At last, fuel ship reaches ice-bound Alaska town

ANCHORAGE, Alaska?? Crews have laid a hose along a half mile stretch of Bering Sea ice and hope to soon begin transferring 1.3 million gallons of fuel from a Russian fuel tanker to the iced-in western Alaska city of Nome.

Stacey Smith of Vitus Marine says the offloading could begin before sundown Monday. Vitus is the fuel supplier that arranged to have the Russian tanker Renda and its crew deliver the fuel.

Smith says crews are working on hooking the hose Monday to a shoreside pipeline leading to storage tanks in town.

The city of 3,500 didn't get its last pre-winter barge fuel delivery because of a massive November storm.

Without the Renda's delivery, Nome would run out of fuel by March or April, long before the next barge delivery is possible.

The tanker stopped slightly less than a half-mile from the harbor Saturday night, and ice disturbed by its journey had to freeze again so workers could create some sort of roadway to lay the hose.

On Sunday, workers spent the morning walking around the vessel and checking the ice to make sure it was safe to lay the hose, said Jason Evans, board chairman of the Sitnasuak Native Corp.

The especially harsh winter has left snow piled up 10 feet or higher against the wood-sided buildings in Nome, a former gold rush town that is the final stop on the Iditarod dog sled race.

Frozen in time
On Sunday, everything was covered in a layer of wind-blown snow and vehicles looked frozen in place, as though they haven't been moved in weeks.

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who flew to Nome on Sunday, said the town's ordeal had captured the world's attention as it displayed a reality of Alaska life.

"This is real. This is what we deal with," the senator said, while making an appeal for more resource to be placed in the Arctic.

The tanker began its journey from Russia in mid-December, picking up diesel fuel in South Korea before heading to Dutch Harbor, Alaska, where it took on unleaded gasoline. It arrived late last week off Nome, more than 500 miles from Anchorage on Alaska's west coast.

STORY: Ultra-harsh winter prompts fuel shortages in Alaska

In total, the tanker traveled an estimated 5,000 miles, said Rear Adm. Thomas Ostebo, commander of District Seventeen with the Coast Guard.

Fazil Aliyev, the general director of the Russian shipping firm that owns the Renda, told Reuters the vessel has cut across Russia's Arctic coastline several times this year from Europe and Asia.

As Arctic ice receded to its second-lowest point on record last summer, Aliyev said RIMSCO took a tanker through the Northern Sea Route as late as November.

"This is routine work for us," he said of the Renda's trip. Only a cautious approach taken by the U.S. Coast Guard and lack of icebreaker experience slowed the Renda's journey, he said.

"There are many places were we could have easily moved through (the ice) but we are following coast guards' orders. If they say we have to stand still at night, we wait," Aliyev said.

Opinion appeared to be divided in Nome, where some welcomed the arrival of the tanker and others thought it was a manufactured and unnecessary crisis.

Cari Miller was among the residents unconvinced a real crisis was at hand. The 43-year-old mother, who has lived in Nome for eight years, said she believed that another fuel provider in town had plenty of fuel for the community.

"We do not have a fuel crisis," she said. "It wasn't necessary."

Kwan Yi, 40, a maintenance worker at the Polaris Bar in Nome, faulted Sitnasuak for not arranging for barge delivery earlier last fall, but said he believed the town was in need of fuel. He said he was pleased the fuel tanker had arrived after struggling with frozen pipes and gas leaks.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46012430/ns/weather/

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