Bloomberg

“It’s disturbing the Navy would accept a ship that fails to meet the basic requirements for a tugboat,” Representative Jackie Speier said in a statement yesterday as the House Armed Services Committee endorsed her request that the Government Accountability Office review the $37 billion, 55-ship program. “The future of the fleet is corroding before our eyes.”

The Littoral Combat Ship is intended to clear mines, hunt for submarines, defend itself against swarming small vessels and provide humanitarian relief in shallow coastal waters. Cracks were found in a version being built by a team led by Lockheed Martin Corp. Corrosion was found in the first vessel made by Austal Ltd. and General Dynamics Corp. The review would involve both models.

The amendment by Speier, a California Democrat, was adopted during the House committee’s consideration of legislation to authorize defense programs for fiscal 2013. The Senate has yet to take up its version of the bill.

Even with demands for more scrutiny of the Littoral Combat Ship, the full committee supported the $2.2 billion requested by the Navy for the next four vessels, including $429.4 million in development funds, in the defense authorization measure it approved today. The House defense appropriations subcommittee also has approved funding for the four ships.

Support ‘Remains Solid’

“Our impression is that congressional support remains solid,” Rear Admiral James Murdoch, the program executive officer, told reporters yesterday on a conference call. “Obviously, I am held accountable for any concerns about ship construction issues, and I welcome the scrutiny. We take all issues seriously.”

Republican Representative Reid Ribble, whose Wisconsin district includes the shipyard where the Lockheed Martin vessels are built and many of the workers, issued a statement to “rebuff baseless claims that undermine their work.” He said “the small issues that are normal for any newly designed vessel” have been corrected.

Lockheed Martin spokeswoman Dana Casey said questions raised about its first vessel, the USS Freedom, “appear to be based on selective information that is outdated or inaccurate.” The vessel was deployed two years ahead of schedule and “is providing important lessons that are being incorporated into future ships,” she said in an e-mailed statement.

‘Getting Job Done’

Austal USA spokesman Craig Hooper said his company’s first vessel, the USS Independence, “has been quietly getting the job done, doing the critical yet low-profile work required to deploy cutting-edge mine warfare tools and sensors.”

Representative Duncan Hunter, a California Republican, and Senate Armed Services Committee leaders Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, and John McCain, an Arizona Republican, also have requested that the GAO assess concerns about the ship’s sea frame and mission equipment.

“Sure, there are criticisms and we kind of welcome those, but it helps us kind of sharpen our focus on what it is we need to go work on,” Rear Admiral Thomas Rowden, the Navy’s director of surface warfare, told reporters yesterday. “But these are incredibly capable ships, and we are finding the issues and addressing them.”

Lockheed, General Dynamics

Lockheed Martin, based in Bethesda, Maryland, is leading construction of its ship model in Marinette Marine Corp.’s shipyard in Marinette, Wisconsin. The other version is being built in Mobile, Alabama, by a team led by Austal, based in Henderson, Australia, and General Dynamics, based in Falls Church, Virginia.

Completion of 55 ships in the class would represent about 17 percent of a surface fleet with aircraft carriers, destroyers and amphibious assault ships.

The Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan group that has criticized the ship, issued a report last month using year-old Navy documents to highlight construction difficulties.

McCain said cracks, flooding and corrosion problems on the first ships have been corrected, and construction costs have declined from a peak of more than $700 million a ship to less than $360 million.

Mission Modules

“Over the last year, nearly all of the reported deficiencies have been fixed on the lead ships and design changes have been integrated into the follow-ships with minor cost impact,” McCain said in an April 30 statement. He said his concern now is with the ship’s “mission modules,” equipment that can be installed depending on the combat assignment.

A lack of progress in developing the modules may “throw the program out of sync and threaten its success,” McCain said in the statement.

The equipment includes an $89.4 million “mine- countermine” module designed to detect and neutralize mines at varying depths. Northrop Grumman Corp. is the prime contractor for the modules.

The mine detection system isn’t meeting its combat specifications for distinguishing between mines and other objects in a search area as well as detecting and pinpointing a mine’s depth, according to the Pentagon’s director of operational test and evaluation.

The Navy program office rates the counter-mine module’s performance characteristics as “yellow,” the middle category in a grading system with green for best and red for worst, according to program review documents.
SOURCE: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/05/10/bloomberg_articlesM3RWBV6JTSEC01-M3TJG.DTL#ixzz1uZQpRT95

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Independence is the first littoral combat ship built at Austal USA'sMobile River shipyard

A new report from Maritime Reporter & Engineering News sheds a little more light on the corrosion issues that hampered the U.S.S. Independence earlier this year.

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Willamette Locks Closed due to Corrosion

Corrosion has forced the closure of the locks at Willamette Falls, and Congress doesn’t have the money to fix them. Diana Fredlund, with the Army Corps of Engineers says they’re not used often enough by commercial river traffic.

The federal government sank more than $2 million of stimulus money into attempts to salvage the 138-year-old series of locks that gave commercial and pleasure boats access around the 40-foot falls.

But corps officials say the anchors on three of seven gates are near failure, and there’s no money to fix them.

“The level of risk of something bad happening has reached the point where we cannot in good conscience continue operating those locks for any reason,” said Scott Clemans, a spokesman for the Corps’ Portland division.

The locks have been open on only a limited basis in recent years, but the closure will have an economic impact, for example 10-15 jobs at Wilsonville Concrete Products and Marine Industrial Construction.

Owner Dave Bernert’s family has operated tugboats and businesses moving material through the locks since the 1880s.

The closure, he said, strands two dredges, three tugboats and four barges in the upper portion of the river. It also cuts him off from his moorage site in Wilsonville, leaving him to look for alternatives downstream. The idled equipment means he’ll need fewer workers for his marine business.

About 75 people work full time for the companies. Bernert said he hopes to retrain laid-off workers for his concrete business.

“We’re going to do our best to make sure we don’t have to let anybody go,” he said. “But if we can’t work jobs with 20 percent of the equipment, we don’t need the people.”

The locks 25 miles south of the Willamette’s confluence with the Columbia are more than 3,500 feet long, with seven gates and four chambers that raise or lower vessels. They opened on Jan. 1, 1873, and had several owners. The government bought the infrastructure in 1915.

A report, completed last December, identified the anchors as a source of concern. Clemans said it wasn’t a surprise.

“We’ve known for years that the locks has a laundry list of issues,” said Clemans. “We’ve spent the money that Congress asked us to spend to do the things Congress has asked us to do. But that’s only a fraction of what’s needed to return the locks to full operational ability.”

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Loading facilities, docks and shorelines, the shipping canals; the very foundation of industry here is built on an underwater steel infrastructure. But it’s corroding, and failing.

It’s falling victim to an aggressive form of fresh water corrosion.

Chad Scott is with an engineering company based in Superior. He first discovered the unique form of corrosion back in 1998 and brought it to the attention of the scientific community.

Today, his focus has turned to helping repair the harbor and protect it from further damage.

“There were a couple of projects in the harbor we were called to inspect that had already completely failed. They had gotten so thin and with the forces on them, the steel actually bent so you can’t repair it at that point,” Scott said.

Replacing all the steel in the harbor would be a monumental task, taking years and costing hundreds of millions of dollars. But does it all have to be replaced? Not necessarily, if the corrosion is caught early enough.

It also depends on individual docks. There are some docks that have actually commenced replacement projects and there are other ones that have gone through protective procedures.

Good news for the port, because it owns such a large amount of steel shoreline. Last summer they repaired this entire dock line, a $6 million fix.

From federal to local, that effort includes UMD’s Biology Department, and Dean Dr. Randall Hicks. Dr. Hicks says it’s a multi-agency battle because there are global implications.

“Corrosion is a major problem world-wide. it’s responsible for huge economic losses and there’s a lot of effort put in to try and prevent corrosion, even on your cars with better primers and paints. The problem is in a harbor you have steel that’s submerged and it’s very expensive to replace it or to mitigate the problem.”

Dr. Hicks said we are beginning to understand the problem. But in order to find real, long term solutions, additional research needs to be done. and research takes money.

“We are doing our best to gather as much information as we can so we can keep the study moving forward. But without additional funding it’s not going to go forward.”

The short term goal is to save the steel that can still be saved. Long term, researchers hope new alloys and materials will be developed for future construction that can stand up to this aggressive corrosion.

Divers have been measuring corrosion rates over the last two years, both in and outside the harbor. It’s research that may not only help us, but ports around the world.

SOURCE: http://www.wdio.com/article/stories/S2378127.shtml?cat=10335

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While the Cedar Grove Reservoir is drained, workers will go in and repair corrosion damage, inspect its conduits and fix leakage.

While the Cedar Grove Reservoir is drained, workers will go in and repair corrosion damage, inspect its conduits and fix leakage.

The process of draining the reservoir, which is located along Ridge Road, is expected to take three to four months. During that time, water customers in towns supplied by the reservoir may notice some discoloration or changes to the taste of the water, but officials say the water is safe to drink.

The City of Newark owns the reservoir and the city’s Department of Water and Sewer Utilities for the City of Newark along with Mayor Cory A. Booker, explained that the discoloration occurs when valves are opened and closed during the drainage process. The Great Notch reservoir, owned by the Passaic Valley Water Commission and located in Woodland Park, will supply additional water to customers, so there is no interruption in the supply or quality of water while the repair work is being done.

“We are working to upgrade and modernize our water system and to provide residents with the highest quality water supply in the nation,” said Booker. “This repair work will require us to drain and inspect the Cedar Grove Reservoir, which may cause temporary discoloration or a change in the water’s taste. But the wate rprovided will be safe to use.”

City officials say there is a leak in the outlet tunnel and corrosion damage to the 60-inch water main. The main also needs a new valve.

The reservoir provides water for Newark, Belleville, Bloomfield, and some areas of East Orange. Every decade or so, the reservoir is drained and cleaned of debris. Its pipes are inspected, and then it is re-filled. The project is expected to finish on April 30 of next year, according to Township Manager Thomas Tucci, who said the project will not create any issues to residents.

The city has not drained the reservoir since 1990 to perform repairs. Water samples are taken daily from the reservoir and tested to make sure the water quality complies with safe water drinking standards. Discoloration does not make the water unsafe, officials say, but could cause discoloration while washing clothes.

“There may be some slight color changes during the switchover,” said Andrew Pappachen, Director of Operations for the Newark Watershed Conservation and Development Corp. “However, we will ensure the potability by maintaining sufficient chlorine residual in the water. We will be monitoring the water quality more often.”

SOURCE: http://southward.patch.com/articles/reservoir-drainage-may-affect-local-drinking-water

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The report says: “While the balustrade is overall in what can be considered in fair condition, the connection to the primary beam is near to failure and is considered dangerous.”

THE INSPECTION in the United Kingdom which led to the closure of the footbridge to Whitby’s West Pier extension has revealed a long standing history of corrosion and decay.

Scarborough Borough Council’s report, compiled the day after the inspection a fortnight ago talks of “corrosion”, “failure” and “dangerous”.

The inspector examined the primary beams which are positioned at either side of the bridge and secondary beams which sit between them and support the wooden decking which pedestrians walk on.

Findings suggest the beams have not been painted or treated for some considerable time and given the exposure to airborne seasalt this has accelerated corrosion.

The report states: “The primary and secondary beams may once have been painted but there is now no evidence of a painted surface to any of the beams or associated fixings.

“This has resulted in significant corrosion leading to delamination which can be expected to result in a significant reduction in functionality.”

The primary beams which span 11.7 meters and 13 meters are undersized for the load it is carrying according to current British standards.

Furthermore supporting steel work appears to be 20% corroded and associated fixings are “exhibiting signs of extensive corrosion greater than 50% of their net cross section which could lead to failure of the beams.”

The balustrade posts and railings are painted but spot chips and cracks in the finishing coat were noted along with corrosion staining.

But the metalwork which fixed the posts and railings to the bridge are severely corroded.

The report says: “While the balustrade is overall in what can be considered in fair condition, the connection to the primary beam is near to failure and is considered dangerous.”

The report’s suggested future options have done nothing to stop rumours circulating town that the bridge is to be demolished and access to the extension being permanently cut off.

Three possible ways forward include: bridge removal and abandonment of access, replacement of the footbridge in its entirety or another more detailed inspection and refurbishment which would include removing the bridge to allow for the works.

But the report says this could be more costly than replacement.

Council member Joe Plant, who represents the West Cliff ward, said the first he heard of any issues with the extension and the footbridge was when he learned it had been closed along with everyone else and as far as he was concerned demolition or permanent closure “was not an option”.

He told the Gazette: “I have asked the question and in my view we should be looking at replacing the east and the west from the same funding pot.

“I have also asked for the maintenance regime. If this has not been done, why not? I know money is tight at the moment for a lot of things but at the end of the day if you maintain things it will save you money in the long run.”

Brian Bennett, SBC’s head of tourism and culture has said officers are looking at the possibility of re-opening the bridge to limited foot traffic pending a further inspection that requires scaffolding being put up.

This had to be postponed last week due to high winds but Mr Bennett added SBC had been in touch with English Heritage and a bridge manufacturer about a replacement.

If this goes ahead it is likely it will be manufactured off site, then delivered and installed.

SOURCE: http://www.whitbygazette.co.uk/news/local/footbridge_closed_as_it_s_dangerous_1_3790004

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Evidence of the corrosion can be seen on the St. Augustine Beach pier, one that's 25 years old and nearing the end of its lifespan.

According to St. Johns County officials, the stretch of coastline from south Georgia to Fort Lauderdale is the most corrosive in the nation.

Evidence of the corrosion can be seen on the St. Augustine Beach pier, one that’s 25 years old and nearing the end of its lifespan.

Janice Vose, who spent her time under the pier Tuesday, said she had the best seat on the beach.

“It’s shady. There’s a breeze,” Vose said.

But what she didn’t know was she could have been in danger.

A few months ago, during a routine inspection, an engineering firm found the pier has problems, most visibly the corrosion on the pilings holding it up and cracks in the concrete.

Engineers advised the county to take action, so county officials installed netting under the pier to catch any falling debris and also posted warning and danger signs to be extra safe.

“A small chance, a remote chance that some concrete could spall off of the concrete structure portion due to the rebar rusting and cause a problem, so we put up the signs as a precautionary measure,” said Mike Rubin, St. Johns County director of construction.

Most people walk right under the pier without noticing the signs, but Rubin said it would take a big storm to knock down such a sturdy structure.

“If a failure were to come, it would be when the pier would be under maximum stress during a hurricane event or a big storm or big wave action, and there’d be no one on the pier at that time anyway,” Rubin said.

The 650-foot-long pier is supported by pilings up to 36 inches in diameter.

“Those metal pilings that you’re seeing are actually filled with concrete,” Rubin said. “There’s rebar in the top 10 feet of them, and while the concrete doesn’t really provide a lot of lateral structural strength, the real strength is in the pilings themselves.”

The big question is exactly how much the pilings have decayed over time. Until that’s answered, Vose said she’s staying put.

“I’m in paradise. I feel so grateful,” she said.

The county plans to have the engineering firm take a closer look to evaluate the extent of the damage, and then the board will decide what to do. A new pier is a possibility in St. Augustine’s future, but it would probably be about five years before one could be built.

SOURCE: http://www.news4jax.com/news/28884204/detail.html

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In a July 27 letter to the GAO, Hunter, joined by Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., cited his concerns about the program’s historic cost overruns and schedule delays, and more recent corrosion and structural issues with the ships.

Hunter and Wittman asked the GAO to “review and as necessary update the August 2010 [GAO] report on the LCS program.” Specifically, the lawmakers want GAO to examine:

■ what the Navy is doing to overcome technical design flaws in the first two ships;

■ what the Navy is doing to make sure follow-on ships are delivered with cost and time estimates;

■ what actions the Navy has taken to make certain that mission packages have the capabilities they were intended to have; and

■ provide performance and operational maintenance date on the propulsion systems for both LCS variants.

Hunter, in a July 1 letter to Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, had asked the service “to immediately conduct a formal review of the entire LCS program, provide an assessment of the technical design flaws of the current fleet and determine the best way forward to include the possibility of rebidding this contract so that the program can be put back on a fiscally responsible path to procurement.”

Mabus, in a July 7 reply, said the Navy had “faced and overcome the program’s past cost and schedule challenges,” and addressed many of the issues presented in the GAO’s 2010 report.

Noting that both ships have yet to complete all test and trial programs, Mabus wrote that the service now “is confident that we are on a path of success” with LCS.

In addition to Hunter, a group of seven senators, led by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., have questioned the Pentagon’s handling of the LCS program. In a July 12 letter to Pentagon acquisition chief Ash Carter, the group questioned the Pentagon’s certification procedures allowing the program to go forward, and asked for more information on corrosion problems affecting the ships.

Joe Kasper, a spokesman for Hunter, explained that the San Diego-area congressman’s intent “is not to terminate the program.”

Rather, Kasper said, “it’s about efficiency of production, it’s about efficiency of dollars. And if there’s an opportunity to improve production and reduce costs in the process, then that’s important and something worth considering.”

SOURCE: http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=7220977&c=AME&s=SEA

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After an unsuccessful attempt to raise The Reliance out of the water Monday night, crews from Global Diving & Salvage Inc. were called in Tuesday morning.

They strapped multiple air bags to the 32-foot vessel and lifted it while pumping out water. The boat then was towed to shore, hoisted on a trailer and parked on the other side of the marina.

Crews discovered the cause of the problem as soon as the boat was raised from Puget Sound. Water began gushing back into the boat from a 2-inch metal pipe beneath The Reliance’s deck.

“It was kind of a battle to see how fast we could pump the water out and how fast it was coming in,” sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer said.

The pipe is one of two used to cool the engine.

“It’s a part that shouldn’t have failed,” Troyer said.

Although crews do regular maintenance on the boat, officials said, the corrosion wouldn’t necessarily have been seen on the outside of the pipe.

An insurance company employee inspected the boat after it was pulled from the water. Although it’s too soon to know, it’s possible that workers can salvage the twin diesel engines, hull and other high-ticket parts.

Marine experts are expected to inspect the vessel Wednesday and salvage what they can.

It’s too early to know whether the boat will be more expensive to repair or replace, Troyer said.

“If we can salvage it, we sure will,” he said.

The Reliance is the only patrol/rescue boat deputies use on Puget Sound. Tacoma and Gig Harbor police are on call for any problems on the waterway, but the Sheriff’s Office plans to move one of its patrol boats from a county lake while the sunken boat is assessed.

A family pulling in to get gas at the marina noticed the sinking boat Monday afternoon. Within 25 minutes, all of it was underwater except an antenna mast.

The Reliance has patrolled the Puget Sound since it was commissioned in 1994. It is valued at $500,000, officials said Monday.

The county spent $260,000 to have the boat built in 1994. It has spent more than $100,000 since to put in new engines and upgrade the electronics.

SOURCE: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/theblotter/2015663792_sheriffboat.html

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Standard Oil Tanker W.L.Steed was torpedoed in 1942.

On the evening of Feb. 2, 1942, an unarmed tanker with 66,000 barrels of crude oil on board was steaming in the Atlantic, about 90 miles off Ocean City. Without warning, it was struck by German torpedoes. The attack set the W.L. Steed ablaze, and sank it; only a handful of the crew of 38 survived.

As World War II unfolded, the Germans had moved part of their sub pack west to attack shipping along the coast. By the time the Nazis withdrew the subs in July to focus on convoys crossing the North Atlantic, they had sunk 397 ships in U.S. coastal waters.

That wartime legacy has become a new environmental problem, raising concern about leaks from the W.L. Steed’s sunken fuel bunkers and cargo — and from many others like it.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is taking an inventory of more than 30,000 coastal shipwrecks — some of them casualties of the 1942 Battle of the Atlantic — and identifying those that pose the most significant threat.

“We’re starting to see significant corrosion. Vessels that weren’t totally torpedoed didn’t break apart and may have intact fuel tanks,” NOAA’s Lisa C. Symons said.

It’s not just the ship’s own fuel bunkers, either. Many, like the W.L. Steed, sank with holds filled with crude oil, fuel oil, diesel fuel and explosives. Leaks of those products “could devastate coastal communities and coastal environments,” Symons said.

So far, the worst-threat list has been narrowed to 233 vessels, said Symons, damage assessment and resource protection coordinator for NOAA’s National Marine Sanctuaries office in Silver Spring.

The final list will be submitted by year’s end to the Coast Guard. Once priorities are established, efforts to remove the oil from the wrecks could begin, paid through the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which is supported by the oil industry.

While NOAA’s risk assessments are not complete, Symons did identify five sunken ships — four within 60 miles of the coast — that could make the list as environmental threats to Maryland. They include:

• John Morgan, a Liberty ship built in 1943 at the Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyards in Baltimore. In June 1943, on its maiden voyage, it collided with another vessel off Cape Henry and sank with a cargo of fighter planes, tanks, arms and ammunition. Sixty-seven crew members and armed guards perished.

• Marine Electric, a coal carrier out of Norfolk, Va. With 3,600 barrels of fuel oil in its bunkers, it foundered in heavy seas and sank 30 miles east of Chincoteague Inlet in February 1983. Thirty-one of the 34 crew members died in the frigid water.

• Varanger, a Norwegian tanker. It was torpedoed on Jan. 25, 1942, while carrying 12,750 tons of fuel oil. As the crew took to lifeboats, the Germans fired three more torpedoes. The ship sank 28 miles southeast of Atlantic City, N.J., but the lifeboats were spotted and fishing boats towed them to shore.

• India Arrow, an oil tanker. On Feb. 5, 1942, the tanker, carrying 88,369 barrels of diesel fuel, was torpedoed 20 miles southeast of Cape May, N.J. Nine officers and 29 crew abandoned ship, but only 12 survived.

Spills from wrecks are a global threat, with the highest concentration of ships lying in the western Pacific. But the U.S. coastline, too, is littered with vessels sunk by Japanese and German submarines, in collisions or storms.

NOAA is using a $1 million appropriation secured last year by Maryland Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski and Rep. Elijah E. Cummings to inventory wrecks and identify environmental threats. Part of NOAA’s task has been to comb through ship manifests, naval records, reports of sinkings, insurance documents and survivors’ accounts to determine which ships burned and which probably went down with their fuel and cargo.

From that, the agency can work to identify those posing the greatest risk of leaking, and those offering opportunities for salvage operations to recover the oil or other cargo before it becomes a costly spill.

Some are already leaking. The most famous example is the 608-foot battleship USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Sunk Dec. 7, 1941, during the Japanese attack, it went down with 1,177 sailors on board, and 1.1 million gallons of fuel. About half of that fuel remains on board and continues to leak into the harbor.

At a Baltimore conference last month, David L. Conlin of the National Park Service said his study of the leak found that previously intact fuel compartments are still corroding, rupturing and releasing their contents.

While Conlin’s study concluded there is “no pressing need” for “invasive” procedures to enter the ship — which is a war grave — to recover the fuel, it also suggests how long these 70-year-old wrecks may remain environmental concerns.

“Three hundred sixty years from now, in the core part of the USS Arizona, the oil bunkers here will still have significant structural integrity,” he said.

SOURCE (and Read More): http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2011-07-08/news/bs-md-shipwreck-oil-20110708_1_fuel-oil-fuel-bunkers-crude-oil

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