Vinik Transportation was moving residual sludge from New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection North River plant to the Passaic Valley plant in Newark for de-watering. The tug Liz Vinik, last seen clearing ice around Pier 98 a few months ago, had the privately-owned sludge barge Maria in tow on the hip, passing Weehawken in the photo. We saw Vinik No. 6 performing a similar task with the barge Linda late last year.

The NYC DEP has its own fleet of five tankers to move sludge from treatment plants around the city which lack dewatering centrifuges to those that do, and sometimes to the Passaic Valley plant. But the oldest tanker in the fleet, the North River, has been out-of-service for over a year, and one of the newer tankers, Hunts Point, has been in dry dock since a fatal explosion occurred while loading at the North River plant a year ago. With only three tankers in service, the DEP is perhaps forced to occasionally bring in reinforcements.