United States Coast Guard

**District 9** is a United States Coast Guard district located at the Anthony J. Celebrezze Federal Building in Cleveland, Ohio. District 9 is responsible for all Coast Guard operations on the five Great Lakes, the Saint Lawrence Seaway, and surrounding states accumulating 6,700 miles of shoreline and 1,500 miles of international shoreline with Canada.

## Operations

One major role for the Coast Guard in the Great Lakes region is to perform ice-breaking duties to enable shipping to have free mobility throughout the region. One of the major ports to be kept operational is Duluth, Minnesota.

Another major role is maintenance of navigational buoys. As of October 2021, the Coast Guard began implementing plans to replace all existing metal buoys with new high-tech foam buoys, which would not need to be serviced or removed annually.

In October 2021, the National Center of Expertise for the Great Lakes was formally inaugurated as a new operational unit within the US Coast Guard. Amongst its duties are to perform scientific research on oil spills that occur in freshwater.  US Senator Gary Peters of Michigan said that Senate hearings had revealed that the Coast Guard was largely unprepared for handling oil spills in that region, and also that there was little scientific knowledge about how to clean up oil spills in freshwater; this was one major reason for creating this new research center.  The Center was set up as a joint project between the Coast Guard and the Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, which would also host the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor. The center would also be managed by the NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory.  The legislation to establish this center was enacted in 2018.

## History

The history of Coast Guard operations in the Great Lakes region began with the operational activity by one of the predecessor agencies to the Coast Guard, the US Revenue Cutter Service. This organization's service in the region began around the 1820s. when its role included stopping smugglers, and assisting boaters in distress.  Another predecessor agency, the U.S. Lighthouse Service is believed to have begun operations in the region around 1816; by the 1860s, the number of lightships active in the region was 72 ships. The U.S. Life-Saving Service, another predecessor agency, began operations in the region in 1854, after a major storm sparked official efforts to increase the personnel and active units available for lifesaving services.

The fourth of the predecessor agencies was the US Steamboat Inspection Service. Relatively little historical documentation exists for this agency; however by 1911, it was filling an important role in the region, inspecting steamships for faulty equipment and machinery that might pose any threat to safety of steam vessels.

In 1915, the US Lifesaving Service and the Revenue Cutter Service were merged to form the US Coast Guard In 1920, the enactment of Prohibition gave the Coast Guard a new role in halting smugglers of alcohol who tried to travel from Canada to the United States with illegal alcoholic beverages.

## Fleet

### Television Series Only

Mackinaw (WLBB-30)Alder (WLB-216)Biscayne Bay (WTGB-104)