7. Conanicut Marine Services, Inc.

Marina's Inland Boatyard/Storage Reduces Environmental Risks and Costs

Environmental change

Off-site boat repair and storage at two inland sites avoids potential environmental harm to the bay at this downtown marina and mooring basin.

The full-service marina

Conanicut Marine Services, located at the site of the former Newport-Jamestown ferry terminal, continues maritime industry use of the shore that started in 1675. The Mungers built the East Ferry Marina in 1974 in the old ferry basin and pier under a lease from Jamestown. The marina was expanded and doubled in 1995 with the addition of Conanicut Marina, also owned by the Mungers. It has more than 1,200 feet of fixed pier dockage and wet storage capacity for 305 boats (100 slips and 205 moorings), with a minimum 10-foot water depth. Of these, 48 slips and 20 moorings are held open for transient boat visits, so important to the local economy. During the 1995 boating season, the marina was sold out of seasonal slips and 90% of its moorings. The largest boat it can accommodate in a slip is 200 feet, with the average ranging from 28 to 30 feet LOA. The boats are split with 80% sailboats and 20% powerboats-about the opposite of most other marinas in the state. A public dinghy dock is provided for boats kept on moorings.

In addition to the slips, moorings, and transient dockage, Conanicut Marina offers an on-site fuel dock (gasoline and diesel), Conanicut Store, electronic sale/service, free pumpout, ice sales, launching/haulout, mast stepping, sail rigging repair, bottom cleaning, and used boat brokerage. Free slips are provided for the town boats of the harbormaster and fire department. A 20-ton and a 12-ton crane do most of the sailboat rigging and small boat launching off the marina pier. The marina's shore is a town park and public parking lot. Several fine restaurants, shops, and hotels are close to the docks.

While the dockage is seasonal, mostly between May 1 and mid-October, Conanicut Marina is a year-round, full-service marina with off-site, non-waterfront boat repair and dry storage. Twenty professionals are employed year-round, and an additional 10 work during the summer boating season. Boats are repaired at the Conanicut Marine Valley Street Shop, about 0.5 mile inland to the west of the marina. Services provided inside the heated shop buildings include fiberglass, painting, and engine repairs. The main Conanicut Marine Services office is located over the ship's store at the marina.

Conanicut Marine Services' Taylor Point Yard is an 11-acre boat storage yard, added in 1985. It is located 0.75 mile inland north of the marina basin. Over 30 boats up to 45 feet are dry-stored in two large sheds, with 150 more outside on cradles or trailers. Bottom painting, winterization, oil changes, and rigging repairs are done at the storage yard. To move the boats between the marina, shop, and yard, the marina has two submersible-type hydraulic trailers. The hot-dipped, galvanized trailers use a town ramp adjacent to the marina, while the cranes operate off a solid pier in the facility. The trailers added a new profit center, boat delivery service to homes across the state.

During a peak summer weekend, typically about 30% (approximately 80) of the boats in Conanicut Marina are used by customers. About 20% (or 50 boats) are used for sleepovers. Restrooms and showers, as with pumpouts, are free to customers. There are no liveaboards in the marina.

Within a 2-mile radius of the facility are three other marinas and boatyards, plus one yacht club. All five (including Conanicut) serve a boat population estimated at more than 1,000. During the 1995 season, Conanicut Marina began offering ferry service to and from Newport, reinstituting shuttle service between Narragansett Bay's two largest islands. After 300 years of operation, the service had been suspended in 1969 when the Newport Bridge opened.

Conanicut Marine Services is Jamestown's second-largest private employer with 22 full-time workers.

Management measures

Conanicut Marine Services complies with the marina management measure for storm water runoff control, as well as the measures for marina flushing, shoreline stabilization, sewage facility, sewage facility maintenance, solid waste, liquid materials, petroleum control, boat cleaning, and public education.

Costs/benefits

When Conanicut Marine Services bought its boatyard site in 1985, it saved an estimated $1,850,000 by buying 10 acres of land inland and another $20,000 by not needing coastal permits. In 1995 it paid $55,896 less property tax than it would have paid if the 10 acres had been located on coastal land. Although no shoreland property was available at the time Conanicut was purchasing the boatyard land, the price differential demonstrated the savings that are possible by shifting repair and storage away from the coast. Moving inland cost an additional $63,000-$25,000 to buy over-road hydraulic trailers (instead of yard-only boat-moving equipment) and $38,000 for a truck that would not have been needed for a waterfront boatyard. Hauling boats to the inland site cost an extra $6,768 in labor in 1995, but generated a new business of hauling boats to and from backyards, worth $75,000 annually.

Environmental improvements

The major clean marina benefits of Conanicut Marine Services locating its boatyard and repair services inland include the following:

1. Inland land costs much less than coastal land. "We decided we needed space to repair boats, and all the usable waterfront was gone," said Munger. "The only space I could find and afford was inland." In 1985 the Mungers purchased the inland yard at Taylor Point at a cost of $15,000 per acre. Back then the typical selling price for undeveloped waterfront land in Jamestown was $200,000 per acre, or 13 times more expensive. In 1995, the marina bought an additional acre for $20,000 to allow for yard expansion. We had to purchase a truck and hydraulic trailers legal for highway use. Those cost about $63,000 more than what the business would have spent for yard-only equipment. It does take extra time to move 180 boats between the marina ramp, shop, and yard. I estimate an additional 144 hours of labor this year costing $6,768 extra, for an average $38 extra per boat."

   Munger added, "Actually, having to buy over-road equipment was a blessing in disguise because we are now a licensed and insured boat hauler, which brought in another $75,000 just in 1995."

   "There is no way we could have afforded to buy 10 waterfront acres (even if available) for the boatyard either in 1985 or 1995. But we really needed to add service work to maintain a core of key personnel. By 1995 the boatyard generated $875,000 in service work."

   Boats are hauled by truck and hydraulic boat trailer for repair and storage at Conanicut Marine Service's inland boatyard.

2. Because of the lower per-acre value inland, the boatyard saves on annual town property taxes. In 1994, the marina's small shore land was valued by the town at $430,400 per acre, whereas the yard's 10 inland acres were valued at $34,000 per acre. If just the storage yard were on the waterfront-as is the case for nearly all other boatyards-Conanicut Marina would have paid $62,709 versus $6,813 in property tax; instead the marina saved $55,896 in 1995.

   Again, any tax saving on inland property is speculative and is estimated here only to demonstrate the economic benefits of the environmentally sound practice of inland boat storage and repairs.

3. No coastal permits are needed for changes for either the inland Valley Street Shop or Taylor Point Yard. "When we put up a storage shed, we only get a town building permit. But when our waterfront also needed work, it took 6 years to get the coastal permits. Our shortest time for a coastal permit was 1 year. However, Rhode Island's new marina perimeter permit program shortens maintenance work permits to about 1 month."

   The storage yard did not need either U.S. Army Corps of Engineers or Rhode Island coastal permits to be built. But based on cost and time needed for his marina permits, Bill Munger estimated that "we spent about $30,000 getting building permits for Taylor Point, but conservatively avoided another $20,000 by moving inland in 1985."

4. The boatyard and repair shop easily survive bad weather, uphill away from hurricane flood waters and other storm waves. Historically, almost all major hurricanes have flooded both buildings at the marina at great loss to the business, whereas the inland sites are about 50 feet above the flood-danger zone.

   "When we haul a boat, it is hauled on our safe ground, and we don't need to worry about it," Munger said. "We also have much lower building maintenance costs inland because they get no damage during floods." For example, on August 19, 1991, Hurricane Bob caused coastal flooding in Narragansett Bay 9 feet above mean high water. "Conanicut Marina suffered $60,000 damage to its docks and store, yet only $6,800 at the yard to repair shed doors which blew off, and no loss at the repair shop."

5. All boat and engine repairs are done inside buildings and are not subject to rain runoff problems. This makes controlling pollutants more effective and easier. Conanicut Marina has been using dustless sanders for over 5 years. "We came onto this early when the technology became available," Munger said.

Other improvements and benefits

Other environmental protection measures at the boatyard include permeable parking lots, a designated hull maintenance area, and spill-proof oil changing. The marina has oil spill gear at the fuel dock and encourages the use of oil pads in boat bilges. An outboard test tank at the shop has a water settling system to separate out the oil with absorption pads. Recycling of oil, cardboard, shrink-wrap plastic, bottles, cans, and batteries is done at all three sites.

"All our serious boatyard work-fiberglass, painting, mechanical overhauls-is done at our repair shop inland," Munger said. "At our storage yard, the boat sheds are spread out so we can easily move any boat in/out for work in our repair shop. That's a luxury few boatyards on the water can afford to have. Waterfront land is just too precious." The shop is 0.5 mile up the road west of the docks, and the storage yard is 0.75 mile north of the marina. The yard and shop are 1.5 miles apart, north to south. Trucking boat trailers averages 6 to 10 minutes from point to point.

"We do most of our boatyard work during the fall and winter when we have the island to ourselves, but try to avoid the peak tourist season in July and August," added Munger. "We are a boatyard which caters to both those folks who want to take their boat home (do-it-yourselfers) and those who want to hang their hat on a boatyard to do all the service work."

Because of over-road limitations-14 feet high by 13 feet wide-"We are not able to haul vessels greater than 50 feet LOA. We are really chasing the service market less than 44 feet for our winter (dry business) program. But in our summer (wet) program we are good up to 200 feet. When larger boats need haulout and dry-land work, we haul them to boatyards across the bay in Newport [Rhode Island] that specialize in 50-foot-plus vessels."

"Because we have a fuel dock and do bottom cleaning in the marina, we needed to apply for a Storm Water Permit under the state's general permit for boatyards. If we didn't do hull cleaning here, we probably wouldn't need any permit." (The permit is in the application stage.)

A fixed pumpout station is on the town pier located at the middle of Conanicut Marina. The station was paid for with a Clean Vessel Act 75% grant matched with 25% town harbor money and is tied into the municipal sewer line. Pumpouts, since start-up in 1994, are free and do-it-yourself. Conanicut Marina provides maintenance for the pumpout and wants to add a pumpout boat to service boats on moorings and in docks. "Last summer over 100 pumpouts, averaging 25 gallons, helped Rhode Island and Jamestown carry out the clean water program," said Munger. "There were several boats in the 65-foot range which pumped out with 150- to 200-gallon tanks." However, since the pier is public-access, there are some user conflicts. On days when many people are fishing at the floating section, boaters find it hard to tie up to do a pumpout.

The marina is a multimodal transportation site serving the public with access by foot, boat, bicycle, car, bus, and ferry. With auto parking very limited, Conanicut Marina provides long-term parking at its boatyard during the peak tourist season, thus reducing any runoff potential from those cars.

Expansion plans for 1996 include building new and larger restrooms at Conanicut Marina and leasing the nearby historic Clark Boat Yard. "To be named Conanicut Marine Round House Yard, its 200-ton marine railway will greatly expand the hauling and repair capacity of the business. This only makes sense because we have the over-road trailers," Munger added. "And we won't need to haul the deeper draft boats at Newport any more. We'll keep all our service under our control this way."

Bill Munger was elected vice chairman of the Jamestown Harbor Management Commission. As such, he demonstrates proactive involvement in coastal planning for clean water and good boating. Half of Jamestown's moorings are operated by marinas and the yacht club, with the rest privately owned by individual residents.

"Quality people look for quality boating facilities. We are certainly doing significantly less polluting of the bay," Munger stated, "and our customers respect that. We educate boaters with signs and by adding environmental protection language to all contract agreements."

Conanicut Marine Services clearly demonstrates that boatyard repairs can be done easily and profitably away from the waterfront, thanks to hydraulic trailers and less expensive land. By moving that work inland, the coastal environment is cleaner for both the ecosystem and the boating public.