment. “Prevention is supposed to keep bad things from happening, and response goes out there immediately to minimize impact when bad things do happen,” Bertheau said.

Rear Adm. David Throop, former commander, Coast Guard 13th District, describes aspects of the Coast Guard’s function within his district to Jay Inslee (right), governor, Washington state, during a visit to Coast Guard Sector Puget Sound in Seattle, Sept. 7, 2018. The Coast Guard has always maintained a close working relationship with the state, ensuring the safety, security and environmental protection of the region.

U.S. Coast Guard Photo by 2nd Class Officer Amanda Norcross

He is responsible for the boats and cutters called upon to respond to any incidents on the water, and has the experts to respond to oil spills.

Of the Coast Guard’s 11 statutory missions, eight of them are in the response portfolio, most notably maritime search and rescue (SAR), pollution response, federal law enforcement, and port security. “Our mission includes environmental protection and enforcement of the many regulations, as well as helping to mitigate the effects of a marine casualty.”

Although Bertheau has a variety of assets to respond to an incident, he says his most important resources dedicated to environmental protection are the people, the professional pollution responders who become the representative of the sector commander and serve as the federal on-scene coordinator to lead the appropriate federal, state, local, international, tribal, and responsible party in a unified response.

Border patrol agents co-located with Coast Guard Station Bellingham conducted a boarding of a sailboat in Puget Sound, near the city of Bellingham Feb. 10, 2005. The agents work closely with Coast Guard law enforcement teams.

USGC Photo by PA3 Mike Zclzer

And when a response is required, the prior planning pays off.

Castañeda said the Coast Guard has the jurisdiction to regulate the oil terminals, and worst-case discharge drills are conducted with all the terminals that handle oil or hazardous materials and are considered to be of high risk, including the appropriate partner agencies that would be involved in an actual response.

To show the value of planning and exercising, an actualspill recently occurred at a Shell Oil terminal just days after the Coast Guard, partner agencies and the company had conducted a worst-case discharge exercise. “The response was well done,” said Castañeda. “Everybody knew each other, and they knew what they were doing. Everybody knew what to bring, and how it was all going to work together. They showed up, plugged in, and got the job done.”

Partnerships are very important to the Coast Guard. “Here in Sector Puget Sound we have our area committees to come together to talk about all things related to oil spills, and think about problems before they happen,” Castañeda said. “The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is a big partner for us, as well as the State of Washington, and the authorities in the local jurisdiction that we’re dealing with. The relationships are already in place. Everybody in the entire oil spill community knows each other.”

The Emergency Management Department, a pilot program currently underway at Sector Puget Sound, consolidates contingency planning, the JHOC, and intelligence functions, and serves as the sector “Chief Emergency Manager” to plan, prepare and integrate with federal, state, local, and tribal governments.