With the Great Lakes shipping season underway as of Wednesday morning, the U.S. Coast Guard says they are ready to help ships navigate icy waters despite being short a couple of icebreaking vessels.
Between the U.S. and Canadian Coast Guards, eleven ice-breaking ships operate on the Great Lakes. The U.S. supplies nine of them.
Brian Smicklas is a waterways management specialist and icebreaking coordinator for the U.S. Coast Guard. He told WCMU that two of the nine U.S. icebreakers are down for repair.
"One of the vessels is a 225ft buoy tender and one of the more complicated areas of the ship in the reduction gears has a failure," Smicklas said. "The other one is a 140ft icebreaking tug built in the 1970's and early 80's."
He said the complicated nature of needed parts and the ship's age means it will likely be months before they're back on the water.
The USCG's heavy icebreaker, the Mackinaw, is considered "partially mission capable" and is being kept out of the Soo Locks because of a bow thruster issue.
"She can maneuver and provide icebreaking services, it’s just not a great idea to maneuver close to lock walls/gates and in other close quarters to mitigate the risk of collision," a USCG spokesperson said in an email to WCMU.
Data from the Great Lakes surface environmental analysis shows about 20% of the Great Lakes are covered in ice right now. Most of the ice is found in the Northern Great Lakes, particularly in Lakes Michigan, Huron and Superior.
Warmer temperatures in south have enabled the USCG to concentrate efforts in areas with greater amounts of ice such as the Straits of Mackinac, St. Mary's River and Whitefish Bay.
Smicklas said despite issues with those vessels, the rest of the fleet is ready to help ships efficiently navigate current conditions.
"Delays can happen in all sorts of ways," Smicklas said. "Do I think there's going to be significant delays from lack of icebreaking capacity? No, I really don't. I think that we've got enough assets to do just about what we need to do."
Eric Peace, vice president of the Lake Carriers' Association, a group the represents the interests of the commercial shipping industry in the Great Lakes, said the ice breaking fleet isn't out of the woods yet. As the season continues, the paths carved by icebreakers will start to clog up with large sheets of ice that naturally break of the shoreline, Peace said.
"Without an ice breaker in front of you, when those plates breaks loose and the ship's in a confined channel, it can push them aground and slice them open," Peace said. "And we've had that occur in the past."
Peace emphasized that any delays can cause harm to the nation's steel industry, which relies on Great Lakes shipping channels to fuel its multi-billion dollar economic footprint.
"What we're running right now is supplies to steel mills," Peace said. "Since January 15th, they had raw material on the dock. Now they're almost empty. If they continue to not be able to be resupplied because of delays due to ice or whatever, that impacts their ability to produce America's steel."
