Tag Archives: fisheries

“ENHANCING EXISTING FORCE STRUCTURE BY OPTIMIZING MARITIME SERVICE SPECIALIZATION”–CIMSEC

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Fourth HC-144A delivered

Photo: The Government of Mexico purchased four CN235-300M aircraft (similar to the Coast Guard’s HC-144A). Oct. 1, 2010, the Foreign Military Sales program awarded a $157.9 million contract to EADS North America to produce these aircraft. The fourth and final delivery took place May 2, 2012, at EADS’ facility in Seville, Spain. Photo courtesy of Airbus Military.

CIMSEC has an interesting post that postulates a greatly expanded leadership role for the Coast Guard. In many ways it is radical, but I think it may be the way we are headed.

It suggests an enlarged role in international maritime policing and Foreign Military Sales. That probably implies intelligence collection and distribution.

“Under the umbrella of muscular law enforcement, the Coast Guard would manage not only patrols of the American coast, but also patrols off South America and Africa as well.”

That may already be close to reality in the SouthCom AOR.

The author describes a standard “frigate” that could very well be the Offshore Patrol Cutter:

“The principal requirements would be low cost, ease of maintenance, and margins for growth. The basic warship would have a simple power plant, enough systems to operate as a minimalist patrol ship, and substantial space and weight left available for additions.”

“Built cheaply and in large numbers, flotillas of these semi-modular ships would patrol for pirates off Africa, drug smugglers in the Gulf of Mexico, or vessels in distress off North America.”

He also sees a role for these ships in Amphibious Assaults.

“…the amphibious train would be escorted by frigates (based on the common hull introduced above) specialized with the maximum number of naval guns possible. With these frigates, the amphibious force would be able to defeat enemy forces in waters too constricted for the blue-water warships to operate effectively.”

We have seen a growing Coast Guard role in Foreign Military Sales with the delivery of hundreds of boats to dozens of nations, new 87 foot patrol boats going to Yemen, and maritime patrol aircraft going to Mexico. I don’t think it is too much of a stretch to see OPCs or Webber class WPCs being sold to our allies and friends, possibly funded in whole or in part by US Foreign Military Assistance.

There may be minor issues with his vision. I might argue that in accordance with the post’s logic, force protection should be under Coast Guard management, but generally his views are sound. It is surprising to see so much of a post by a former E-2C/D Hawkeye Naval Flight Officer devoted to the Coast Guard. The whole post is worth a read.

Timely Actions Needed to Address Risks in Using Rotational Crews–GAO

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Waesche Carat 2012

The GAO has recently issued a report, “Coast Guard, Timely Actions Needed to Address Risks in Using Rotational Crews” (pdf) which discusses the “Crew Rotation Concept” (CRC) which has been part of the proposed National Security Cutter (NSC) program for at least a decade, but never tested. I believe there has also been discussion of using it on the Offshore Patrol Cutter as well.

This is perhaps the last, worst vestige of the Deep Water program.

First there is this explanation of the expectations of the plan from an Acquisitions Directorate web page that has since been taken down.

“Initially, the Coast Guard will employ four crews for three NSCs at a single homeport, rotating the cutters among the crews to limit crew PERSTEMPO to 185 days while maintaining each cutter’s operational tempo (OPTEMPO) at 230 days. The three-cutter, four-crew prototype will be evaluated in 2009 through an operational testing-and-evaluation process. Policy and procedures for CRC are based on the lessons learned by the Coast Guard and the U.S. Navy, as well as consideration of the recommendations made by auditors from the Government Accountability Office.”

Please forgive me for quoting myself but I feel the need to repeat some calculations from a post from 2010.

First assuming the projections are correct, we are replacing 12 ships which would provide 2,220 operating days with eight ships that will provide at best 1,840 so we are already two ships short.

Then you will also note that the presumption is that the ships will be operated in groups of three from the same home port, but there are only eight ships planned, meaning there will be a rump group of two somewhere. Will they be operated by three crews or by a single crew per ship?

What we hope to save here is acquisition cost, because the operating costs per op day cannot be lowered by this strategy and will actually be higher. I don’t know the projected life cycle costs for the National Security cutters, but in general, I’ve heard that the acquisition costs for similar systems is about 15% of the life cycle cost. Fuel and personnel costs are the real driver. Fuel costs should be the same per op day. Personnel costs will actually be higher, since each crew under the multi-crewing concept will only provide 172.5 op days instead of 185, so personnel costs will be 7.25% higher.

In addition, because the ship will only be in port 135 days a year instead of 180, there will be fewer opportunities for the crew to make repairs. These repairs, normally done by the crew, will have to be done by contractors at additional costs.

I would also note that the acquisition costs we hope to save actually decline as we add more ships. Four additional units are likely to cost far less on the average than the first 8. There is also the long term value of having four additional ships in hand if the country should need them in the future.

Frankly I don’t think we will see any significant savings from this manning approach and it may actually cost us in the long run.

If a truly convincing argument can be made for the concept, I would like to see it. And if the argument involves lower overhead because we get more “mission” op days compared to RefTra day, remember the reason we go, is to train the crews, not the ships, so every crew will needs to go.

As I noted above three into eight does not make for three ship groups. At that time, I thought it would be two ports with three ships and one with two, but in fact, apparently the intention is now two in Charleston, two in Honolulu, and four in Alameda, so it is three ships nowhere.

I am a little surprised the testing has not already started. After all we have had three ships in Alameda for three years now.

As far as I can tell, rotating multiple crews among multiple ships has never worked out. More here and here. We have certainly had the opportunity to test the concept on simpler platforms, but it has yet to be attempted in earnest. Frankly I think everyone knows this is not going to work, but they have just been pushing facing the embarrassing truth off into the future.

There may be viable alternatives to swapping out entire crews. In fact, apparently crews of existing NSCs have been augmented to allow them to provide 210 days away from Homeport. Actually nine augmented ships, U/W 210 days a year, would provide more availability (1890 days) than eight multi-crewed ships U/W 230 days a year (1840 days) but they would still not reach the level provided by twelve un-augmented ships (2220 days).

Unlike wine, bad news does not get better with age. It is time to bit the bullet. Try CRC or find an alternative. If it doesn’t work, well it was really someone else’s idea after all.

CIMSEC Talks Fisheries Crimes

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CIMSEC continues their “Non-Navy” discussion with “Fisheries Crime: Bridging the Conceptual Gap and Practical Response.”

They address more than just Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing. They talk about problems highlighted in a study conducted by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) on transnational criminal activities in the fishing industry :

•Fishers trafficked for the purpose of forced labor on board fishing vessels are severely abused;
•There is frequency of child trafficking in the fishing industry;
•Transnational organized criminal groups are engaged in marine living resource crimes in relation to high value, low volume species such as abalone;
•Some transnational fishing operators launder illegally caught fish through transshipments at sea and fraudulent catch documentation;
•Fishing licensing and control system is vulnerable to corruption;
•Fishing vessels are used for the purpose of smuggling of migrants, illicit traffic in drugs (primarily cocaine), illicit traffic in weapons, and acts of terrorism; and
•Fishers are often recruited by organized criminal groups due to their skills and knowledge of the sea and are seldom masterminds behind organized criminal activities involving the fishing industry or fishing vessels.[1]

The Coast Guard is most likely to encounter these problems in the EEZ in the Western Pacific, including the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument that is expected to expanded and in the EEZs of friendly island nations that rely on the US to assist with enforcement. Unfortunately assets for enforcement in these areas have been extremely limited.

Chinese Drift Net F/V Seized in the North Pacific

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CCGD17 is reporting an unusual fisheries case.

This seizure was a result of an international effort. The F/V was spotted by a Canadian CP-140 (similar to a P-3) and boarded by a team from Morgenthau assisted by two Chinese agents, 625 miles East of Tokyo (Japan was also listed as a participant in the operation). After violations were discovered, the vessel was detained and custody subsequently transferred to a Chinese Coast Guard cutter.

I can’t help but be curious what will happen to the vessel, its owners and crew, when the Chinese government seems to condone and even encourage violation of international fisheries norms elsewhere.

Fish Laundering

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When you sit down to add that much need Omega-3 to your diet, do you ask where the fish came from. The US and the EU have signed an agreement that is intended to track the origin of fish brought to market in an attempt to combat a form of “piracy,” taking fish illegally form poorly protected stocks.

I suspect one of the poorly protected stocks is in the US western Pacific EEZ and the Federated States of Micronesia.

A Call for More Coast Guard in the Pacific

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The US has the largest Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the world (roughly 12,000,000 sq.km.), and roughly a fourth of it is in the Pacific, far south of Alaska, and west of Hawaii, in fact much more of it than is in the Arctic. While warming Arctic waters have been attracting a lot of press, if not much substantial action, the Central and Western Pacific EEZ has received relatively little attention, maybe because they don’t have any Congressional representation. I don’t have good figures on this, but looking at this chart of the US EEZ, its apparent that if Coast Guard assets were distributed on the basis of size of the EEZ, about 80% of the Coast Guard would be based in the Pacific.

Each little island out there, if it is more than 400 nautical miles from the nearest land, is surrounded by at least 125,664 square miles (431,000 sq.km) of territorial sea, contiguous zone, EEZ, and perhaps some additional continental shelf.

New Zealand’s Foreign Minister, Murray McCully, has called for greater cooperation between the US and New Zealand. Specifically he is calling for more USCG activity in the South Pacific to stop illegal fishing and drug smuggling, “I believe the time has come for New Zealand, the US and Australia to dramatically step up our collective surveillance activity in the region to provide a comprehensive assault on illegal activity…”

Apparently, talks are in progress now.

A lot of old CG icebreaker sailors have pleasant memories of Christchurch, New Zealand. Relations with New Zealand have been cool for decades because of a ban on nuclear weapons in New Zealand waters and a refusal by the US to “confirm or deny” the presence of nuclear weapons on our ships (I think once we refused to answer if the Eagle had nuclear weapons on board and she was denied permission to enter a New Zealand port).

That may be changing, as in Costa Rica, it looks like while the US Navy may not be welcome in New Zealand, the Coast Guard may be.

In addition to Guam, US territories and possessions in the Pacific include:

The other nation in the area with substantial assets and interests is France.

France & Australia Cooperate on Fisheries Enforcement in the South Pacific

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“Australia and France will step up patrols for illegal fishing in the Southern Ocean under a new agreement signed by the two countries…French patrols will also include Australian fisheries officers, and Australian vessels will carry French officers so that each country is able to apply the laws of the other to offenders.”

France and Australia have the second and third largest EEZs in the world after the US.

Thanks to Mike Colombaro at http://combatfleetoftheworld.blogspot.com/ for the link.

Giving More than 100%–Part 3, The Results and Recommendations

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This is the third part of a detailed look at the “Annual Review of the United States Coast Guard’s Mission Performance (FY 2009)” from the office of the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security.  The report is available in Acrobat PDF format from DHS. (I’ll refer to it as the DHS IG report.)

Here, we are going to look at what I consider the informative and important part of the report, that was buried in Appendices C and D. My earlier commentary, parts 1 and 2 are here and here.

Much of Appendices C and D is lifted from the United States Coast Guard Fiscal Year 2009 Performance Report which is also available as a pdf (couldn’t get a link to work, but it’s on google). (I’ll refer to it as the CG report.) This document does a much better job of explaining the categories and the performance measures than the DHS IG report but only goes back to 2004. It does, however, also include the targets for FY 2010. It would probably be better if the IG had just put a cover sheet on the CG report and forwarded it.

Both reports provide the essential same results but their are some differences, which I will note.

24 measured are applied to the eleven Coast Guard missions. For FY 2009, the Coast Guard met 8 of 11 performance measures for its 6 non-DHS missions, and 6 of 13 performance measures for its 5 homeland security missions.

—THE GOOD NEWS—

“Non-Homeland Security” missions did well. Standards were high and even when targets were not met, we came close.

SAR: Percentage of people in imminent danger saved in the maritime environment. Target 76% Actual 77.3%
(I find the math used in this section hard to follow and somewhat questionable–there was a reported improvement over FY 2008, but deaths went up 20%, while total number in danger changed very little (see CG report p15,16))

Aids to Navigation:

  • Federal short-range aids to navigation availability. Target 97.5% Actual 98.0%
  • Five-year average number of collisions, allisions, and groundings. Target 1871 Actual 1878. This was very close to the target and the target is 390 fewer incidents than the target in 2001. I have no idea where they come up with this target, because it moves around getting lower from 2001 to 2007 and then going back up again.

Ice Operations: Number of days critical waterways are closed due to ice. Target 2 avg. and 8 severe. Actual 0. (Note there is no criteria for Polar Operations.) Success in this criteria is strongly influenced by weather.

Living Marine Resources: Percentage of Coast Guard boardings at sea in which no violations are detected when domestic fisheries regulations apply. Target 97% Actual 96.7%, a miss, but close enough to be insignificant.

Marine Safety: (None of these standards were in place until FY2008)

  • Five-year average number of commercial mariner deaths and injuries. Target <529 Actual 475.
  • Five-year average number of commercial passenger deaths and injuries. Target <251 Actual 228.
  • Five-year average number of recreational boating deaths and injuries. Target <4,248 Actual 4,038

Marine Environmental Protection: (Here too, these standards did not apply until FY2008)

  • Five Year average number of chemical discharge incidents per 100 million short tons shipped. Target <25.9 Actual 17.8.
  • Five year average number of oil spills per 100 million short tons shipped. Target <13.5 Actual. 11.8.
  • Percentage of oil removed otherwise mitigated as compared to the amount of oil released for reported spills of 100 gallons or more. Target 16%. Actual No data. this measure is to be replaced because it was found to be impractical.

—THE BAD NEWS—

Homeland Security missions did not fare so well. In general, even when targets were met, the targets were low.

Ports, Waterways, and Coastal Security:

  • Critical infrastructure required visit rate. Target 100% Actual 74% (CG report says Actual 100%)
  • Percentage of risk reduction of maritime security risk resulting from Coast Guard efforts to prevent a weapon of mass destruction from entering the United States via maritime means. Target 3% Actual 17%.
  • Percent of reduction of all maritime security risk subject to Coast Guard influence. Target  21% Actual 31% (Why is the target being lowered to 19% for 2010?)
  • Percentage of reduction of maritime security risk resulting from Coast Guard efforts to prevent a terrorist entering the United States vial maritime means. Target 21% Actual 42%.
  • Number of Transportation  Workers Identification Credential (TWIC) spot checks. Target 94,500 Actual 39,100
  • Risk reduction due to consequence management. Target 6% Actual 9%
  • High Capacity passenger vessel required escort rate. Target 100% Actual 53%.

Drug Interdiction (This standard was not applied until FY2009): Removal rate for cocaine from noncommercial vessels in a maritime transit zone. Target 15.7% Actual 15%. (Probably reasonably accurate and probably about as good as we can hope for, but not good enough to truly discourage the smugglers.)

Undocumented Migrant Interdiction:

  • Percentage of undocumented migrants who attempt to enter the US via maritime routes “that are interdicted” Target 69.9% Actual 84.4%
  • (In the CG report there was a second measure: Percent of Undocumented Migrants who attempt to enter the US via maritime routes interdicted by the Coast Guard. Target 50% Actual 37.5%. Could it be the first isn’t really a CG performance measure. And why does this standard go down in 2010?)

Defense Readiness: These three measures are to be replaced next year.

  • Defense readiness of patrol boats. Target 100% Actual 94%
  • Defense Readiness of Port Security Units. Target 100% Actual 19.8%
  • Percentage of time that Coast Guard assets included in the Combatant Commander Operational Plans are ready at a Status of Resources and Training System (SORTS) rating of 2 or better. Target 100% Actual 44%
  • (CG report has an additional measure. Defense Readiness of High Endurance Cutters Target 100% Actual 20.7 This shows a consistent decline from 98.5% on FY2004)

Other Law Enforcement (Foreign Fisheries Enforcement):

  • Number of incursions into the U. S. Exclusive Economic Zone. Target <195 Actual 112
  • The CG report has a second performance measure, Interdiction rate of foreign vessels detected violating the U. S. EEZ. Target 9% Actual 14.3%

—OTHER MEASURES—

Some of the things we did not see measured, that we might want to get a handle on:

  • Safety Inspections and Training for crews of foreign flag oil rigs operating in our EEZ. (Why do we let foreign flag rigs drill in our EEZ anyway?)
  • Ice Operations: We need to have separate out Polar operations. Right now it is getting lost in measures of domestic icebreaking.
  • Percent sorties and return to port by major USN units such as CVNs, SSBNs, big deck amphibs escorted
  • Percent of ships carrying “Certain Dangerous Cargoes (CDCs) escorted
  • Percent of high interest vessels boarded
  • Percent maritime container traffic checked
  • Effectiveness of the Maritime Domain Awareness systems.

—OTHER THOUGHTS—

We really need to consider Domain Awareness for vessels under 300 tons too. Even sailboats can bring in some nasty weapons.

The Department needs to see that their future is in disaster preparedness from whatever cause. Hopefully the terror threat will fade. They need to see, that the “non-DHS missions” complementary DHS missions. When we have a disaster, we need to do SAR and restore Aids to Navigation. Icebreaking may be necessary to get access to a disaster or to prevent one, and environmental disasters are still disasters.

The Coast Guard needs to embrace the DHS missions and recognize that the greater capability, that we really do need to do these missions, also means greater capability to do traditional missions. That Long Rang Identification and Tracking (LRIT) will help SAR is just one example. More boats, more aircraft, more command, control, communications, information, and reconnaissance systems translate to doing all our missions better. To get those assets, we need to make our case, and it can only be made on the basis of DHS missions.

Congress needs to recognize that we are an Armed Service. They don’t expect to see a product out of the Air Force every year. It’s buying insurance. Most of the time, there is no product. Counter terrorism missions are dealing with statistically unlikely, but high impact events. Congress and DHS have a hard time dealing with a multi-purpose organization. From year to year they don’t know what we will be doing because we don’t know either. Mariel Boatlift, Katrina, Haiti, Deepwater Horizon, what’s next? We don’t know!

When it comes time to decide the Coast Guard budget, I would suggest Congress take a different approach. Consider return on investment. If you like the return you are getting from the Coast Guard now, invest more.  Don’t say, “Agency ‘X’ isn’t working, we need to put more money into that.” “The Coast Guard, is doing a good job with their current budget so we don’t need to give them any more.” I don’t quote scripture very often. I’m not religious, but there is some wisdom there. Check out the story of the “good and faithful servant” Mathew 25:14-30.