President Obama talks with Admiral Thad Allen (center) and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal aboard Marine One as they fly along the coastline from Venice, La., to New Orleans on May 2, 2010. Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism John Brennan is in the background.
White House Photo by Pete Souza
Online Preview: Exclusive Q&A with U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen
Admiral Thad Allen is set to retire this month as the 23rd commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard. But first, President Obama has asked him to perform a final job, and it's a big one: Allen has been tapped to serve as national incident commander for the federal response to the devastating BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Named one of America's best leaders by U.S. News & World Report, Allen first came to public attention for his leadership role in response to Hurricane Katrina, when he took over from FEMA head Michael Brown and won universal praise from New Orleans and Gulf residents. Under President Obama, he has played a significant part in developing an ecosystem-based approach to ocean policy. Just before the Deepwater Horizon disaster unleashed an oil gusher into the Gulf, Admiral Allen was interviewed for the upcoming Summer 2010 issue of OnEarth by David Helvarg, the author of Rescue Warriors: The U.S. Coast Guard, America's Forgotten Heroes and, most recently, Saved by the Sea: A Love Story With Fish.
Most people think of the Coast Guard in terms of search and rescue. Tell me about its environmental mission.
I say we protect men from the sea and the sea from men. Our environmental mission has grown over the 200 years that we've had a Coast Guard. The first environmental issue was enforcing a ban on the export of live oak from Florida in the early nineteenth century, because that was the source of most planking for warships. We were involved with marine mammals after we acquired Alaska, because the seal rookeries in the Pribilof Islands were being slaughtered for their furs. We're still protecting living marine resources in the ocean, marine sanctuaries, responding to oil spills, and regulating waterfront terminals, piers, and ports so they respond effectively to spills of oil and hazardous materials.
You've played a key role in the Ocean Policy Task Force set up last year by President Obama. Why do we even need an ocean policy?
Well, first I think the world needs an ocean policy, because of the need for a more measured approach to what is arguably the last global commons. Considering all the multiple uses -- energy production, fishing, shipping, recreation, etc. -- and their implications will reduce the overall risk to the environment because you're going to make much wiser choices, rather than reacting to the first person who comes along and says, "I want a license to do this out there."
One key recommendation is for "ecosystem-based marine spatial planning." What does that mean?
It's basically taking the notion of urban planning and putting it into the water column, as well as the estuary systems that connect to it and everything that impacts ocean ecosystems.
But a lot of people think the ocean ends at the shoreline.
Not at all. Most of the problems we have in the Gulf of Mexico right now relating to hypoxia [the lack of dissolved oxygen, which creates "dead zones"] have to do with discharges and nitrates coming from farmers up in Iowa and Nebraska. So nothing is disconnected from anything else.
How would the concept of spatial planning affect the Coast Guard?
A real good example was when we reoriented the shipping lanes in and around Boston to move them away from areas where right whales were known to loiter. We unknowingly moved those lanes closer to the site of an offshore liquid natural gas facility that was being permitted at the time. The same thing happens with renewable resources like the wind farms off Nantucket. Sometimes people interpret the Coast Guard's comments on the safety and security of these operations as a decision on the best uses of the waters. But it isn't. We're just reacting to what's been presented to us. The decision on the best use of the water needs to be made at a higher level.
The task force has paid special attention to Arctic policy and climate change.
There's been a lot of discussion about the causes of ice loss in the Arctic. Right now we have an ice-diminished, not an ice-free Arctic. I've tried to keep away from the arguments over the science. I just say there's water where there didn't used to be, and I'm responsible for it. Once there is open water we have the same authority and jurisdiction up there as we have in the lower 48. And if there's increased use-whether it's increased ecotourism or offshore oil and gas development-search and rescue, law enforcement, oil spill response, and national sovereignty issues all come into play.
When you went up there with other Ocean Task Force leaders, what real-time changes made the biggest impression on you?
We went to the small village of Shishmaref, which is north of Nome near the Arctic Circle. It's one of a half-dozen villages that traditionally have been protected by an ice shelf, but now it's suffering from erosion that could result in part of the village falling into the ocean. The absence of ice farther offshore allows a longer "fetch"-the area where the wind blows over the ocean and can build up swells that crash into the shore. The people in Shishmaref have tried to reinforce the shoreline, but sooner or later it may not be viable for them to stay there.
How much of a problem are fisheries for the Coast Guard?
I would hope that fisheries are part of this marine spatial planning we talked about. For example, as the water in the Bering Strait warms up there's a chance that fish stocks could migrate northward. NOAA [the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration], working with the federal regional fisheries council up there, have basically prohibited all fishing north of the Bering Strait until they can develop a body of science or data on which to make knowledge-based decisions about future policy.
As global fisheries collapse, how do you deal with illegal fishing?
Through international cooperation. In a typical case last year we were supported by Japanese and Canadian maritime patrol aircraft when we were out searching for illegal vessels. A Coast Guard cutter found a Chinese ship, came up alongside, and asked them to identify themselves. The ship's master failed to stop, but then all of a sudden he heard the Chinese fisheries enforcement officer who was riding with us tell him in his own language to stop, and that was very effective. We went onboard and found they were using illegal drift nets. We escorted the ship to China, where it was seized and the nets were destroyed.
Going back to climate change, what other implications does that have for your day-to-day work?
Any rise in sea levels is going to have implications for anybody who lives and works around the coastline. We're putting a lot of time and effort into trying to understand this better. Dr. [John] Holdren, head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, gave a real insightful speech at our World Maritime Day event in New York last October. He said that in relation to climate change you have three choices. You can suffer, you can adapt, or you can manage. I'm in the latter camp-I'm for those last two.
How did you get interested in the environment in the first place? Was it something in your childhood?
I'm the son of a retired Coast Guardsman. I went to elementary school in Ketchikan, Alaska, and got a pretty good appreciation for nature and how the environment shapes the way we live. When I was in junior high my dad was assigned to a maintenance team working on the lighthouse at Point Cabrillo in northern California, and while he was there I went wading in the water with a crowbar and a gunnysack and collected abalone. That's something you would not see now because the abalone has been overfished.