A. USAP Science Support/Operations Costs
The USAP budget in FY 95 was $195.8M. Of this amount, grants to university-based researchers totaled $29.1M, research support performed by contractors and the military totaled $42.1M, and operations and logistics provided by contractors and the military totaled $124.7M.
Historically, NSF budgets have labeled USAP contractor and military activities as "operations" and research awards to institutions as "science." But the contractor and the military perform some functions that an NSF grantee would pay for out of the grant if the research were performed away from campus elsewhere than in the Antarctic. This USAP managerial initiative is employed to save costs and increase mission effectiveness.
For example, the contractor buys and ships equipment and consumables for the Antarctic laboratories, saving money because of volume purchases and bulk shipping, and it negotiates discounts for airline tickets and air freight. Buying commonly utilized equipment and materials in bulk in advance and sending them to McMurdo on the once-per-year cargo ship, instead of granting funds to investigators to buy them separately and fly them in, reduces costs dramatically. In transport alone, to fly cargo from Christchurch to McMurdo in an LC-130 (making a ski landing) costs $3.63 per pound. Using a fully loaded C-5 (the most efficient air carrier between Christchurch and McMurdo) the cost is $1.05 per pound. The annual ship takes cargo from Port Hueneme, California, to McMurdo, and returns back, for $0.17 per pound. The heavy icebreaking capability of the DOT/U.S. Coast Guard is invaluable because it allows cargo ships to access McMurdo Station. As ship transport is more than ten times less expensive (per unit weight) than air transport, this national icebreaking capability supplied by the DOT/U.S. Coast Guard on a partial reimbursement basis enables the USAP to function far more cost-effectively.
Cost accounting associated with NSF's effort to control and forecast costs, and to improve research planning on a project-by-project basis, enables the USAP to identify research-support activities performed by the contractor and the military that other Federal research programs would describe as research costs. In FY 95 these research-support costs were 25% of USAP operations and logistics.
Table IV-1 shows USAP costs for each major facility. Table IV-2 shows the Antarctic research expenditures of NSF and other Federal agencies. Antarctic field research performed by these agencies further reduces the USAP operations-to-science ratio.
Operational improvements in the USAP have increased the capability for doing science, aiding in reducing of the operations-to-science ratio, and they have contributed to the achievement of science-related goals, in particular the reduction of environmental impact. In the 25 years since NSF was given the responsibility as the single point manager of the USAP, there has been continual improvement in efficiency of operations and cost savings. The following are examples of recent operational improvements.
Summary of the Major USAP Cost Centers
McMurdo Station accounts for more than half the USAP budget -
56% - because it is America's operational hub for Antarctica
- the gateway to the interior of the continent and the lifeline
for South Pole Station. McMurdo is the central facility for aircraft,
field party outfitting, surface vehicles, waste management, fuel
storage, shops, warehouses, communications, and onsite program
administration. It also has major science laboratories. The station's
location on Winter Quarters Bay at the end of Hut Point Peninsula
on Ross Island exploits natural features unmatched elsewhere:
a sheltered deep-water harbor hundreds of miles farther south
than any other, level glacier ice and seasonally stable sea ice
enabling construction of a skiway and low-cost runways, and ice-free
land (unoccupied by wildlife) on which to build facilities and
store supplies. Because of this combined air-sea port facility,
flights coming from outside of Antarctica can be limited to carrying
personnel and priority cargo. Ships deliver 95% of USAP's fuel
and cargo, at a per-pound cost that is 92% to 98% less than the
cost of air cargo.
The two other stations, Palmer and Amundsen-Scott, are more dedicated
to the direct performance of science. The combined cost of these
two stations is approximately 15% of the total cost of the Program.
The work at the stations is complemented by the two research vessels,
R/V Nathaniel B. Palmer and R/V Polar Duke. The
Palmer is dedicated to the support of marine geology, geophysics,
physical oceanography, and marine biology in the southern ocean
and has no logistics role. The Duke supports marine biology
and oceanography and provides logistics for Palmer Station. The
cost of operating both vessels is 11% of the Program.
Off-continent costs are for the headquarters functions of the
civilian contractor, Antarctic Support Associates (Englewood,
Colorado) - a joint venture of EG&G Inc. (Wellesley, Massachusetts)
and Holmes & Narver Inc. (Orange, California) - and DoD's
part in the program (Construction Battalion Center Port Hueneme,
and Naval Air Weapons Station Point Mugu, California; Stratton
Air National Guard Base, Schenectady, New York; and Christchurch,
New Zealand). Off-continent costs are 18% of the Program cost.
B. Projected Savings in Program Operations
B1. Transition of Functions: Navy
Base Support to Civilian Contract
Present management objectives have focused on streamlining the
Program's operational and logistics costs to realize efficiencies
and enable more effective support of science. The management
policy is to privatize, to the extent possible, the functions
performed by the DoD, such as station maintenance, food services,
and vehicle operations and repair. This objective received added
impetus with the Navy's plan, stated in 1993, to withdraw from
the U.S. Antarctic Program.
Table IV-3 summarizes the functions that have
been or will be transferred to civilian contract support and the expected
annual cost savings.
B2. Single Point Management of the
Fleet of LC-130's
In addition to the savings to be had in transferring tasks from
the military to the private sector, specific transfers of responsibility
within the military can also provide appreciable cost savings.
The ski-equipped C-130 (LC-130) is the only aircraft of its type
in the world. There are only two operators of the LC-130, a Navy
squadron based in Pt. Mugu, CA (VXE-6), and an Air National Guard
squadron based at Stratton Air Force Base in Schenectady, NY (109th
AW). VXE-6 operates and maintains NSF's fleet of LC-130s. Single
Point Management by the Guard will consolidate the operation and
maintenance of these two squadrons under a single DoD manager
to meet Arctic and Antarctic logistics and science support requirements.
Single point management of these airplanes will reduce costs by
eliminating duplicate organizations at all levels, reducing personnel
and training costs, standardizing equipment and maintenance and
operating procedures, and streamlining the planning and scheduling
of polar airlift. The USAP will reimburse the Air Force only
for its support to the Antarctic program. OPP and other NSF units
reimburse the Air Force (Air National Guard) for its support work
in the Arctic.
Anticipated cost savings are illustrated in Figure IV-1.
Figure IV-1. Anticipated cost savings resulting
from single point management of USAP airplanes Advanced technology,
and remote operation especially, can maximize the scientific return of the
investment in Antarctica. This framework has two major components. They
are:
B4. Summary of Cost Saving in Operations
Since 1992, the transition of functions from the Navy to civilian
contract has resulted in annual savings of $3.2M.
Transition of the remaining functions of the Naval Support Force
Antarctica and the helicopter functions of Antarctic Development
Squadron 6 (VXE-6) may potentially save an additional $4.4M per
year. Placing the ski-equipped C-130s with a single manager is
estimated to have a further potential annual savings of $9.7M
by 2000.
Therefore, estimated annual savings in operations from further
transition of functions from the Navy to contract support and
the Air National Guard sum to $14.3M annually by 2000. Additional
savings are anticipated from application of the previously mentioned
technologies, but the payback from such investments are difficult
to assess at this time.
Examining those options and their consequences in detail both
goes beyond the expertise of the NSTC working group and requires
more time than was available for the present study. Therefore,
the NSTC recommends that the Foundation convene an external panel
of experts, some of whom have direct management experience in
operations in hostile environments, to examine options that accomplish
program goals at the lowest cost. This panel should explore how
an optimal set of scientific and geopolitical objectives can be
achieved with likely out-year budgets (constant manpower, dollar
flat, or 10% reduction). The composition of such a panel requires
knowledgeable scientists and international policy makers as well
as experienced managers. This panel should be free to examine
all options to provide the U.S. with the best program in the Antarctic
at a given budget level. This study obviously requires considerable
time and should be initiated as soon as possible. Timely input
to the budget process, starting with the FY98 budget, is highly
desirable.
C. Options for Large-Scale Cost Savings
In addition to cost savings from increased efficiencies, further
cost reduction can be achieved by reducing the scope of the activity
or, possibly, by sharing costs with other countries. Congress
asked that options such as less than year-round human presence,
closing one or more stations, and increased internationalization
be examined. These are discussed below.
In Chapter III, Table IV-1 shows costs.
South Pole. Closing South Pole Station and removing the
USAP logistics that support it would save $16.5M per year. The
one-time cost to remove the station would be at least $40M. Recovery
of funds by selling assets is not expected since the items are
approaching the ends of their service lives.
Most of USAP's astronomy, astrophysics, and aeronomy are performed
at this station and would end. NOAA's South Pole Climate Monitoring
& Diagnostic Laboratory (one of just four worldwide) would
be closed, as would the onsite USGS seismic observatory. NASA
would not install its prototype closed-cycle processing system
for food, water, and waste intended for later use in space.
Also, South Pole is a hub for research on the high Antarctic plateau.
Sites that are accessed via the station would be closed because
removal of the South Pole skiway eliminates the station as a landing
place and fuel depot for air operations. These sites include some
Antarctic Geophysical Observatories (AGOs), Antarctic Weather
Stations (AWSs), and glaciology and geology projects requiring
access to the continental interior farther from McMurdo than South
Pole.
The loss of AWSs would reduce acquisition of climate and weather
data from this extremely data-sparse region and would break the
continuity of the data sets, further increasing the uncertainty
of global models that attempt to quantify and understand Antarctica's
dominant force in global climate and climate variability. Anthropogenic
climate impact will be seen first and strongest in polar regions;
testing of climate models for predictability require long-term
continental data. At South Pole itself, precipitation has increased
20% in the last decade, and other atmospheric changes indicate
the climate is changing there; this line of research would be
terminated. The loss of the AGOs would inhibit U.S. mapping of
the cusp region of the ionosphere, which complements the space
physics observations of NASA, NOAA, and DoD. The special location
of South Pole relative to the geomagnetic field that funnels particles
and fields into the ionosphere permits research on the sun's impact
on the near-earth environment, so "space weather" research
would be impacted. NOAA's long-term record of ozone and other
greenhouse gas measurements would end. Loss of UV monitoring
would be significant because the South Pole is at the center of
the ozone hole. Loss of the seismic station would create a void
in the global coverage (the South Pole sensor is recognized for
probing remotely the Earth's interior and for monitoring earthquakes
and nuclear weapons testing). Finally, the investment in AMANDA,
the prototype of a new astronomy using the ice sheet to detect
neutrinos, would be lost. Closure of South Pole would leave Russia
as the only country with a station, Vostok, in the Antarctic interior.
On 9 March 1996 the Department of State provided to the National
Security Council a memorandum (Appendix II), cleared by the Department
of Defense, stating that it is "essential that the United
States continue to maintain an active and influential presence
in Antarctica, including year-round operation of South Pole Station."
The NSTC concurs and strongly advises against the option of
closing South Pole Station at the current level of investment.
As evidenced by researchers' large and growing interest, South
Pole Station's contribution to U.S. science is significant. The
NSTC feels that its closure would be a practical and symbolic
loss to the global reach of U.S. science.
Other USAP options consistent with the DoS statement of foreign
policy and national security interests are (1) reduce McMurdo
but keep it open year-round;* (2) close Palmer; (3) eliminate
one or both research vessels; or combine parts of these options.
Science terminated by implementing the options would be in the
amounts shown in Table III-1.
* South Pole Station requires McMurdo Station for logistics. NSF's safety
assessment for South Pole does not identify a way to deliver personnel or
equipment to South Pole in an emergency other than by LC-130 from McMurdo.
(USAP has never landed a plane at the South Pole in winter; the extreme cold
probably would make the airplane incapable of leaving until the following
summer.)
McMurdo. Eliminating all the research camps supported from
McMurdo would save approximately $60M per year. This means eliminating
virtually all of the science associated with McMurdo in Table
III-1 and reducing McMurdo to a service port for the South Pole
station. The helicopter and Twin Otter contracts that support
some of the camps could be terminated. The LC-130 capability that
supports the rest of the camps could be reduced roughly to that
required to supply South Pole (because of fixed costs and safety
needs, reducing flight-hours may not reduce costs proportionally).
McMurdo's field outfitting facility and much of its laboratory
space would become unnecessary. The station's population would
drop considerably. USAP grants to universities would be eliminated
to match the reduced capability to support research.
The cost of terminating these functions was not calculated. However,
the cost to remove all of McMurdo in compliance with the Antarctic
Treaty and U.S. law regarding abandonment of facilities would
exceed $200M. Shutdown costs might be offset by selling capital
items; some of the vehicles and other usable equipment are standard
or modified factory issue and probably marketable. Some of the
LC-130s might be sold, although the United States has never licensed
these uniquely capable airplanes to foreign governments.
McMurdo is the facility that enables research to be carried out
almost anywhere in Antarctica. The infrastructure is based on
air support. Scientists are placed in regions such as the Dry
Valleys, the west Antarctic ice sheet, and the Transantarctic
Mountains - where the research must be carried out - rather than
being restricted to the stations. The air support also enables
shorter field deployments, limited to the time actually required
at a research site. These two features make it possible for highly
regarded scientists to perform research in Antarctica without
committing to unduly long absences from their research institutions.
USAP aeronomy & astrophysics would be reduced significantly,
biology would be reduced significantly, terrestrial earth sciences
would be virtually eliminated from the USAP, glaciology would
be nearly eliminated, and oceans & climate would be reduced
significantly (see Table III-1). Research lost
near McMurdo would include UV impacts on biota, biomolecular aspects of
genetic evolution, nearshore oceanography, and marine biology including
physiology of deep diving birds and mammals. The loss from the Dry Valleys
would include the Long Term Ecological Research site, the analogs-to-Mars
research, and geophysical and glacial-geology studies related
to Antarctic climate and its global impact. The remote field
camps include Vostok ice coring with the oldest ice core climate
record, the future of the west Antarctic ice sheet and its impact
on sea level, the aerogeophysics, and most geology and glaciology.
Abandoning research camps supported from McMurdo would have a
grave impact on our ability to gain understanding of Antarctica's
role in global processes. Since the Antarctic is the only place
in the world where this research can be conducted, the research
camps must be continued. This option would eliminate a major
part of all of our research program. We strongly advise against
this option, unless the USAP budget is severely reduced.
Palmer. Abandoning Palmer Station would save about $12M
per year. R/V Polar Duke, which both supplies Palmer and
supports science integrally with it, would be diverted to other
research, laid up for portions of the year, or terminated. Research
grants would be terminated or adjusted accordingly.
Palmer is the smallest and farthest north of the three U.S. Antarctic
stations. It supports only a few research camps, does not use
aircraft, is much closer to South America than McMurdo is to New
Zealand, and by Antarctic standards has a moderate climate. It
is accessible by ice-strengthened ship almost any time of year
and is provisioned by R/V Polar Duke out of Chile. The
station is within the narrow wedge of the Antarctic to which three
countries - Argentina, Chile, and Great Britain - assert overlapping
territorial claims, so it has a significant role in stabilizing
international Antarctic relations. Palmer's maritime climate
places it close to large concentrations of birds, mammals, other
sea life, and terrestrial plants; research at Palmer focuses on
this important part of the world's ecosystem.
The station is crucial to USAP science; it supports about one-third
of the program's biology and ocean and climate research (Table III-1). Research loss would be the ongoing
30-year Palmer-area ecological and environmental database and knowledge base.
Subjects include adaptations of organisms, physiological ecology and
population dynamics, environmental studies of Bahia Paraiso fuel spill
effects, UV and LTER site measurements of the effect of interannual
variations in sea ice on marine ecosystems, climate-atmosphere
comparisons, and El Niño relationships to marine air temperature,
sea surface temperature, and sea ice extent.
A one-time decommissioning cost, estimated at $15M, would be incurred
to meet the requirements of U.S. law (45 CFR 671, Antarctic Conservation
Act) and the Antarctic Treaty; decommissioning would take several
years. Closing Palmer would gut a large, valuable part
of the research program while saving a small fraction of the USAP
budget; the NSTC strongly advises against it.
Research Ships. Retiring both research vessels would save
$15M and would reduce the research effectiveness of Palmer Station,
which would be supplied by chartered ship instead of working in
conjunction with R/V Polar Duke. The research ships are
under long-term charter; they would be disengaged through termination-of-lease
agreements costing the Government approximately $11M per year
for the life of the lease.
Loss of the research ships would remove from a largely unexplored
ocean all studies in marine geology and geophysics, air-ocean-ice
interchange of energy as it relates to climate and impact of greenhouse
gases, ocean circulation and global climate, and biological studies
of a productive ocean area that feeds nutrients to oceans around
the globe. The Nathaniel B. Palmer is the only research
icebreaker of any nation that works year-round in the Antarctic.
This research campaign, begun only four years ago when the ship
was commissioned, is providing physical, chemical, and biological
winter data from the Antarctic that are invaluable to understanding
ocean ecosystem function and global ocean circulation. As discussed
above, Palmer Station now depends on Polar Duke and would
need to be supported in some other way.
Again, we cannot support this option. Indeed, none of the major
program reductions inherent in eliminating one of the major USAP
assets is recommended as long as the budget is not drastically
reduced.
International cooperation in the USAP is extensive in both research
and operations. It usually involves in-kind contribution of national
strengths to the realization of research goals beyond the capability
of a single nation. These goals generally are achieved by (1)
performing similar work in different places (collecting weather
data, for example) and sharing the results as required by the
Antarctic Treaty or (2) performing an intensive project in one
place (an example is the 1996-1998 Cape Roberts project, which
will drill an ocean-bottom sedimentary core from a platform on
coastal sea ice) in which each participating nation delivers a
negotiated component of the project. In a very few instances,
the United States has been reimbursed for services to another
nation's Antarctic program, such as refueling a research station
from a U.S. ship, or by providing unscheduled but nonemergency
airlift.
Opportunities for international cooperation are explored and implemented
regularly. Formal mechanisms include the Scientific Committee
on Antarctic Research (SCAR) of the International Council of Scientific
Unions (nongovernmental), the annual Antarctic Treaty consultative
meetings (government-to-government policy decisions), the Council
of Managers of National Antarctic Programs (COMNAP, a U.S. initiative,
administered by the American Geophysical Union), the Council's
Standing Committee on Antarctic Logistics and Operations (SCALOP)
and its Antarctic Managers' Electronic Network (AMEN: electronic
mail and data exchange and a home page on the World Wide Web),
and the New-Zealand based International Center for Antarctic Information
and Research (ICAIR), which is developing a master Antarctic Data
Directory and other international Antarctic information services
in close collaboration with the USAP and other Antarctic Treaty
nations.
International funding of a jointly owned facility in Antarctica
appears never to have occurred. Even the satellite nations of
the Soviet Union, such as Poland, established independent stations
supported by Soviet logistics. The European Community currently
is planning a joint station, named Concordia, for East Antarctica
in which the major research goal is ice core drilling. The USAP
is not a participant in this planning, but has been asked to provide
logistics through McMurdo on a cost-reimbursable basis.
Of the USAP facilities, McMurdo appears to have the most potential
for cost-reimbursable international collaboration. Following
is a discussion of international prospects for Palmer and McMurdo.
South Pole Station's options and recommendation for international
cost sharing are discussed in Chapter V.
Palmer. Palmer Station is in the Antarctic Peninsula region,
which has Antarctica's greatest concentration of Antarctic programs
and stations of other nations. This region would seem ripe for
international cost sharing. A commercial operator has tried to
convince governments of the possible savings if they were to supply
their stations using a single freighter rather than each deploying
its own ship. The firm, however, has been unable to establish
business. Governments operating in the region tend to maintain
self-sufficient Antarctic operations to support missions unique
to their research requirements, to meet the "substantial
scientific activities" threshold for Antarctic Treaty consultative
status, and to support their territorial claims.
NSF on occasion purchases passage from tour ships operating between
southern South America and the Palmer Station area, saving crossings
of the Drake Passage by its own vessel. Because Polar Duke's
primary role is research support in conjunction with Palmer,
and because its size was determined by these research and logistics
needs, diversion of the ship to the support of other nations'
needs would reduce its performance as a research tool for U.S.
goals; both the ship and the station are operating at capacity
in support of U.S. research.
NSF now has 12 years of operating experience with the Polar
Duke/Palmer Station pair and has found them correctly sized
for most research needs; NSF's procurement of the Duke's
replacement ice-strengthened research ship Laurence M. Gould
, to begin long-term charter to the USAP in 1997, specified
"a Duke-like ship at a Duke-like price."
In fact, the outcome will be a new, purpose-built ship from a
Louisiana yard delivering a more capable vessel at a lower price.
McMurdo. McMurdo, occupying Antarctica's most desirable
real estate for a high-latitude research and operations base,
is USAP's most intensive center of international in-kind cost
sharing. The long-standing partnership between the United States
and New Zealand, whose Scott Base is 2 miles from McMurdo, is
unmatched among all the Antarctic Treaty nations. This cooperation
provides significant cost savings and operating advantages through
extensive sharing of flights, weather forecasting, helicopter
operations, ship cargo movements, cargo handling, research planning,
communications, fuel storage, hazardous waste removal, and emergency
plans including search and rescue.
Italy in recent years has become another steady partner, with
shared helicopter operations, C-130 loads between New Zealand
and Antarctica, station refueling on a cost-reimbursement basis,
and research planning; Italy's modern research station Terra Nova
Bay is on the coast of the Ross Sea 175 miles north of McMurdo.
Russia and the United States intensified cooperative science and
operations through McMurdo during the breakup of the former Soviet
Union; the major new achievement has been shared support of Russia's
year-round station Vostok, in the Antarctic interior 800 miles
west of McMurdo. The Russians are drilling the world's deepest
ice core at Vostok, and the cooperative agreement provides U.S.
access to this scientifically valuable core in return for six
LC-130 flights annually between McMurdo and Vostok for personnel
exchange. The trade is financially advantageous to the United
States in that the cost of an ice coring project is measured in
the millions of dollars where the cost of the LC-130 flights is
in tens of thousands.
Germany, France, Japan, and Australia have worked cooperatively
with the USAP in pursuit of specific research projects over the
years. Nearly every Antarctic Treaty nation has exchanged scientists
with the USAP at one time or another.
Additional international sharing of the cost of the McMurdo logistics
and research support capability appears feasible, consistent with
further growth in non-U.S. research in the Antarctic interior
and the Ross Sea region of Antarctica.
Footnote:
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