Reply With QuoteI read somewhere online yesterday that the cost of the attempt was $250K.
It wouldn't surprise me that the whole thing was a pre-election photo-op, but the date chosen was the highest high-high tide for at least the next six months.
I wish I knew it was a publicity stunt too, my whole office had invited people to take adcantage of our view as it was supposed to stop in front of the WTC.
I read somewhere online yesterday that the cost of the attempt was $250K.
It wouldn't surprise me that the whole thing was a pre-election photo-op, but the date chosen was the highest high-high tide for at least the next six months.
Can't they tie a line to the next Norwegian Dawn leaving?
But seriously, more tugs?
They've got to dredge out the mud first to make sure there is enough clearance (I read they had estimated that yesterday there would be ~ 1 foot clearance).
Don't know if you've ever run aground in a boat before, but there is a risk of damage if you drag the hull of a boat across a river bottom.
November 12, 2006
Navy Joins New York Effort to Free Ship Stuck in River
By PATRICK McGEEHAN
The United States Navy has agreed to spend as much as $3 million to rescue the Intrepid, a retired aircraft carrier that has been trapped in the mud off Manhattan since Monday, federal officials said yesterday.
After hearing appeals from several members of Congress, the mayor of New York City and the governor of New York, the Navy agreed to send a salvage team to engineer a second effort to free the Intrepid from the mucky bottom of the Hudson River, the officials said. The Navy expects to have the ship ready to be towed within three weeks, said Bill White, the president of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, which the ship has housed since 1982.
Mr. White said he sought help from the Navy and the Army Corps of Engineers on Monday afternoon, just hours after a team of tugboats failed to move the Intrepid more than 15 feet from its berth at Pier 86 on the West Side. The ship was bound for a dry dock in Bayonne, N.J., and the first stage of a two-year overhaul, but the tugboat operators gave up after the ship’s hull became wedged in a mound of mud.
The failure ruined an elaborate farewell celebration that drew two senators, two former mayors and several military and city officials. Since then, Mr. White and his staff have huddled with officials of the Navy and the Corps of Engineers to draw up a foolproof plan to move the ship to Bayonne.
“I feel like we may have let so many people down,” Mr. White said. “We’re not going to go through this on a second round. I can promise people that.”
Mr. White said the Navy’s mission was to “free the vessel for tow.” Doing so, he said, will involve clearing an enormous amount of mud from under the ship for the second time in a month.
The foundation that operates the museum spent about $1.6 million to dredge more than 15,000 cubic yards of muck from under the ship’s stern in October. But the ship’s four giant propellers, which were not clear, dug into the mud when the tugboats started pulling.
The Intrepid’s stern now sits about two feet higher than its bow, said Peter Shugert, a spokesman for the Corps of Engineers. That position is placing stress on the plates in its keel and could cause damage to the hull, Mr. Shugert said.
“That’s why the Army Corps of Engineers said we’ve got to expedite this permit,” Mr. Shugert said.
At 8 p.m. Friday, the corps approved modifications to a dredging permit it had previously granted, Mr. Shugert said. The revised permit allows for the digging of a trench 35 feet deep along the starboard side of the ship and for the vacuuming of mud from under the hull at the ship’s stern, Mr. Shugert said.
Usually, dredging is not allowed in or around New York harbor after Nov. 1 because that is about the time the water turns cold and some fish swim up from the ocean seeking a winter haven, Mr. Shugert said. But, he said, the river water, now at about 55 degrees, is unusually warm, making it less harmful to dredge.
The new plan shocked Marcy Benstock, director of the Clean Air Campaign, an environmental group, who said that the dredging would destroy an important habitat for several types of fish, including striped bass, which migrate downriver.
“It’s an excuse they cooked up to do what shouldn’t be done,” Ms. Benstock said. “The corps and other officials should stop putting special interests before the need to preserve the lower Hudson River as an open river and stop misusing public funds for habitat-destroying schemes like this one.”
Mr. White said the second round of dredging would probably cost more than the first, though he declined to provide an estimate. But Patricia Dolan, a spokeswoman for the Navy Sea Systems Command in Washington, said Intrepid officials told the Navy that the project could cost $3 million.
Ms. Dolan said Navy divers were scheduled to be in the Hudson River tomorrow to get a close look at what is locking the Intrepid in place. She said the secretary of the Navy “determined that the Intrepid was in a precarious situation” and approved the plan after Mr. White pledged to repay the costs.
“We don’t have the money right now to get this done,” Mr. White said. But he added, “We agreed that we would make best efforts to repay the Navy for these services.”
Mr. White said that McAllister Towing, the tugboat operator that Intrepid officials paid $250,000 for the first attempt, agreed to provide its services again at no cost. He said no date had been set for the second try.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
Ship's propellers in mud, divers say
BY BILL BLEYER
Newsday Staff Writer
November 16, 2006
Divers have determined that the propellers of the USS Intrepid are fully or partially encased in thick mud, so around-the-clock dredging is expected to continue at least into next week to free the aircraft carrier for its delayed trip to a New Jersey dry dock for an overhaul.
A second round of dredging began Monday to remove a mud "speed bump" under the stern that prevented the 29,000-ton vessel from being moved more than 15 feet on Nov. 6.
A contractor hired by the Navy is using cranes with clamshell buckets to dredge approximately 35,000 cubic yards of mud along the aft end of the starboard, or right, side of the ship to create a 200-foot by 30-foot hole that is 35 feet deep. That trench will probably allow the ship to be pulled both sideways out from the dock and backward, and it will allow mud to be removed from the four propellers with suction dredges.
Bill White, president of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, of which the Intrepid is the centerpiece, said six divers working for the contractor confirmed in several dives Tuesday the earlier speculation that the propellers had pushed up a mud mound during the aborted move.
"This tells us that it's a very serious condition down there so the dredging continues 24/7," he said.
White said he is still hoping to move the 920-foot ship to Bayonne during the monthly lunar high tides the first week of December.
In the meantime, the fact that the stern of the ship is resting on the mud pile and is several feet higher than the bow, leaving the ship unevenly supported, remains a problem.
"We're very concerned about the stress and potential fractures underneath the hull," White said.
As a result, the museum has called in the federal National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's environmental response unit for help in case the hull fractures and releases oily ballast water into the river.
"Once we're in Bayonne, we're going to dredge all that stuff out of there," White said.
White said before the first attempted move, the museum had divers and engineers survey the river bed and "it was determined that the silt was light and airy" and would be able to be pushed out of the way as the ship was towed backward into the middle of the Hudson River. But it's now clear, he said, that the immense weight of the ship compacted the silt into dense mud.
The $3-million dredging operation is being paid for by the Navy, and the museum may reimburse the service.
Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc.
You gotta wonder who that first team of divers / engineers worked for (the ones who determined that the silt beneath the Intrepid was "light and airy" and therby posed no problem) -- and how they were so off the mark in their conclusions ...
NY1.com
Staten Island
Dredging At Intrepid To Continue Despite Contamination Concerns
November 16, 2006
Staten Island lawmakers voiced concern Thursday about the dredging being done to try and free the USS Intrepid, saying the silt being removed from the Hudson River could be contaminated.
Dredging, however, will continue and is now a 24-hour-a-day operation.
The U.S. Navy and Army Corps of Engineers have to work quickly to get the muck out from underneath the aircraft carrier, so she can be moved safely to New Jersey for renovations.
Silt from under the ship is being taken to the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island for use as capping material, and that has some local lawmakers concerned.
"The silt on the bottom of the Hudson is supposedly contaminated. So now you want to take 15,000 tons, or whatever the heck it is, and dump it on Staten Island," said S.I. Councilman James Oddo. "I think it's a natural reaction by the elected officials to say, 'Wait a second. Before this decision is implemented, we have lots of questions.'"
Critics wonder if the silt is contaminated with PCBs, and what kind of testing and treatment will be done to ensure it is safe for disposal at Fresh Kills, the future home of a park.
“We are concerned that perhaps there is not a proper procedure in place to ensure that the fill being brought from, whether it’s the Hudson River or anywhere else, to the Fresh Kills park is clean and is safe,” said Staten Island City Councilman Andrew Lanza.
Intrepid officials say they understand the concerns, but promise the dredged material will only be taken to Fresh Kills once it is deemed safe. They say they are taking every possible precaution.
"The material that is being dredged is being processed by the Navy Contractors to very rigorous standards, and we will hold all accountable to that, because it's very important for the Intrepid. And the Navy is doing that," said Intrepid Museum President Bill White. "The State Department of Environmental Conservation tests this material and makes absolutely, positively sure it's okay to go into Fresh Kills."
After the mud is dredged it will go to a facility in New Jersey where it will be tested and then mixed with Portland cement before being brought to Fresh Kills.
Intrepid officials expect it will take several weeks before the dredging is completed.
Intrepid Has Not Moved,
but the Bill Has Risen to $60 Million
Marko Georgiev for The New York Times
A diver retained by the Navy jumped from a barge last Tuesday to study the hull
of the U.S.S. Intrepid, which remains stuck in Hudson River mud.
As a Navy salvage team works to free the World War II aircraft carrier Intrepid from a mound of mud in the Hudson River, the cost of fixing up the floating museum and its dock is rising to more than $60 million.
And even though the museum is privately run, virtually every dollar for the overhaul will come from taxpayers. Before the Intrepid’s operators sent an S.O.S. call to the Navy two weeks ago, the renovation project had already received pledges of $31 million from the federal government, $23 million from the city and $5 million from the state. Now the Navy is joining in to spend about $3 million to dig the ship out.
This level of government largess for a private museum, though not unprecedented, is rare. But the Intrepid offers elected officials in New York something other museums do not: an opportunity to show their support for the military regardless of their positions on the war in Iraq. Some have been sympathetic to the Intrepid’s plight because the foundation that runs the museum has also provided aid to wounded veterans and their families.
“The local officials are not for Iraq, but they were for World War II,” said Henry J. Stern, a former city parks commissioner who serves on the board of the Hudson River Park Trust, which controls the Intrepid’s pier. “This is a way of showing their commitment for America’s troops in a manner which is politically correct. It’s almost as if they want a throwback to the good wars, the wars when the country was united.”
Christine C. Quinn, the speaker of the City Council, acknowledged as much. Ms. Quinn, who opposes the war in Iraq, has been one of the Intrepid’s staunchest backers. “Supporting the Intrepid is a way of supporting the men and women in the military,” she said. “It’s even more important for those of us who stood in opposition to be supporters of our troops.”
New York’s two senators, Charles E. Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton, both Democrats who have criticized President Bush’s strategy in Iraq, have also eagerly embraced the Intrepid’s cause.
The estimated cost of the entire project had topped $58 million before Nov. 6, the day a team of tugboats tried and failed to pull the ship from its berth and tow it to a dry dock in Bayonne, N.J. The Navy’s digging operation is an additional expense, which Bill White, president of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, said he had promised to try to repay.
To help with the bill, Ms. Quinn, whose 80-year-old father, Lawrence P. Quinn, served in the Navy during World War II, spurred the Council to pledge about $8.5 million for the ship’s overhaul; Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s office matched the Council’s contribution. (The Intrepid’s operators also plan to use about $5.7 million in previous financing from City Hall.) In addition, Gov. George E. Pataki pledged $5 million in early July.
Ms. Quinn has also promised $350,000 in Council funds this year to help pay for the Intrepid’s educational programs in schools while the museum is closed for the next 18 months.
More than half of the public money that has been raised — as much as $35 million — will go toward rebuilding Pier 86, for which the Intrepid pays just $1 a year in rent to the Hudson River Park Trust, Mr. White said. The rest of the cost will be for moving, repairing and refurbishing the ship.
None of the money will come from donations by corporations or wealthy individuals, sources that private museums usually tap for construction projects.
City officials said it was unusual for a private museum to have public sources cover the entire cost of a big capital project. More often, the city pays for a portion, as it did in contributing $65 million toward an $858 million new home for the Museum of Modern Art that was completed in 2004, said Kate D. Levin, commissioner of the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs.
Ms. Levin said that there was no formula for deciding how much of a project should be publicly financed because some cultural institutions, most notably art museums, have an easier time raising private money than others do.
“We do look for private participation because that speaks to the overall health of the organization,” Ms. Levin said. “If you don’t have other people that care about you, that’s a bad sign.”
But, Ms. Levin added, in deciding to contribute, city officials credited the Intrepid’s management with having raised substantial private money to finance the museum’s operations and also considered the urgent need to move the ship because of the failing condition of the pier.
Other officials were sympathetic to the Intrepid’s needs because leaders of the Intrepid Foundation had raised tens of millions of dollars from donors in recent years to aid wounded veterans and the families of soldiers killed in Iraq.
When Mr. White went to City Hall to appeal for more money this year, he explained that “we’ve been distracted by a very important mission to raise money that was needed immediately for these families,” he recounted last week, adding, “How many times can you go back to the well in a two-year period?”
A sister charity, the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, has raised $35 million to build a rehabilitation center in Texas for soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr. White, whose salary as president of the museum is $318,500, is also president of the Fallen Heroes Fund, which was founded by members of the Fisher family of New York. Arnold Fisher, the senior partner of the Fisher Brothers development firm, is the chairman of the museum foundation.
Mr. White also said he emphasized to city officials that the Intrepid draws tourists to New York City, and that the 750,000 people a year who visit the ship have a significant impact on the local economy. “We feel that it is a permanent fixture in New York,” Mr. White said.
Ms. Quinn, for one, was persuaded, especially, she said, after a Memorial Day meeting aboard the Intrepid with a young soldier who had lost a leg in combat.
“The Intrepid is certainly a big economic driver in the city and the borough,” she said. “It’s one of the few cultural institutions that is dedicated to the history of our military.”
She added that about 100,000 students visit the Intrepid each year, providing “a great opportunity to teach kids about the history of our country, about the Constitution, about the Bill of Rights.”
Before it closed on Oct. 1 for the overhaul, the museum employed six full-time teachers who conducted workshops for visiting students, said Fredda Plesser, executive director of the museum’s Michael Tyler Fisher Center for Education.
Some of those teachers were laid off, but with the help of grants from the city, others will continue to conduct the workshops in public schools, Ms. Plesser said. She said the museum also expected to receive $175,000 in grants from the city to run after-school programs for children.
Mr. Stern said elected officials were supportive of the Intrepid because its financial needs were great and pressing, and because its operators had nowhere else to turn.
“The sums are really so large here that I don’t see private people giving that much to this kind of museum,” Mr. Stern said. “It’s just popular education and awareness of something that’s very important and patriotic.”
Still, he added, the final cost to the taxpayers is a long way from being tallied. “If they say $60 million now,” he said, “who knows how much it will end up as?”
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
USS Intrepid Is Freed From The Mud
ny1.com
December 01, 2006
The Navy says it has wrapped up dredging the muck and mud around and under the USS Intrepid.
Last month, tugboats repeatedly tried to nudge the giant ship out of its West Side pier, to send it on its way to the first wave of renovations in Bayonne, New Jersey.
But they had to give up after several attempts.
The military was called in to free the 42,000-ton ship and crews have been working to unstick the aircraft carrier ever since.
While it's unclear when they'll pull up anchor, officials have said they want the ship to set sail before the winter.
Copyright © 2006 NY1 News.
Highest tide in that area of the Hudson over the next month is December 4 at ~ 7:37 AM ...
New attempt to move 'Intrepid' scheduled for Tuesday
nydailynews.com
ASSOCIATED PRESS
December 1, 2006
At high tide on Tuesday, officials will make a second attempt to move the USS Intrepid, which became mired in the mud three weeks ago when high-powered tugs tried to tow the World War II aircraft carrier down the Hudson River for renovations.
Navy crews completed their salvage operation this week, dredging tons of sediment from under the ship's stern. They were working to free four huge propellers and a rudder which burrowed themselves into thick mud mounds on Nov.6, forcing tugboats to abort the mission to bring the vessel five miles down river to Bayonne, N.J. for a two-year overhaul.
Some surveying was still being done on Friday.
Officials are now scheduled to move the engineless 36,000-ton carrier, now a museum, between 7:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday. That will enable them to take advantage of one of the year's highest tide cycles, according to Bill White, president of the Intrepid Museum Foundation.
"The unfortunate grounding has had a positive benefit," White told The Associated Press on Friday. "It has served to underscore the national importance of Intrepid's mission to always honor our heroes and educate about the price of freedom."
The Intrepid fought in every major battle in the last two years of the Pacific war, survived bombs, torpedoes and five kamikaze plane attacks and lost 270 crew members.
The keel of the historic carrier was laid seven days after the attack of Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941. It was commissioned in 1943 and later served in Korea, Vietnam and was the recovery ship for NASA astronauts.
Since the Intrepid got stuck, calls and e-mails expressing concern and offering help have come in from around the world, including the Vatican and from former crew members who served on the Intrepid's decks, according to White.
"Once Intrepid is moved, we have to harness all of this positive energy we have received into the need to help our troops and their families," White said.
The Intrepid was rescued in 1981 from the junk heap by the late Zachary Fisher, a New York builder, who transformed the 900-foot-long aircraft carrier into a sea, air and space museum. It draws about 700,000 visitors annually.
After a quarter of a century moored to the same berth, Pier 86, in the Hudson River, the ship is overdue for restoration and refurbishment.
The $60 million project provides for the ship's repair and the rebuilding of the deteriorating pier where Intrepid is moored and where it will return in November 2008.
"It was a demanding task that required long hours and dedicated people to set her free to make her next voyage," said Shugert.
Once underway, the journey is expected to take about eight hours at a pokey 3 knots.
"We did the best we could to make her ready for tow," said Peter Shugert, spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which has partnered with the Navy in the salvage operation."The difference this time is there's less sediment to put her in mud lock."
Shugert said 39,000 cubic yards of the material has been dredged: Picture roughly 4,000 dump trucks worth of sediment, perhaps rolling down the New Jersey Turnpike, Los Angeles freeway or a meandering Kansas farm road. In this case, the material is environmentally processed and taken by barge to the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island.
All contents © 2006 Daily News, L.P.
How's the tide on Tuesday?
Tables give tidal readings for Weehawken & Edgewater (seemingly the closest locations to Pier 84).
High tide on Tuesday December 5 is slightly lower than the high tide on Monday December 4 ... and one hour later on Tuesday than Monday:
Edgewater:
Day.....High Tide........HeightWeehawken:
M 4.....7:37 AM..........5.4
Tu 5....8:24 AM..........5.3
Day.....High Tide........Height
M 4.....7:19 AM.........5.6
Tu 5....8:06 AM.........5.5
Let's keep our fingers crossed this time.
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