ASHTABULA, Ohio — Amid a shortage of personnel, changes will be coming to U.S. Coast Guard Stations Ashtabula and Fairport in the spring. While the Coast Guard says these changes will still ensure the safety of boaters and those on the water, the city manager for Ashtabula has some concerns.
Currently, Station Ashtabula is a seasonal station for Station Fairport, meaning it shuts down in the winter and is manned in the summer by crews from Fairport, according to the Coast Guard. However, this spring, it won’t be staffed at all.
"We can reallocate some of those personnel to some of those other stations to make sure we're properly manning as many of these stations as possible while still having the correct level of coverage and still keeping the boating public safe," Lt. Phillip Gurtler, public affairs officer for the Cleveland Coast Guard covering the Great Lakes, told 3News.
Instead, Gurtler says Station Ashtabula will be what the Coast Guard calls a "forward operating location," which won’t be manned but will have patrols from crews from Station Erie and Station Cleveland Harbor. He adds they're still working out when those patrols will be done, but says they'd likely be during busy times, such as weekends and holidays.
Like many industries, the Coast Guard is currently looking for more personnel.
Coast Guard-wide, we're about 10% short of where we really want to be for personnel," Gurtler said. "We've looked at some of these different areas where we've got these overlapping coverages. So in Ashtabula, you have Station Cleveland Harbor covering it from the west and you've got Station Erie that's covering it from the east."
Gurtler also noted there is air support from Michigan, in addition to local and state partners. Additionally, he says Station Fairport will transition to a forward operating location in the future.
But not having a consistently manned Coast Guard station is a cause for concern for Ashtabula City Manager Jim Timonere.
"I understand where the Coast Guard's coming from, and we sympathize with them on the staffing issue," he said. "However, we've got a population to protect."
Timonere claimed that years ago, there was a consistent Coast Guard presence in Station Ashtabula, which became seasonal and more limited overtime. Now, he fears once these assets are taken away, they won't come back.
Additionally, Timonere voiced concerns over the response time from Cleveland or Erie to Ashtabula, and what could happen when crews from those stations are needed elsewhere.
"Right now, when they're not in quarters and we have an incident, it's a full recall of our fire department," he explained. "We're paying the overtime and having to deal with that, plus I'm putting my personnel in a position that they're not used to being in."
Timorene stresses that the city has had a "wonderful" relationship with the Coast Guard, and hopes they will stay. Ohio U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown recently wrote a letter to the Coast Guard and Department of Homeland Security urging them to keep Station Ashtabula open, and shared the following statement with WKYC on Friday:
"The Coast Guard's Ashtabula Harbor Station is critical to keeping boaters safe on Lake Erie and keeping our maritime border safe. Closing the station and reducing staffing leaves our lakefront communities and entire state vulnerable. We can't let that happen. I'll keep fighting to keep the station open."
Gurtler says the Coast Guard is "confident" they'll be able to provide the same level of coverage, and claims when they have enough personnel, they plan to move back to traditional coverage.
"We wouldn't be doing this if we didn't feel like we were able to still do that mission of keeping the boating public safe," he said.