The DEP sludge tanker Hunts Point was heading for the North River water treatment plant on Wednesday morning, the first time I have seen her since her return to service in October. The tanker was badly damaged in an explosion while loading sludge at the North River plant in May 2025. The NTSB determined that the explosion, which took the life of the vessel’s long-serving chief engineer, was caused by use of a welding torch to remove a sheared off bolt above an open tank containing methane gas.

The tanker required extensive repairs and spent more than a year at Caddells Shipyard on Staten Island. With the return to service of Hunts Point, three of the DEP’s five tankers are now operating, with Rockaway, a sister ship to the Hunts Point, in the shipyard for the past two months and the older tanker North River out of service for over a year and possibly not returning. The DEP has been using its reserve barge Udalls Creek and private sludge barges to service the North River plant periodically over the past year.

For more information, see my article in gCaptain from this summer: https://gcaptain.com/ntsb-blames-unapproved-hot-work-for-deadly-nyc-sludge-tanker-explosion/