Ship scrapping could bring wave of rebirth to docks

Ship scrapping could bring wave of rebirth to docks
Council member envisions leasing Richmond waterfront

Source: By Thomas Peele, MEDIANEWS STAFF

RICHMOND — Down concrete staircases crumbling with age, past rusted pipes and piles of trash, executives of two ship companies poked around the citys long-abandoned dry docks Monday.
To the idea that a ship scrapping operation could bring the rebirth of the waterfront here, they offered a tentative one word answer: maybe.

We are at the very beginning of whats possible here, said Frank Foti, chief executive of Vigor Industrial, a marine company based in Portland, Ore. Were looking. Its too early to know anything. I am not going to talk about specifics.

Foti and others toured the World War II-era waterfront at the invitation of Councilman Tom Butt, who wants the city to lease the area to companies that could scrap U.S. Maritime Administration ships from the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet there.

Any operation would be a long-term commitment that would involve ship building and repair, Foti said.

A dry-dock restoration would take a mighty significant investment, said John E. Graykowski of the International Shipbreaking Limited of Brownsville, Texas. It is exploring a partnership with Vigor in a Bay Area venture.

There are no ship scrappers on the West Coast. Aged vessels in Suisun Bay are towed to Brownsville for dismantling. Lower labor costs, the proximity of Mexican and Midwestern steel mills and less stringent environmental standards combine to make the yards the cheapest way to scrap the vessels, even when the cost of towing them nearly 6,000 miles is factored in.
The five city-owned dry docks in Richmond lack the watertight doors and pumps they would need to make them functional and then to contain toxic materials from the ships. Some of the dry docks are leased to private boat companies. Several hold barges, one houses a large, dilapidated wooden ship. Three tug boats are stored in another, as are two small World War II ships.

Still, Butt said, These things have good bones. They need cranes, doors and pumps. This isnt daunting to me.

The primary issue for Richmond, Butt said, is job creation. The city needs jobs for low-skilled workers, like the ones that might be created by a ship scrapping operation. Unemployment in Richmond is about 7.8 percent, compared to a countywide rate of 4.3 percent.

Sixty years ago, the Richmond waterfront was the site where more than 700 warships were built. The question now is whether heavy maritime industry could again provide hundreds of employment opportunities.

At issue is whether the docks could be renovated quickly enough and ship-scrapping operations permitted soon enough to assuage concerns about the pollution the Suisun fleet already poses to local water. The Bay Areas congressional delegation, responding to MediaNews stories about pollution from the ships, is pushing for a faster scrapping schedule.

The Maritime Administration and California water regulators are at odds over a pair of environmental issues regarding the Suisun fleet: how to safely clean the underwater portions of the hulls of ships before they are towed to Texas and how to stop toxic paint from peeling off the ships into the bay, where they are now anchored.

The U.S. Coast Guard requires hull cleaning to remove marine organisms so they dont spread to areas where they are not native. If the ships were destroyed locally, the underwater hull cleaning would become a moot point.

But waiting for a Bay Area scrapping operation to be operational could mean the rotting ships stay in Suisun Bay longer.

If a scrapping operation were opened in Richmond, it could be done in an environmentally responsible way, said Graykowski, a former Maritime Administration official. The preferred way to do it is in dry docks.

Brownsville, however, might still remain a more cost effective alternative.

One other Bay Area option for shipbreaking is the former Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, where several dry docks have doors and cranes. Gary Whitney, a maritime contractor, is attempting to start an operation there through his company, Allied Defense Recycling.

Butt said it is unclear exactly what may happen next. For the city to move forward with studies for renovations, it would likely need a firm indication of the companies interest and a commitment of federal aid.


Reach Thomas Peele at (925) 977-8463.