Summer survey season is underway, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is studying the bottom of the ocean around Kodiak. The organization said it’s aiming to make the waters around the archipelago safer.
Every year, NOAA picks locations around the United States to conduct hydrographic surveys. The surveys use sonar to detect the terrain on the bottom of the ocean or other waterway, creating data that NOAA can use to make maps. Caroline Wilkinson, the Alaska Navigation Manager with NOAA’s office of Coast Survey, said the office has had a particular focus on Alaska recently.
“Alaska has a tremendous amount of marine resources that can benefit both the state and the country as a whole," she said. "And we are very nicely situated as we look to the Arctic and potentially more activity that is going to occur up there.”
This summer, NOAA has its sights set on two bays around Kodiak: Alitak Bay, which is situated near the village of Akhiok on the south end of Kodiak island, and Izhut Bay, located off the southeast side of Afognak Island.
According to NOAA, these bays haven’t been surveyed since the 1930s. Wilkinson said it’s important to get updated data to keep people safe, especially since the area around Kodiak can be very rocky.
"There’s so many fishing vessels, and the Alaska state ferry, cruise ships coming in and out," she said. "The last thing that anybody wants is someone to hit an underwater structure and have some kind of fuel release, or a situation in which life or property is in danger."
A fishing vessel called the Sea Ern ran aground in Izhut Bay last September, spilling thousands of gallons of oil into the waters near the Kitoi Bay Hatchery. Wilkinson said that they investigated the area where this happened as part of their survey, and will pass on the results to the Coast Guard.
Alitak and Izhut bays aren’t the only areas around Kodiak that are in the midst of surveys this summer. Wilkinson said NOAA has also investigated the Kodiak seamount, located deep in the Gulf of Alaska off Kodiak Island.
Seamounts are massive underwater mountains formed from old volcanoes. They are critical habitat for fish nurseries, and usually form around tectonic plate boundaries. Wilkinson said the project aims to map the area around the seamount so that they can be prepared for natural disasters. Tectonic plate boundaries are hotspots for underwater landslides and earthquakes, which can cause tsunamis.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is also planning to map seamounts across the Gulf of Alaska as part of a potential offshore minerals lease sale. Wilkinson stated that the NOAA project is completely unaffiliated with BOEM’s project.
Some of the work is already done. Wilkinson said the NOAA Ship Fairweather completed its survey of Izhut Bay and the Kodiak seamount in May. But some data gathering is still to come—the NOAA Ship Rainier will be heading to Alitak, and possibly back out to the Kodiak seamount, in August. Wilkinson said they are in the process of analyzing the data, and that it should become available to the public within the next year.
“If you see us out on the water, please feel free to hail us on Channel 16 and say hello," she said. "And we do stay out of the way of any fishing operations, because we wouldn’t want to affect anyone’s livelihood.”
She encourages mariners to download the most up-to-date charts, and to report any uncharted hazards they find out on the water to NOAA.
