The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is halting a contract that makes it possible for the federal agency to accurately monitor for potential tsunamis in Alaska – and quickly warn at-risk communities.
The Alaska Earthquake Center for decades has collected data from seismology stations across the state and directly fed the information to NOAA’s National Tsunami Center, in Palmer. If the data indicates an earthquake that could lead to a tsunami, the Tsunami Center sends out a warning message within minutes.
Or at least that’s how it worked historically, including on Thursday morning, when an earthquake struck between Seward and Homer.
But that’s about to change. In late September, the federal agency advised the Alaska Earthquake Center that it does not have funding available for that work.
“We are anticipating direct data feeds to stop in mid-November,” said Mike West, the Alaska State Seismologist and director of the Alaska Earthquake Center, which is part of the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Geophysical Institute.
The news comes amid the Trump administration’s effort to dramatically slash federal spending – including by proposed cuts to key weather and climate programs within NOAA.
West said the change is a big deal. NOAA’s National Weather Service holds the federal responsibility for tsunami warnings, and has historically been a primary supporter of seismic data collection in Alaska. But the agency doesn’t actually collect much of that data itself.
“Without this contract,” West said, “they lose data from dozens and dozens of sites all around the state, and specifically – or maybe more urgently – a handful of sites out in the Aleutians and the Bering that have been there for decades specifically for this purpose.”
The potential fallout isn’t isolated to Alaska. West provided an example: the 1946 tsunami that originated near the Aleutians, and killed more than 150 people in Hawaii.
“The tsunami threats from Alaska are not just an Alaska problem,” West said.
The contract was supposed to re-start October 1. But after funding did not arrive as expected, West reached out to the agency on Sept. 23. A NOAA official advised him via email a week later that the agency did not have the budget to support the long-standing contract.
West said the Earthquake Center is grappling with the situation but that its NOAA data feeds and tsunami-specific work will wind down in November.
“We are not going to continue operating those stations in the Aleutians that are entirely NOAA supported,” he said. “We’re not going to just keep doing it.”
NOAA did not respond to a request for comment. NOAA Tsunami Warning Coordinator David Snider declined to comment for this story.
