By JOSEPH KELLARD
The Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Co., which specializes in port deepening projects worldwide, was contracted on Nov. 30 to dredge some 300,000 cubic yards of sand from the inlet to Reynolds Channel within 45 days. The company has 10 days to complete project-related paperwork and up to 10 days thereafter to start the project, which will pump the sand onto the Rockaway beaches west of the inlet.
"[The dredging] was something we had planned to do all along," said John Tavolaro, chief of the Operations Support Branch of the Army Corps¹ New York District, which received congressional approval to fund the project on Nov. 28.
The Army Corps was to dredge Reynolds Channel in November, but the lowest bid for the project was $500,000 more than was in its budget, and it rescheduled the project for January. But on Nov. 10, a 281-foot tanker, Kristin Poling ‹ the sole vessel that regularly uses the East Rockaway Inlet to deliver oil to the Sprague Energy terminal in Oceanside ‹ ran aground there for the second time since December 2004.
"The Army Corps can find the half-million dollars somewhere," Schumer said at a press conference at the Atlantic Beach Bridge on Nov. 28, hours before the funding was approved. "And I told [the Corps] that I will help them recoup it in next year's budget. But we can't wait until January ... The home-heating oil season will be in full blast in a week or two."
Tavolaro said that having the help of Senator Schumer, one of the most influential members of the Senate, expedited the process. ³That certainly helped,² Tavolaro said.
With representatives from the U.S. Coast Guard, KeySpan, Sprague and the Oil Heat Institute of Long Island at his side, Schumer called on the Army Corps to dredge the inlet annually rather than on a two-year cycle, since the channel, which is 12 feet deep in that area, had some five and a half more feet of sand than it did after it was last dredged before the accident in 2004, according to a measurement taken by the Army Corps this spring.
"[The Nov. 10] incident showed us something ‹ that is, that the inlet is not usable for fuel delivery," Schumer said about the shipping route that is a major conduit for fuel deliveries to south and central Nassau County. "It's only a matter of time before our luck just runs out ... and we have the whole inlet blocked off ... because if we don't get dredging, there can also be oil spills. So this is a disaster waiting to happen."
The barge company, New Jersey-based Poling & Cutler Marine Transportation, said that even after the crippled tanker is repaired, company officials are likely to suspend shipments to Sprague terminal until the inlet is properly dredged, according to Operations Manager Rick Carment.
"There are no major vessels going through because they don't know where the sand is or isn't, and they don't want to risk damage," said Commander Alan Bloom of the Coast Guard.
Calling the Kristin Poling's grounding "prophetic," Kevin Rooney of the Oil Heat Institute of Long Island noted that about three months ago, New York state completed a two-year study of petroleum infrastructure in the southern region that highlighted the East Rockaway Inlet as a potential problem. "This terminal and this channel are an absolutely critical element for the entire petroleum infrastructure on Long Island," Rooney said.
Fuel shipments through the inlet account for anywhere between 10 and 20 percent of the heating oil sold daily in south and central Nassau County, with 60 local companies annually distributing roughly 40 million gallons of oil to some 50,000 homes and other facilities, including schools, the Long Island Rail Road, emergency response units and municipalities such as the Town of Hempstead, according to Sprague.
Asked about other means of transporting the fuel, such as trucking, Steve Levy, Sprague's director of business development, said these are ultimately costlier to both the energy companies and consumers, since a single truck can carry just 7,500 gallons, while a barge can haul up to 800,000. Further, supplies from Suffolk County cannot be used, since that county allows gas to have a higher sulfur content than is permitted in Nassau.
Moreover, KeySpan's Barrett plant in Island Park generates 10 percent of steam-powered electrical energy on Long Island, and if it were closed due to a lack of fuel deliveries, energy costs could rise $8 million to $12 million per year, said Bob Catell, chairman and CEO of KeySpan.
"It's important not only from the standpoint that the people have the fuel to heat their homes," Catell said, "but it's important that we have fuel so we can run our power plant."
Having taken over the assets of RAD Energy at its Oceanside location in 2001, Sprague is now the sole fuel terminal where there were once three fuel suppliers. One closed due to environmental regulations, and the other sold its property for other uses, according to Levy.
"The terminal is critical, obviously, for the people for heating oil, let alone for municipal services like snow plowing, since the Town of Hempstead purchases all of its diesel fuel and heating oil there as well," Levy said.
Schumer called on the Army Corps to work on a long-term plan to combat the ³deteriorating state² of all of Long Island¹s inlets, from Shinnecock Inlet to Glen Cove Creek to Reynolds Channel. ³The Army Corps should work with the Coast Guard to create a new, permanent, fully funded regional inlets program, to assess problems at these inlets and allow the Army Corps to prioritize to take immediate action when needed to mitigate any hazardous conditions and keep the waters viable.² Schumer said.
Comments about this story? JKellard@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 287.
