New Jersey

Philly shipyard hopes battleship mostly in good condition, but ready if not

Published

2 months ago

March 14, 2024

Philly shipyard hopes battleship mostly in good condition, but ready if not

PHILADELPHIA — “Small” is an adjective rarely used with the Battleship New Jersey, but its upcoming stop for dry dock maintenance here is one of those times.

The BB-62 deal rates as a “small” contract for Philadelphia Ship Repair, a company that leases the dry dock at the Navy Yard and largely uses it for military vessels.

Donna Connors, the firm’s chief operating officer, says the 45,000-ton (unloaded) New Jersey is notable for the weight of its armor and the sharp taper to its bow but still is “pretty average” for a battleship.

Connors said the work crew might have 40 to 50 people when the New Jersey arrives.

How big? How fast? How much? Battleship New Jersey by the numbers. Here are some interesting facts

“Because there’s a lot of line handling, a lot of services, a lot of stuff that needs to be done,” Connors said. “And then, we’ll probably dip down into the mid-20 area or so and spike up towards the end when we have to undock her.”

Battleship New Jersey has a dry dock history

The New Jersey last was in a dry dock in 1991 when the Navy decommissioned her in California. Work was done on the ship in 1999 at the former Philadelphia Naval Shipyard to make her usable as a museum.

“We were not dry docked during our 1999 yard period,” battleship curator Ryan Szimanski said of the Battleship New Jersey Museum amd Memorial.

“The last time we were out of the water was during our deactivation work” at Long Beach, California, in 1990.

The New Jersey is not the biggest vessel the Philadelphia yard has handled. And its hull shape is not especially challenging in terms of designing and cutting the supporting cement and wood blocks it will rest on during repairs.

“Up in Boston, right now, we’re dry docking a … catamaran-type vessel,” Connors said. “So, we actually have two keel tracks and those have significant shape to them. It changes each block. That one’s a much more detailed build than what the battleship is.”

Why so many battle stars? Battleship New Jersey by the numbers. Here are some interesting facts

The battleship is scheduled for a two-month stay, with repairs expected to cost less than $10 million. The work will be almost entirely external and directed at the underwater portion of the hull. Work below decks will be to systems linked to the hull.

Connors said the basic requirement is getting the battleship into Dry Dock 3, which then is drained of roughly 6 million gallons of water. New Jersey will come to rest on a very specific arrangement of supporting concrete and wood blocks, exposed to a range of visual and mechanical inspections.

Long-submerged secrets being exposed

“We look at all the underwater hull apertures or pieces and parts,” Connors said. “The propellers, the rudders, the skeg. Various areas you typically don’t see when it’s in the water.”

The “skeg,” for example, runs along the bottom of the vessel. It is a tapering or projecting stern section of keel protecting the propellers and supporting the rudders.

The New Jersey, like other vessels, incorporates hull openings to allow water to come in and leave in support of different systems. “Blanks,” or bolt-on covers, are used to seal those openings.

New Jersey got an estimated 132 blanks installed at the 1991 decommissioning, and the museum has said at least one has failed. Pressurized air is shot in to determine whether a blank is holding.

“In addition to that, we’ll be painting the underwater hull to ensure that the hull maintains a good paint job for the next 20 years until she dry docks again,” Connors said.

Connors said the testing of the blanks will happen at the same time as the painting. “The paint is the critical path of the project and will take the longest to complete,” she said.

Getting the maintenance done now is important to avoid more expensive repairs in the future, said Jack Willard, a spokesman for the battleship museum.

“Again, we’re very fortunate we’re in the Delaware where it’s not saltwater,” Willard said. “So, that’s helped things. The ship is in good shape, as far as we know. We’ll obviously learn more at dry dock.”

The shipyard also will do something known as “fleeting,” an old term for ensuring the hull paint job is as thorough as possible.

“Obviously, where the ship sets down on these blocks, you can’t paint,” Connors said. “Right? So, when we’re done painting the entire underwater, and it dries, we’re going to refloat the vessel, shift her back a bit, and reset her down so the spaces that were covered by the blocks are now in-between the blocks. And we’re going to paint them, too.”

A thick, thorough paint job is critical to prevent corrosion and fend off sea life seeking to attack to the hull.

Additionally, New Jersey has about 1,304 zinc anodes bolted on its underwater hull as protection against corrosion.

“When it’s underwater, the water and the biological and the fish and all those microorganisms attack the anodes before the steel because it’s easier for them to eat those away,” Connors said. “And we are changing them out to aluminum anodes for them.”

The dry dock stay also will expose the extent of erosion for the ship’s hull plating.

Connors consider it “very likely” some plates will need replacing. “But again, it depends on the paint system and how long the paint system held, if the anodes were working properly,” she said.

“On an older ship like this, what they call the `wind and the water strike’ is the most susceptible,” Connors said. “And that’s because it’s not 100-percent under water and it’s not 100-percent dry.”

Those conditions can cause “pitting,” or weak spots.

They will be assessed using an ultrasonic testing, or UT gauging, machine on random spots over the hull. About 5,000 ultrasonic “shots” are expected to be done.

“And then, if we find an area that is a little susceptible?” Connors said. “We’ll do more shots in that area.”

Joe Smith is a N.E. Philly native transplanted to South Jersey 36 years ago, keeping an eye now on government in South Jersey. He is a former editor and current senior staff writer for The Daily Journal in Vineland, Courier-Post in Cherry Hill, and the Burlington County Times.

Have a tip? Reach out at jsmith@thedailyjournal.com. Support local journalism with a subscription.

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New Jersey

What’s next for OPRA? NJ Legislature has not resurfaced ‘reform’ bill on public records

Published

4 hours ago

May 2, 2024

Press Room

What’s next for OPRA? NJ Legislature has not resurfaced ‘reform’ bill on public records

3-minute read

After being fast-tracked two months ago, a bill that would gut access to public records hasn’t returned to the calendar in either chamber of the New Jersey Legislature.

Introduced in early March, the bill — sponsored by state Sen. Paul Sarlo, D-Bergen, — cleared his budget committee one week later, but not before dozens of advocates spoke out against the bill and what it would do.

It was then pulled from the agenda for the Assembly Appropriations Committee just minutes before it was set to start.

Where is the bill now?

Many expected the bill to turn back up, especially after state Senate President Nicholas Scutari said in March he thought that by mid-April the Legislature will take up the bill, with “mostly clarification amendments.”

The state Senate president also said the Legislature is “going to try” to make the amendments available for viewing before they are heard in committee.

“Those amendments are being worked on as we speak, and they’re bicameral and bipartisan, so both sides of the aisle and both houses are coming up with things that are going to satisfy both, and I think you’re going to see the bill overwhelmingly pass,” Scutari said.

That bipartisan support shows in the addition of Republican sponsors in both chambers — state Sen. Anthony Bucco in the upper chamber and Assemblywoman Victoria Flynn in the lower chamber.

Sarlo had said in an interview at the end of March that he’s “made it clear. If we don’t get this done by the first week of April, I gave it a great shot and we’ll probably table it for another 20 years.”

The proposed legislation didn’t show up in either chamber in April — but attention hasn’t waned for advocates. OPRA was at the forefront of an event at Rider University on Tuesday and was a topic at a Garden State Initiative forum on Wednesday. Neither Sarlo nor lower chamber sponsor Assemblyman Joe Danielsen appeared at either event.

Organizers of the Rider event said that Sarlo had been invited but declined due to scheduling conflicts on Tuesday.

Bucco and Flynn were present during the Garden State Initiative event in New Brunswick Wednesday.

Requests for comment about the status of the bill and possible amendments to Sarlo and Danielsen went unanswered.

Bucco said in a statement he joined as a sponsor on the bill because he believes “our state’s current OPRA law allows New Jerseyans to play a significant role in our democratic process and that government transparency is of the utmost importance” but that “there have been bad actors who aim to benefit financially from bad-faith OPRA requests that exploit the system.”

He went on to say that there are there are people posting videos of young women on social media and “private businesses attempting to gain potential consumer information” which leads to an “unnecessary burden on municipal and state staff” and that it’s his “goal to prevent such exploitation without limiting legitimate access to public records by the press or others.”

Bucco also said that he wants to “ensure requestors who win OPRA lawsuits get reasonably compensated when government agencies unreasonably deny legitimate access to documents.”

NJ open records law could be gutted: Here’s what NorthJersey.com has unearthed using OPRA

What would the bill do?

In its current form the bill, creates exemptions for access to email and call logs, dog license information, email addresses and even digital calendars. Requests for email would need to include a “specific subject matter” and “discrete and limited time period” as well as a specific person, instead of a title or government department.

The bill would also ban the release of metadata, which is the information about when an electronic file was created and who created it.

Requests that an agency thinks could lead to “harassment” could be denied, and an official OPRA request form would need to be used. One of the most noted changes would be to the policy regarding attorney’s fees in the event of a lawsuit.

Requesters who win OPRA lawsuits “may” be entitled to legal fees if the public agency is found to have knowingly violated the law or unreasonably denied access.

The legislation was first enacted in 2002 and requires local, county and state government entities to provide the public with access to government records in New Jersey.

Gov. Phil Murphy would not comment on the specifics of pending legislation during a regular “Ask Governor Murphy” segment on WNYC in March but did say he thought OPRA needed to be tweaked, given the way that technology has changed in the years since it was implemented, and that he’s heard anecdotally about concerns regarding commercial use of the process.

“We are all in on transparency,” he said. “I would think if you get something that would address some of the things I just mentioned in a fair way that doesn’t undermine transparency, that’s something that I’m open-minded to … I haven’t seen anyone with nefarious behavior here. I think there are people who are legitimately trying to address some issues with the system, but we are all in on transparency most importantly. Period. Full stop.”

Katie Sobko covers the New Jersey Statehouse. Email: sobko@northjersey.com

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New Jersey

Chicago Bears announce new jersey numbers

Published

12 hours ago

May 1, 2024

Press Room

Chicago Bears announce new jersey numbers

Earlier today, the Chicago Bears officially announced the uniform numbers of their new free-agent additions and their 2024 draft class. The current roster has 72 players, so once the undrafted free agent class is announced, more rookie jersey numbers will be issued. Chicago’s rookie minicamp will be on May 10 and 11, so that announcement should be soon.

Here’s the full list of new numbers, along with the previous Bear that wore that number.

Bears Draft Class

15: Rome Odunze, WR (Trent Taylor, WR 2023)

18: Caleb Williams, QB (Robert Tonyan, TE 2023)

19: Tory Taylor, Pr (Equanimeous St. Brown, WR 2023)

72: Kiran Amegadjie, OL (Michael Dwumfour, DL 2023)

94: Austin Booker, DE (Rasheem Green, DL 2023)

Veteran Free Agents

4: D’Andre Swift, RB (Eddie Jackson, S 2023)

The Bears’ unofficial ban of number #0 continues.

11: Brett Rypien, QB (Darnell Mooney, WR 2023)

13: Keenan Allen, WR (Tyler Scott, WR 2023)

14: Gerald Everett, TE (Nathan Peterman, QB 2023)

30: Tarvarius Moore, S (Joejuan Williams, CB 2023)

31: Kevin Byard III, S (Jaylon Jones, CB 2023)

36: Jonathan Owens, S (DeAndre Houston-Carson, S 2022)

37: Corliss Waitman, P (Duron Harmon, S 2023)

38: Douglas Coleman III, DB (A.J. Thomas, S 2023)

43: Cameron Lyons, LS (DeMarquis Gates, LB 2023)

45: Amen Ogbongbemiga, LB (Buddy Johnson, LB 2023)

55: Jacob Martin, DE (Dylkan Cole, LB 2023)

65: Coleman Shelton, C (Cody Whitehair, OL 2023)

71: Ryan Bates, iOL (Riley Reiff, OT 2022)

73: Jake Curhan, OT (Michael Schofield, OL 2022)

79: Matt Pryor, OT (Michael Schofield, OL 2022)

81: Dante Pettis, WR (Jake Tonges, TE 2022)

93: Byron Cowart, DT (Justin Jones, DT 2023)

Bears With New Numbers

1: Jaylon Johnson, CB (Justin Fields, QB 2023)

10: Tyler Scott, WR (Chase Claypool, WR 2023)

21: Jaylon Jones, CB (D’Onta Foreman, RB 2023)

78: Michael Dwumfour, DT (Roy Mbaeteka, OL 2023)

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New Jersey

New Jersey teen arrested for swatting Bayonne school

Published

19 hours ago

May 1, 2024

Press Room

New Jersey teen arrested for swatting Bayonne school

A 15-year-old New Jersey girl was arrested for swatting William Shemin Midtown Community School in Bayonne.

It’s unclear if the teenager accused of falsely alerting police to an emergency situation attends the 1,200 student elementary school she shut down for about an hour Monday morning, according to NJ.Com.

Law enforcement closed streets near the campus while making sure the apparent prank posed no risk.

“At no time was the safety of any student, faculty member, or general public at risk,” the Bayonne Police Department said in a statement posted Wednesday.

School officials announced a shelter in place order when the incident unfolded, then lifted the order soon after realizing the report was a hoax.

“Please be advised that the shelter in place has been lifted and all is well at the Den,” the “Home of the Bears” posted Monday.

The suspect in Monday’s swatting reportedly faces a fourth-degree felony charge that would land an adult in prison for up to 18 months. A $10,000 fine could also be imposed.

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