New York faces shortage of dry docks

New York faces shortage of dry docks    The Port of New York and New Jersey is thriving but there is a shortage of facilities for repair and maintenance of tugboats, barges and other vessels in the region.
   The shortage is likely to intensify in years to come as port traffic increases, according to preliminary findings of a study being conducted for the New York City Economic Development Commission by the State University of New York Maritime College.
   The findings were discussed at a recent meeting of the port’s Harbor Operations Committee. The final report, with recommendations, is expected this fall.
   The study's purpose is to examine the needs of the working waterfront — tugboats, barges, ferries, and maintenance facilities that care for those vessels, said Andrew Genn, vice president in the Economic Development Commission's maritime department.
   “This is a way for the EDC to understand the issues in more detail and make good policy decisions going forward,” Genn said. The city is “trying to balance the needs of a working harbor with general commercial and land use needs for the city.
   “We are seeing an increase in use of the waterways in general for both passengers and freight,” Genn noted. That’s seen as beneficial as the port seeks to reduce its carbon footprint. One tug-barge unit, SUNY researchers note, can move as much freight as 58 trucks.
   The study notes that while most of the deep sea vessels entering the port are bound to and from terminals in New Jersey, “most of the port services are based in New York City.” Most tugs in the Port of New York, for example are based at the north shore of Staten Island along the Kill Van Kull. These include docking tugs, as well as tugs moving petroleum products and dry cargo such as aggregate, cement and other building materials. Many of the tank farms and terminals receiving these materials are in Brooklyn, Queens or the South Bronx.
   The number of tug calls are expected to climb in coming years, from about 21,000 towboat calls in 2005 to 32,000 in 2016, said Shmuel Yahalom, director of research at SUNY Maritime.
   A towboat call can include anything from one of several docking assists a tugboat might make for containerships and passenger liners in a day, to the final leg of a two-week voyage that began in the Gulf of Mexico.
   There were 222 tugs based in New York City in 2004 up from 150 in 1991. That’s a big decline since 1929 when as many as 800 tugs were based in the harbor. But steam tugs in those days were much less powerful, and it required more of them to dock ships even if they were a fraction the size of today’s behemoths.
   Going forward, Yahalom said the number of tugs in New York Harbor is expected to grow 3 percent to 4 percent annually.
   Increasingly important in the port are articulated tug barges, which are used to carry petroleum products. Some ATBs are extremely large and travel long distances into Canada and down to Florida. There are more than 100 ATBs operating in the United States, up from 11 in 1996. Half of them are registered and operating in the New York region, Yahalom said.
   ATBs have smaller crews than self-propelled ships, and have more flexibility because barges can be dropped and picked up. They can also travel at 11 to 14 knots, about twice as fast as towed barges, he added. They also range in size up to 650 feet in length and carry up to 350,000 barrels of product.
   Yahalom said there is a shortage of dry docks — graving docks or floating dry docks — to maintain tugs, barges, ferries and other vessels in the harbor. Today there are 18 dry docks in the region — three graving docks in Brooklyn, one graving dock in Bayonne, and 14 floating dry docks. He said a dry dock can do 23-29 survey jobs in a five-year period.
   Yahalom estimates that there is a shortage of seven to 25 dry docks in the New York region, while noting it is difficult to come up with an exact number.
   “The reality is somewhere in between,” he said, adding he gives a range to account for the fact two vessels can often be worked on in a dry dock at the same time.
   But no matter how it is figured, Yahalom believes the shortage will intensify to about 17 to 35 facilities by 2016.
   Vessels can travel to other ports for repairs or surveys, but Yahalom notes the shortage of dry docks is a problem along the entire East Coast, where he said there is a shortage of 20 facilities. That requires some ships to go to the Gulf of Mexico. He also notes floating dry docks are not long enough to accommodate longer barges.
   Not being able to do surveys or repairs locally can dramatically increase costs by an average of $16,000, according to Yahalom. He estimates this as the cost of towing a barge to Charleston, S.C., or Louisiana for an inspection, then returning several weeks later to retrieve it.
   The study has “not yet gotten to the point of making policy recommendations yet,” Genn said. But he notes Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s “2030 plan is looking for ways to shift from trucks to waterways and rail. This will help us make good policy choices.”
   The study has also found that the marine support industry is an important big job creator: there are about 16,000 direct employees, and another 40,000 indirect employees. That’s an impressive number, Genn said, considering the high profile of the longshoremen who number just 3,500.
   “For a city like New York that does not see itself as a maritime city as much as it used to, it is an interesting fact,” he said.
   When the final study is released, it will take a look at the high cost of maintaining maritime infrastructure and how self-supporting the industry could be, Genn said.
   Yahalom said the industry does not seem to generate many complaints about noise or pollution, but Genn said there is some concern about the appearance of the tugboat and shipyards — issues that might be addressed in the report.