Coast Guard Reactivates Polar Star
Video by PO3 Tara Molle of the USCG District 13 Public Affairs team.
Icebreaker docked in Seattle to be refitted for duty
By Mark Rahner at the Seattle Times. Mark Harrison took the photo.
The Coast Guard’s top brass landed in Seattle on Wednesday to announce the refitting of an old icebreaker, along with the need to act in the face of global climate change.
Standing on the deck of the cutter Polar Star at the U.S. Coast Guard base on Pier 36, Adm. Thad Allen described the ship’s $62 million facelift as well as what he said was "a clarion call for action regarding ocean policy, regarding climate change and regarding what’s going on in our Arctic." [Read more]
Coast Guard: Icebreaker to be reactivated by 2013
By George Tibbits of the Associated Press.
SEATTLE — After a $62 million overhaul, the Coast Guard will have its third icebeaker back in service in 2013, filling a critical need as the fleet takes on new responsibilities, the commandant of the service said Wednesday.
Adm. Thad Allen said that within weeks, the icebreaker Polar Star will travel the few hundred yards between its berth at Seattle’s Coast Guard station to Todd Pacific Shipyards, where it will undergo the 2 1/2-year restoration.
The work is aimed at keeping the ship operational for another seven or eight years. Before then, Allen said, the country needs to decide whether to build a new generation of icebreakers capable of handling expanded missions and situations well into mid-century.
In Arctic and Antarctic waters, "the only surface presence this country has are the three icebreakers operated by the Coast Guard," Allen said. [Read more]
Admiral Thad Allen announces reactivation of Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star
Multimedia release by the USCG 13th District Public Affairs team.
SEATTLE – The Commandant of the Coast Guard, Admiral Thad Allen, announced the reactivation of the Cutter Polar Star, one of the nation’s two Polar Class icebreakers Wednesday.
"The immediate salutary effect in this region will be 250 new jobs and the knowledge that the Coast Guard will be taking a ship that has not been used in a long time and putting it back into service," said Allen.
The Coast Guard is the principal federal maritime enforcement agency in the Arctic with broad safety, security and stewardship missions.The scope of Coast Guard operations in the Arctic is expanding.
The Coast Guard is the only federal agency currently operating surface vessels, two powerful icebreakers, capable of asserting a U.S. sovereign presence in Arctic ice covered waters.
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