BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — After years of concerning leaks aboard USS The Sullivans, the retired World War II ship docked in the Buffalo River will be forced to wait another year for the repairs it needs to stay afloat.
Paul Marzello and Bill Abbott with the Buffalo and Erie County Naval & Military Park have been fighting to keep the USS The Sullivans afloat for years.
Back in 2022, the Sullivans partially sank into the Buffalo River. Naval park leadership reported a major breach in the hull caused the ship to take on water.
Since then, the park has continued patching dozens of smaller holes in the ship's hull with concrete.
“It is very challenging to try and keep them afloat, because they are going to rust, and they will continue to rust,” Marzello, the park’s President/CEO, said.
“Based on the condition this last winter, she was flooding, and we’re talking flooding at different areas of the ship at different rates, every several days,” Abbott, the park’s Director of Operations, said. “The ship, especially below the water line, it continues to degrade at an advanced rate. I have a piece of steel from The Sullivans on my desk, you can take it and crush it in your hands.”
Over that time, more than $21 million in funding was raised in hopes of getting the ship, as well as the submarine, the USS Croaker, to dry dock for emergency repairs to stabilize the ships’ hulls and preserve them for years to come. But, the ships will have to wait.
In the park’s newsletter, it says repairs this coming October “will not be possible due to administrative delays related to insurance and documentation letterhead. The earliest possible and exceedingly narrow window will now be October of 2026.”
“This is not a money problem, this is a problem with executing the process,” Marzello said. “We know in all of that process it takes time, time that we don’t think we have any longer.”
Abbott told me a museum ship like this should be taken out of the water every 10 to 20 years for repairs, however, the last time The Sullivans had that kind of work done was the 1960s.
While the park does take care of the ships, they’re actually owned by the City of Buffalo.
“The City is moving diligently through required documentation necessary for the over $20 million in funding programs with numerous local, state and federal agencies and simultaneously finalizing the procurement, awaiting final insurance documentation, of the marine architect firm that will lead the preparation and management of the restoration process.
There are no deadlines in this complex process of restoration that the City is missing. The City continues to work closely and communicate with all parties, including the Naval Park, as we push forward with the process.”
“We just want some accountability of where we are in the process, and why we can’t move forward,” Marzello said.
“There will be more flooding, that’s an inevitability. The extent, we don’t know,” Abbott said.
