Severe weather in the Bering Sea has kept several villages on the Pribilof and Aleutian islands from receiving their expected fuel shipments for about three months, requiring them to depend on emergency rations of diesel shipped out by fishing vessels and small planes to heat and power their homes, according to a shipping company and community leaders.
Powerful gales and surging seas have kept a barge, operated by Delta Western, from reaching St. Paul and St. George on the Pribilof Islands -- located north of the Aleutians in the Bering Sea -- along with Nikolski and Perryville on the Aleutian arc. The villages have been without their regular major fuel shipments since mid-September because of the persistent bad weather, said Delta Western president Kirk Payne.
"We're running on fumes right now," said St. George city administrator Max Malavansky. "We wouldn't have been in this boat right now if the fuel had arrived in August. It's been a litany of excuses."
St. George would have normally gotten a shipment of tens of thousands of gallons of diesel in the fall, enough to last the winter, Malavansky said. The bulk shipment never came, and the village has had to make do with small, incremental arrivals like the 660 gallons of diesel that arrived Tuesday. That's enough to last about a week, Malavansky said.
The fuel is needed to heat homes and generate power, and St. George's power plant uses up to 7,000 gallons of it a month, he said.
In Nikolski, a fisherman from Dutch Harbor has been hauling boatloads of fuel every few weeks, said Tanya Kyle, tribal administrator for the Nikolski Tribal Council. The village had enough fuel Friday to last until early next week, she said.
"They keep giving us dates when they're going to deliver fuel, but the date keeps getting pushed back," Kyle said.
The communities farthest from the shipping hub of Dutch Harbor usually are served first because of concerns about deteriorating weather, Payne said. It takes time to get fuel out to about 100 communities spread out over hundreds of miles with a five-ship fleet, he said.
"You can't be everywhere in August," Payne said. "Historically, September is not an issue. This year's weather is an anomaly."
By the time the shipment was ready to go in September, the weather had deteriorated severely, he said. This fall has brought some of the worst weather in more than 20 years, he said.
According to the National Weather Service, gale-force winds have been battering the area and aren't likely to stop in the next few days. In the Pribilofs, steady winds of up to 35 mph were expected to last through the weekend. Winds were expected to whip through the Aleutians steadily at up to 45 mph with gusts up to 60 mph Friday night, with little respite over the weekend.
The weather service predicted Bering Sea waves would be at least 10 feet and up to 19 feet throughout the weekend. The barge is able to navigate seas of up to 12 feet, Payne said.
"There's lots of fuel out there; we just can't get it to the locations that need it," Payne said. "It's just not acceptable to send a vessel out into that kind of weather."
Because of the weather, the vessel has been stuck in port for weeks at a time -- it sat in Port Moller for about a month, Payne said. To keep the villages heated and juiced, Delta Western has been flying and moving the fuel on fishing boats at prices nearly double the cost of the usual shipment, he said. Diesel is still selling for near its usual cost -- about $5 per gallon -- in most places because Delta Western is selling it at a loss, Payne said.
Mike Harper, deputy director of rural energy at the Alaska Energy Authority, said his agency is monitoring the situation and it did not appear to warrant government assistance.
"We have been in contact with the supplier and we feel confident that they have the situation under control," Harper said. "We're not going to let people get into a real tight spot."
Find James Halpin online at adn.com/contact/jhalpin or call him at 257-4589.
