The U.S. Coast Guard’s District 7, based out of Miami, Fla. , covers approximately 1.8 million square miles of ocean, from South Carolina through Georgia and Florida into the Keys and the Caribbean. Due to year-round favorable weather, countless small coves, tiny islands and other places to anchor in relative privacy, D7 has been the center of more than 90 percent of all Coast Guard drug interdiction operations since 1973.

It also is the nation’s busiest cruise ship, cargo (especially container) shipping, private recreational boating, fishing, offshore oil and human smuggling locales in USCG jurisdiction. As a result, the District maintains regular – in some cases daily – contact with 31 other nations and dependent territories, from the Bahamas down the Atlantic coast of Central and South America. It performs, to some degree, 10 of the Coast Guard’s 11 primary missions (the lone exception being ice-breaking).

To accomplish those tasks, D7 employs 5,500 active duty, 5,500 Auxiliary and 1,000 Reserve Coast Guardsmen. They fly 45 fixed and rotary wing multi-mission aircraft (nearly 30 percent of the USCG fleet) and crew a fleet of more than 60 boats, from rigid-hull inflatables to the new 153-foot patrol boat scheduled to enter service in early 2010. Those operate from five group offices, one section office, four air stations, four bases and 20 multi-mission stations.

D7 conducts more than 10,000 law enforcement boardings each year. It also is responsible for 7 of the 22 largest container ports in the United States and the world’s number one cruise ship port – Miami. Overall, it typically ranks at the top of all Coast Guard districts in number of drug seizures, quantity of drugs seized, migrants interdicted and number of Search and Rescue (SAR) cases.

Rear Adm. Steve Branham, a 1977 graduate of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and subsequent Master’s degrees in Business Administration from Case Western Reserve University and National Security Strategy from the National War College, took command of the 7^th District in May 2008, having previously served as Assistant Commandant for Resources and Chief Financial Officer of the Coast Guard. Following up an interview he did for the 2009 edition of Faircount’s annual Coast Guard Outlook publication, Branham recently discussed some of the district’s major roles with senior writer J.R. Wilson.

J.R. Wilson – What are some of District 7’s primary responsibilities?

Rear Adm. Steve Branham – We regulate and work with the cruise industry – about 14,500 passengers pass through District 7 ports each day – along with about 100 commercial ships, each requiring at least some awareness of what they are doing and their security requirements. Roughly half of those are container ships, but we also have liquefied natural gas [LNG] carriers docking in Puerto Rico and Georgia.

One other area we focus on that may not be widely recognized is there are at lest two ports of embarkation to transport military cargo to and from Southwest Asia; we provide the security for all that. We also provide security escorts for high-value U.S. Navy units – aircraft carriers, submarines and others that might need it – from their moorings to sea, which can be as far offshore as 100 miles, depending on the type of unit.

We are on watch every hour of every day throughout the year, doing all those missions – and more – working very hard with many other federal, state, county, regional and international partners to ensure the security of the United States and compliance with U.S. and international law to keep mariners and civilians safe at sea.

How far at sea does USCG response go?

We’re limited by endurance, but we have responded to mariners in distress up to 1,000 miles east of the Windward Islands. It just depends on the situation. But the notion that the “coast” in Coast Guard means “coastal” does not capture the full realm of our operations. There is a huge amount of effort that goes on in the coastal zone, but we are worldwide capable.

One of the major new efforts in District 7 is the Cruise Ship Center of Expertise (CoE). What, specifically, does it do?

It focuses on expertise in the cruise ship industry because South Florida is the highest density homeport for cruise ships in the country. It’s really designed to be the focal point within the Coast Guard for that particular aspect of our marine safety duties, from training our people to sharing with and training industry people. We’ve had a number of courses in the past year, since that CoE opened, in which industry people have attended and shared their ideas. The goal is to better understand each other’s duties and needs with respect to managing and regulating that industry.

We ultimately will have 8 to 10 people on staff, making it the “go-to” place for cruise ship industry knowledge within the Coast Guard. We will be able to spin people out from there to other locations, such as LA/Long Beach, Seattle, Alaska, wherever they may need cruise ship expertise.

The center conducted four or five courses in the past year, each about five days long and attended by 30-plus people, roughly 15 percent of those from industry. The courses cover regulations, inspections, cruise ship industry issues. For example, we have had a number of people overboard in recent months and are trying to figure out how to better educate passengers and better design the ships to prevent accidents. Of course, not everyone who leaves a ship does so by accident, but we want to prevent those we can.

Another eight or nine centers of expertise are being contemplated, including vintage vessels – currently planned for the Great Lakes, where some merchant ships are still operating after more than a century – a Towing CoE in Paducah, Ky., another on LNG carriers in Texas and so on. These are all part of an effort to increase the competency and capacity of our marine safety professionals and better interact with industry on a more detailed level to ensure we are all on the same wavelength. We try not only to regulate commerce, but to ensure it flows freely.

In what ways has industry contributed?

Their participation in the courses adds to the discussion. A number of the people we send to these courses from the Coast Guard are entry level, so tapping into the industry participants’ experience and expertise really adds to the class discussions.

I interact personally not only with the cruise lines themselves, meeting with CEOs and presidents and touring ships, but also with the cruise line industry association, headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, which represents about 40 companies in the cruise ship industry. We work to ensure alignment and awareness on requirements and issues.

What are the biggest issues the Coast Guard deals with regarding cruise ships?

Security – making sure they are properly safeguarded in port and under way. We make sure other vessels are kept away from cruise ships in port. At sea, while not so prevalent in the Western Hemisphere, we are aware of the potential for piracy and want to make sure those ships are aware of that threat and what they might do to minimize security issues at sea.

Other issues include ensuring the ships are properly navigated, have properly licensed people on board who are well trained in fire-fighting and meet all the requirements to exercise their lifeboats and so on.

We had a case recently where a cruise ship lost power, except for some emergency lighting, for a number of hours about 100 miles offshore of Puerto Rico. We’re making sure the industry is aware of that possibility and prepared for it. As you can imagine, that kind of event can frighten the passengers and cause some angst on board that could become a bad situation.

The things of most concern for passengers on a ship at sea are proper navigation, avoiding other ships and minimizing the possibility of a fire onboard – and, if one does occur, minimizing it quickly.

We do a huge amount of work in keeping cruise ship passengers safe and commerce flowing through our ports. Tampa and Fort Lauderdale are the two primary ports for fuel for this part of the country and we make sure that flows safely. We also have an LNG terminal in Savannah that people rely on for heating and other things.

What has been learned since the Cruise Ship CoE opened to evolve it further?

What we’ve reaffirmed is that dialogue is good. When you go to regulate an industry like this, there is always some tension between the regulators and those being regulated, so familiarity and dialogue, year-round, ensures compliance and, on our part, awareness of challenges the companies have in complying with the regulations we enforce.

It’s the old thing about exchanging business cards well before you have a need to talk to someone “right now.” Making sure we have a good relationship before we need to work on an issue is one of my goals.

What are your expectations for the Cruise Ship Center, both its specific job and as a template for other centers?

My expectation is we will continue to build the expertise of our people and pollinate that around the Coast Guard, ensure we are available to respond to requests for information and assistance from other commands in the Coast Guard that need expertise from that CoE and that we continue to foster greater cooperation with industry and build upon the relationships we have.

What are your views on Seahawk – how it has evolved, what it is contributing, what you expect of it in the future? [Editor's Note: The Seahawk information sharing tool is the basis for the Coast Guard’s new “Watchkeeper” program and the classified “MAGNET” program, which are being rolled out nationally in the next two years. Seahawk standard operating procedures are being rolled into the Watchkeeper program for use at all major ports.]

Seahawk, in my view, is one of the premier examples of intergency cooperation in the maritime area in the country, a model I think could be emulated wherever something like that is needed. In Charleston, I have a very active, high-volume port with various types of cargo and passenger ships operating. The intragency comes together at that facility and works together exceptionally well.

We’ve dealt with a transition as funding responsibility for that operations center has shifted, making sure we can continue to grow that capability because it has been demonstrated to work. Seahawk originally was funded through DoJ, with a sunset requirement that forced a re-look at who was going to contribute. A short-term solution was worked out to provide funding to keep the people and equipment working for the next year while we continue to work on a long-term approach.

Seahawk brings together information and people and, to some degree, intelligence – and there is a difference between information and intel – on a daily basis to direct interagency capability to the highest priority flow of maritime commerce through that port. We collect information each day from CBP, ICE and potentially other agencies, such as the FBI, along with the port authority, local law enforcement agencies and maritime agencies, on which ships need to be escorted, which need to be guarded at the pier, which require a Coast Guard or customs boarding – all coordinated to get away from the old way of having each of those organizations working in a stovepipe that could have led to multiple boarding teams showing up to meet a single ship.

The mission is to more effectively and efficiently apply our assets, through coordination and sharing of capability and information. It is about safety, security, stewardship and coordination. And it’s good for the industry, because they see a more coordinated enforcement and regulatory effort. Coordination also builds confidence in the security aspects.

We can’t afford not to be coordinated and to share responsibility for all these safety and security requirements. Everyone is under fiscal pressure and minimally manned, so working together has been our mandate within DHS as well as in working with other agencies outside the department.

How is D7 employing new technologies, such as biometrics, especially 10-point checks of illegals while still aboard ship to classify and separate them?

We currently use technology to identify people we come across at sea. We’re not applying that technology elsewhere right now because of concerns by other agencies or because we just don’t have enough of the capability to deploy at this point.

We are not currently using 10-point checks, primarily because we don’t have the bandwidth to broadcast that much information. We use the old two-point checks [basically both index fingers]. The R&D Center is currently looking into the 10-point system, because that is the way into the DoD/DoJ data bases.

What changes are you anticipating in manpower, vessels and other equipment?

We’re working on a recapitalization program right now. Our old 41-foot patrol boats, many in the 30 year age bracket, are being replaced by a 45-foot RBM [Response Boat Medium], which is faster, has better communications and other sensors, is very agile, more comfortable for the crews. They also are 40-knot-plus compared to 25.

We also are bringing on the 425-foot National Security Cutter, but those will all be deployed on the West Coast, not the East, because they have the sea-keeping capability and range to do enforcement work in the Pacific, where distances are much greater than in the Gulf or Caribbean.

We have brought 72 of our 87-foot patrol boats on board in recent years, five in the last year in District 7 – about 10 altogether – which helps increase our capability. We also are in the precess of designing and constructing a new, larger patrol boat to replace our 110-footers; they will be 153-plus feet with better sea-keeping and range than the 110-footers and outfitted with state-of-the-art communications and sensor suites. Both the 87- and the 153-footers will have stern ramps for state-of-the-art boat launching for rigid hull inflatables. Both are armed with automatic weapons and small arms. The current plan is for District 7 to get the first eight of the 153 footers to come off the assembly line; the first delivery is scheduled for late 2010, early 2011.

Given the budget pressures we have at the federal level, I don’t see the Coast Guard growing appreciably in the next several years, so we will have to continue to do the mission with roughly the number of people we have now. However, we’re meeting our recruiting numbers and getting great people coming in the front door. As far as training, my view is we have never had a better trained force.

What is the status of District 7’s Ports, Waterways and Coastal Security mission?

PWCS is a big chunk of our security mission and we are constantly looking for more efficient ways of doing that mission. We patrol, escort and safeguard using people, boats and aircraft, but if some of that mission can be done with electronics and technology – underwater sensors, cameras, radars, aerostats, UAVs, etc. – we are interested in that and willing to prototype those. There are a number of initiatives looking at all those things and I think we’re just starting to scratch the surface of applying those to their potential. All of those build maritime domain awareness and we have a long way to go to ensure we are totally aware of what is going on in the maritime domain.

What is the average number of illegal migrants moving through the maritimes each month and how many of those does the Coast Guard interdict?

The high end was about 1,200 a month, but last year the Cuban interdiction rate was down by as much as 40-to-50 percent due to a number of factors – some economic, some weather, some the uncertainty of the situation in Cuba and some because of the job we are doing out there.

The Dominican Republic numbers also are down, again because of the economy and our use of biometrics.

The Haitian flow is up slightly in the past 6 to 12 months. We had a significant spike in late January 2009, because of some uncertainly about where the policy on Haitians would go, but that steadied out in later months. So, in aggregate, our flow has been 500-1,200 a month in District 7, with much of the difference being due to seasonal factors. That’s probably a little lower than previous years.

We report interdictions because flow is hard to estimate and, as we crack down on the sea routes, migrants find other routes, over land. But we are doing a good job, I think, working with our intragency partners to interdict as many as possible.

Using biometrics, we can detect criminal migrants more easily, but the nature of those coming in, I think, still is largely people seeking a better lifestyle to take care of their families. Among Cubans, we see a range from those in poverty to the well-educated. Haitians are more likely to be at the poverty level, in many cases trying to join loved ones in the U.S., as also is true of many Cubans.

Despite the low reported rate to date, has District 7 taken any steps to upgrade anti-piracy resources, including partial retasking of assets already being used for other missions?

Piracy is one thing, boat theft another. In this hemisphere, what we see is more on the order of armed robbery, mostly involving recreational sailors who encounter criminals at sea who want their money or other valuables they may have on board.

The theft of boats from their owners, primarily in south Florida, is a big concern because it enables the smuggling industry, primarily human smuggling. The primary mode for those thefts is to smuggle people from Cuba to Mexico. A smuggler steals a boat, picks up about 30 people in Cuba on a 30-ft boat, collect $10,000 a head; that’s a pretty good take for a week’s worth of work.

Largely because we are doing a good job of interdicting that kind of activity in the Straits of Florida, they look for other routes, one of the most popular being to the Yucatan.

We work closely with state and local law enforcement to choke off the supply of stolen boats, but ultimately the owners must be responsible for securing their boats. We are trying to educate boat owners on the need to lock up and disable their boats to ensure their vessels are secure. A lot of owners are including a Lojack capability so the boats can be tracked.

South Florida has long been a major problem area for drug smuggling. What is the Coast Guard’s role in counter-drug operations out of District 7?

We work closely with DoD and a number of other agencies – SOUTHCOM [U.S. Southern Command] and the Joint Interagency Task Force South in Key West on the illegal narcotics mission. We also work closely with a number of foreign partners who supply ships. In addition, every foreign or U.S. Navy ship working this mission has a Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment – usually a team of 8 to 10 – on board to enforce maritime law at sea.

We also, in the last 10 years, have incorporated airborne force against both drug and human smugglers. They can use a range of force, up to and including disabling fire against their engines after giving them ample opportunity to reply to our request to stop, whether visual signals, radio calls or warning shots.

In a PWCS area, in terms of counter-terrorism, it is more a lethal effort. It is clearly a last resort, but you often only have a split second to decide how you’re going to act.

Any final thoughts?

Counter-smuggling is a significant hat I wear that takes a lot of my time as director of the Homeland Security Task Force Southeast. It stands at the ready in the event of a mass migration declaration. We have a plan called Operation Vigilant Sentry that coordinates dozens of federal, state and local agencies to swing into action for all aspects imaginable to coordinate a massive operation, whether at sea or domestically, to handle something on the order of Mariel or the mid-90s Haitian mass migration. As a result of that task force, we’re ready.

We’re always concerned about that and it’s hard to predict. We closely watch indicators and warnings that might raise concern that activities might ramp up. There is a steady state flow of migrants, between 500 and 1,000 a month in the maritimes. That’s normal operations. But who knows what might happen in any country that would cause people to want to leave and come to the U.S.? We have to be ready for that.

Photo:

• U.S. Coast Guard photo

If you've enjoyed this story, please consider subscribing to the RSS Feed to have future stories delivered to your feed reader.