Remediation Work Begins On Historic Vessels At Buffalo’s Naval Park

BUFFALO, N.Y. – The New York State DEC says recent inspections showed the USS Croaker submarine was intermittently leaking oil from a pinhole in one of its fuel tanks. USS The Sullivans is also taking on water.

“These create a separate, potentially hazardous threat to the environment,” said New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Amanda Lefton. On

Friday, Lefton said there are no reports of injury or impact to wildlife. The United States Coast Guard, State DEC, the City of Buffalo and the Buffalo and Erie

County Naval & Military Park are working together to address the leakage. On Monday, spill response vehicles were at the park, and crews were on both vessels.

The USS Croaker is estimated to hold 25,000 gallons of diesel fuel with potentially 115,000 gallons of oily water aboard. Lefton said clean-up efforts will mean pumping oil and water from the submarine’s fuel tanks. Oily water will also be offloaded from USS The Sullivans, which potentially has 30,000 gallons on board. This will allow crews to plug leaks in the ship’s hull. About 15 tons of water is jeopardizing the structural integrity of the ship’s hold, according to the State DEC. The water is expected to be offloaded daily.

Lefton said environmental remediation and stabilization are required before both vessels can be transported to Erie, Pennsylvania, for dry-dock repairs.

President and CEO of the Buffalo and Erie County Naval & Military Park Brian Luallen said there was a modest amount of oil in the water. “But even then, we already had absorbent materials around it,” said Luallen. “When you know that there’s petroleum product, you take sort of initial steps to try to diminish the risk that’s presented. But we knew we would have to remove all of this in order to take it four hours down the lake to Donjon, where they could do long-term repairs.

“So now we’re gonna be able to do that quicker and better than we were able to do it before because the state DEC does this sort of work quite frequently,” said Luallen. “They’re very capable. They have a lot of technical knowledge and expertise, and it’s now been brought to bear. The same thing is true of the Coast Guard, and they’re really stepping up to make sure that these important historic vessels are around for future generations.”

Luallen said it’s “incredibly common” for historic vessels to have petroleum on board. “That’s incredibly common in the industry of these museum ships, very frequently we see that,” Luallen explained. “In fact, one of our sister vessels, the USS Silversides, removed its petroleum just a few short weeks ago.”

“In fact, we brought in one of those individuals because it’s got the same hull profile as the Croaker as a subject matter expert having just done the exact same work on the exact same hull profile only a few short weeks ago,” Luallen continued.

When it comes to the timeline on dry docking the vessels, Luallen said there are some complexities from an environmental standpoint. “But we think we’re looking at two windows,” said Luallen. “One would happen late this summer, early fall. We have to dredge, and that would be the next major step. And there is a fish spawning season that we have to work around. On the other end of that dredging, we have a very narrow window between it, which would be completed in early to mid-August, and then when water levels start to go down on this part of the river in the lake due to weather conditions in early October. So if we can’t make that window, we’re looking at spring.”

The cleanup effort is being paid for through “commitments already included within the established public funding framework supporting the ships’ preservation,” according to a State DEC news release. “Using DEC contractors provides operational flexibility and allows the work to proceed on an accelerated timeline while maintaining local coordination. “

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