8. Deep River Marina, Inc.

Publicity of Clean, Attractive Marina Pays

Environmental change

A combination of free pumpout service, clean restrooms and showers, attractively maintained grounds, dustless sanders, and environmental recognition increased the gross income of a Connecticut River marina.

The river marina

Once a rather small boatyard in need of improvement, Deep River Marina has become a full-service marina and a very attractive home port to boating families from New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Canada. The marina has 200 slips and mooring capacity for 35 boats. Boat sizes range from 16 to 45 feet with the average boat at 28 feet LOA; 90% are powerboats. All but 23 slips were leased for the summer, with the remaining used for transient visitors. The VanDyke's four full-time and two part-time summer staff manage the docks, moorings, pumpout, fuel dock, and ship's store. "We do all haulout and launchings with our travel lift, hydraulic trailer, and crane. But outside contractors do all boat repair work here (to engines, hulls, rigging, fiberglass, canvas, and painting)," Doug said, "including the lawn and garden maintenance, and restroom cleaning. They are environmentally like-minded, and do all work the same way we do it." Four staff remain year-round to store 150 boats on land.

Located on the Connecticut River, the marina is on a calm stretch of tidal fresh water off the main channel and is well protected from passing wakes and foul weather. Deep River is well sited, above popular Essex and below Hartford. Its only neighbor is the Essex Valley Railroad, which makes several tourist runs a day along the marina's property line. Within 2 miles are 5 other marinas and boatyards, with a combined boat population just under 1,000. The boating season runs from mid-April to mid-November. The original boatyard was built in 1955.

Management measures

Deep River Marina complies with the marina management measures for storm water runoff control, sewage facility, sewage facility maintenance, and solid waste, as well as water quality assessment, shoreline stabilization, fueling station design, liquid materials, petroleum control, boat cleaning, and public education.

Costs/benefits

Deep River Marina won NMMA's first Boating Facilities Environmental Responsibility Award for its clean marina in 1993. It is just one of several national and regional awards earned by Doug and Karen VanDyke for their environmental consciousness. "We are constantly amazed just how many people are aware of articles about us in the paper," Karen said. "We keep things clean and offer free pumpout service. Paying attention to our customers and taking care of the environment-that's where we make our living." And good publicity pays.

It cost $15,000 to buy and install a pumpout on the fuel dock in 1989, plus $6,000 more for four dustless sanders in 1994, bought for environmental reasons. Over the past year, the clean marina costs were $4,500 on labor at the pumpout dock, cleaning restrooms and gardening; $8,000 on flowers and lawns; and $500 for pumped out septic removal; plus $2,720 amortization of capital purchases, for a total annual environmental operational cost of $13,000. New and added income-attributed to "our clean marina and efforts"-in summer slips, winter storage, and added fuel sales, plus publicity value, was placed at $86,800. Doug added, "Everything we do works together. It's just as easy to do it the right way, and it doesn't cost that much more." In fact, after he calculated the costs and income derived, Doug noted, "I am surprised and pleased that our net income associated with environmental improvements was an additional $71,000 this past year."

Doug VanDyke stands beside an oil/water separator drain in his immaculately clean crushed stone work yard and parking lot.

Environmental improvements

Deep River Marina sent a postcard to customers commemorating the 20th anniversary of Earth Day, April 1990: "As a marina and boatyard we feel it our moral obligation to help inform the boating public of ways we all might conserve our natural resources, fight pollution and preserve the very waters we and our families enjoy. We must work for nothing less than clean air and clean water-trash free, non-toxic rivers included. . . . Let us not forget the original spirit of Earth Day." That postcard ended, "Let's be careful out there!"-the ending on every Deep River Marina letter and the marina's exit sign. Environmental education of the public is a continuous process that has attracted boaters who appreciate and seek the VanDykes' kind of clean marina.

"When we bought the marina in 1971, no one even heard of the environmental movement," Doug said. "From day one, we kept the marina picked up-a good clean yard." They have many good stories to tell...

• Mandatory use of dustless sanders has been required on all bottom work in the yard since 1994. The store rents each Fein sander for $15 per hour and sells the sand paper. "As an incentive, we give each boat owner the first 2 hours per year free. This has worked very well, and almost everybody understands and complies. The first year we had several complaints. One guy went out and rented another dustless sander elsewhere, but discovered he spent more than he should have; this year he used our equipment. Our dustless sanders kept over 200 pounds [of paint dust] out of the environment this year."

• The VanDykes were the first in the area to install a pumpout (1989). "At first we charged $10 for the service, but no one was using it. So we decided it was time to make a commitment to cleaning up the environment by offering free pumpout service to all noncommercial vessels using the Connecticut River. Now boats come here from many other marinas to get the free pumpout, and most buy fuel at our dock while here. We ask that each boat buy a pumpout thru-hull adapter, from us, which allows quick connect to our evacuation hose. Even those not buying fuel when they get pumped out must feel guilty because most return later for fuel, or do become seasonal customers," said Doug. "This summer we kept 6,000 gallons of sewage out of the river." Deep River has applied for a federal CVA pumpout grant to help maintain and operate its system. A unique, home-made, land-side outside dump station is also available free to those with portable toilets.

• Storm water runoff from the parking lot is controlled with 50-foot grass buffers. With picnic tables, shrubs, trees and flowers, the marina looks more like a park than a boatyard. All parking areas and driveways are covered with crushed stone. A tongue-in-cheek sign slows cars by saying that they are in a "No Wake Zone."

• A special drain traps silt and skims oil from the work yard and parking area before it can reach the water, "but we rarely ever find any oil in the tank because there is so little spilled on the ground. The Connecticut DEP really likes it a lot. They even brought participants in a pollution-control conference on a tour of Deep River Marina to illustrate marina best management practices."

• The VanDykes listed adjacent wetlands as environmentally sensitive for long-term protection with The Nature Conservancy.

• Water-saving toilets and shower heads are used in the marina's immaculate restrooms. Hoses on docks are required to use shutoff nozzles to reduce wasting water while owners keep their boats clean.

• A portable oil-changing unit that uses a vacuum tank to suck oil out of engines through the dip-stick tube makes oil changing easy and spillproof. It is available for rent at the marina store.

• "We banned use of toxic antifreeze (green color) for winterizing engines", said Doug. "I had to get tough with only two customers the first year and made them immediately remove and replace their antifreeze."

• Color-coded trash containers reduce the volume of waste going to the landfill by collecting bottles, cans, cardboard, and plastic for recycling. Waste oil is also collected in an aboveground 400-gallon tank, contained inside the lower half of a cement septic tank, for recycling at no cost to the marina. "The market for used oil comes and goes," Doug stated. "Years ago, they paid us to take it; then we paid them. Right now they take it away at no charge."

• At the fuel dock, more than 100 feet of oil containment boom is stored in a locker for emergency use during spills. Boaters are encouraged to use bilge oil absorption pads, which are also sold in the marina store.

Other benefits

The U.S. Department of the Interior presented its highest national award, "Take Pride in America," to Deep River Marina in 1991 for its participation in, and hosting of, a 3-year Atlantic salmon stocking project on the Connecticut River, conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. More than 20,000 tagged salmon were released from the marina's waters in an effort to restore salmon runs. Scientists performing water quality assessment obviously found the marina's water quality high enough to raise the juvenile salmon.

Deep River Marina added grass buffers between the river shore and the automobile parking lots to reduce runoff pollution and create a park-like atmosphere.

"Look back, and we feel we've accomplished a lot," Karen was quoted in the Hartford Courant (May 6, 1994). "Looking ahead, and there's always something more to do."

Equipment source

• Dustless sander: Fein-Vac I, 10-gallon; Fein Power Tools, Inc., 3019 West Carson Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15204.

• Pumpout station: Waubaushene ARV 125-gallon; Waubaushene Machine and Welding, P.O. Box 99, 111 Coldwater Road, Waubaushene, Ontario, Canada.

• Engine oil remover: Slurpee Portable Vacuum System; Houghton Marine Resources, 712 Forest Street, Marshfield, MA 02050.