Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Efforts by the Buffalo and Erie County Naval and Military Park to save and preserve the USS The Sullivans and USS Croaker have been well underway over the last few years. However, city government appears to be holding the process up after the park was able to secure much-needed funding.
President and CEO of the Buffalo Naval Park, Paul Marzello says shortly after the listing of the USS The Sullivans in the Buffalo Harbor in April of 2022, funding to help preserve the World War II era vessel started flooding in.
"Sen. [Chuck] Schumer came to town and he pledged $7.5 million. Crystal Peoples-Stokes came back with another $500,000, so we had $8 million in 2022. In 2024, Gov. [Kathy] Hochul comes to town, she pledges $10 million, then the city, county and state, they pledge another $3 million. So now we've got $13 million from 2024 and another $8 million, so we've got $21 million as of last summer to get the project moving," said Marzello during an appearance with Brian Mazurowski and Susan Rose on WBEN. "So the question we get every day, and our board is very frustrated with the kinds of answers that we can provide is, 'You've got the money, why isn't anything happening?' And the simple answer is, the City of Buffalo owns the ships and has total control over how to spend the money."
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According to Marzello, the city went to work this past December to put out an RFP (request for proposal) and then hired a marine engineering firm. From there in January, they had a selection of which firm to choose and in February, they got approval from the Common Council. Since then, it has been crickets from city government.
"It's been four months, still no contract, and the frustration for our board is the city seems to lack the urgency. We feel the process has become more important than the outcome, and that's concerning," Marzello said.
While the city might have control over the money, Marzello says they don't realize the daily challenges of trying to keep The Sullivans, as well as the Croaker afloat.
"We patch and we plug, and we sometimes have to pump water out just about every other day, and trying to recover the State of Emergency that we have been under all this time. It has never left us, and that's the urgency that we need to convince the city of," Marzello said. "We have an 80-plus-year-old ship, and both of them, they continue to rust, they will rust every day until we get a new hull on them. We're scheduled to do that in October, but we just can't beat the deadlines now. So that's our frustration."
The plan for the USS The Sullivans and USS Croaker was to be able to get them dry docked in Erie, Pa. and make the necessary repairs to ensure their long-term futures in the Buffalo River. However, just to get the ships ready to move out of the harbor is a complex task.
"We've got to do some soil testing, we've got to begin the permitting process, we've got to dredge the Buffalo River - that could take up to three months. We can't even start that process until after the fish spawning season, which ends usually July 1. We've got to remove, at least, one, possibly two mooring towers that the ships are now attached to, have to bring in a crane barge in order to do that. We've got to remove hazardous waste, we've got to remove asbestos, red lead paint. All of this has to be done prior to getting the ships to dry dock," Marzello detailed. "That's why we look at this timeline and say it's impossible to get all this done before October."
What about the possibility of dry docking the ships in Buffalo and making the necessary repairs right in the Buffalo Harbor?
"Several people have mentioned that idea. I guess they really don't have an idea as to how costly that would be," Marzello noted. "To build a dry dock here for just the sake of saving the Sullivans and the Croaker, it's almost like you have to have a commercial commitment to do that. We're talking $21 million to get the ships out of here and back in Buffalo, and it's going to take them about 5-to-6 months to do those repairs. It would cost a couple of years and three times that amount, at a very conservative estimate to build a dry dock."
With the ships continuing to rust away in the Buffalo River, Marzello says it's a question of when the Naval Park is going to have the next flooding incident, not if.
"If there was the urgency that we would like to have the city realize is we need to do it now. We need to do it as soon as possible. It's not a matter of whether we have the money, we have the money. Let's somehow work together, whatever administrative or insurance related problems that we've been told is holding things up, let's get it done," he said. "And I'm not sure what it's going to take to do that, but we're challenging the city to act now before it's too late."
Marzello adds it likely won't be until October of 2026, at this point, until the Buffalo Naval Park can get the Sullivans and Croaker properly prepared for dry docking for the needed repairs to both vessels.