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Training in the Gulf of Alaska

The Gulf of Alaska provides invaluable training space needed to prepare U.S. service members to protect and defend the United States and its allies. The military's largest joint training exercise in Alaska is Northern Edge. Maritime training activities associated with this exercise occur within a designated Temporary Maritime Activities Area, which is located south of Prince William Sound and east of Kodiak Island in the Gulf of Alaska.

Since 1975, the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command has met defense objectives by training military forces for potential crises in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. Mission-critical military training activities in Alaska occur within the Joint Pacific Alaska Range Complex, which includes the Temporary Maritime Activities Area in the Gulf of Alaska and existing U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army inland air and land training areas. These training areas provide realistic environments for military forces and interagency partners to practice both basic and complex training activities. Training in the Gulf of Alaska allows for varying degrees of scenario complexity, which enhances the quality of training and better prepares service members to respond to world events.

Joint training exercises bring together personnel from different branches of the military to plan and participate in activities at sea, in the air, and on land. These exercises provide opportunities for forces to practice tactics, techniques, and procedures to improve coordination and fulfill military readiness requirements.

Gulf of Alaska Study Area

Since the release of the Draft Supplemental EIS/OEIS on Dec. 11, 2020, and completion of the Northern Edge 2021 exercise, the Navy recognized that the size and shape of the Gulf of Alaska Temporary Maritime Activities Area no longer provides sufficient space for the realistic maneuvering of vessels and aircraft during training exercises. Changes to the Study Area include additional airspace and sea space to the west and south of the Temporary Maritime Activities Area. The additional area is referred to as the Western Maneuver Area and adds approximately 185,806 square nautical miles to the Study Area. This additional space enables Navy personnel and units to practice more realistic, complex training scenarios in a safer, more efficient manner that will better prepare them to respond to real-world incidents.

The Temporary Maritime Activities Area remains unchanged and any activities involving active sound navigation and ranging, known as sonar, or explosives will, as in the past, occur in this area only. The Navy did not propose new or increased number of training activities in the Western Maneuver Area, only an expansion of the area the Navy uses for vessel and aircraft maneuvering purposes during exercises.

The activities conducted in the Western Maneuver Area are limited to vessel movements and aircraft training, and several events associated with these movements. The number of vessels, aircraft, underway steaming hours, events, and flight times remains the same. While the revised Study Area is larger, the type and number of training events have not changed. The vast majority of training activities still occur only in the Temporary Maritime Activities Area.

The Study Area is the ideal location for realistic at-sea training because of its proximity to a large contingent of Air Force and Army land training areas and airspace, as well as personnel, resources, equipment, and infrastructure in Alaska. The Gulf of Alaska Study Area provides the vast space needed to maximize the realism of the exercises.

Training activities are conducted far enough offshore of coastal areas to reduce impacts on Alaska Native subsistence activities, commercial fishing, and recreational fishing. The area avoids many sensitive resources of the coastal regions with no overlap of salmon and herring management areas, partial overlap with groundfish and halibut management areas, and minimal overlap with shellfish management areas. 

 

Gulf of Alaska Study Area Map
Note: The 12-nautical-mile limit represents the limit of U.S. territorial waters.
To view the large version, download the map.