The Trump administration’s mass firings of federal workers and funding restrictions has affected the monitoring of a landslide-prone slope that could create a dangerous tsunami in Alaska’s Prince William Sound.
The Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys, in a recent update, alerted the public about the problems affecting the multiagency team monitoring Barry Arm. The site is a fjord where an unstable rocky slope could collapse into the water, potentially creating a tsunami affecting the community of Whittier and a variety of Prince William Sound mariners and visitors.
Administrative changes affecting federal agencies that are part of the Barry Arm monitoring program “have resulted in delays in equipment repairs and service renewals essential to maintaining full operational readiness,” the DGGS update said.
Those delays “may have temporary impacts on tsunami hazard awareness and response efforts in the region,” the update said.
The slope at Barry Arm has been moving gradually, and its movements are recorded through an array of instruments at the site and elsewhere in the sound.
Barry Arm is one of dozens of sites in Prince William Sound where landslide risks have increased as glaciers that buttress mountain slopes retreat. The sound and surrounding parts of Southcentral Alaska are considered vulnerable because of rapid glacial loss.
Because of Barry Arm’s potential for a catastrophic collapse, the site has received special focus from agencies trying to track slope movement. A key goal is to provide early warnings to people in the area, if those become necessary.
Federal agencies involved in the Barry Arm program include the U.S. Geological Survey; the National Weather Service and its National Tsunami Warning Center; the U.S. Coast Guard; and the U.S. Forest Service. Nonfederal partners include the DGGS and the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Alaska Earthquake Center, and the cities of Whittier and Valdez.
Dennis Staley, of the USGS and Alaska Volcano Observatory, said that changes to federal agency priorities and protocols for travel, purchasing and contracting have affected the Barry Arm Landslide and Tsunami Hazard Monitoring System.
“These have resulted in some rather sizeable changes in the way we approach the logistics to conducting fieldwork in recent months. We also have to plan for and adapt to changes in workforce composition as our staff members are laid off, or offered, contemplate, and sometimes accept offers for early retirement, paid administrative leave, etc.,” he said by email.
Weather conditions have also affected operations, team members said.
USGS scientists went to Barry Arm on April 2 and did maintenance work on radar equipment used to measure landslide movement and transmit that data, Staley said.
National Weather Service crews also got out to the area earlier this month and restored service at a Whittier site that was recording water-level data, said Dave Snider of the service’s Tsunami Warning Center. Crew members were able to restore service there, but more trips will be needed “as time, weather, and funds allow,” he said by email.
No more field work is planned for this month, Staley said. Annual spring maintenance is planned for May, he said.
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