Merchant Marine Academy Slow to Address 'Crumbling Facades, Leaking Pipes and Water Damage' on Campus, GAO Finds

The U.S. Merchant Marine Academy has not been organized or prompt in addressing necessary fixes to deteriorating conditions ranging from seawalls to stop flooding to water damage and mildew on the campus, a new government watchdog report revealed.

The Government Accountability Office report, released Tuesday, took aim at the progress the service academy in Kings Point, New York – which trains young officers to become mariners for the shipping and trade industry and the military – has made in fixing and upgrading infrastructure. Earlier reports had pointed to the issues on campus, but the poor conditions were still present on recent visits by the watchdog agency.

"These facilities exhibit crumbling facades, leaking pipes and water damage. We observed many of these problems and others during our October 2023 site visit to the campus," the report detailed, adding GAO personnel saw "examples of decayed and water damaged facilities" in several parts of the service academy. One photo in the report identified mildew on an outdoor pool bathroom facility.

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Andrew Von Ah, the director of the GAO's Physical Infrastructure team, told Military.com in an interview Tuesday that it was troubling to see the same problems in newly renovated buildings on campus.

"You saw a lot of water intrusion," Von Ah said. "And this is related to the stormwater issues, the overall drainage issues on the campus, but also related to just the difficulty in ongoing maintenance and preventive maintenance that they faced over the last many, many years."

Matt Barranca, the assistant director of the GAO's Physical Infrastructure Team, added in the interview with Military.com that Merchant Marine Academy officials admitted that the ongoing maintenance struggles to fix infrastructure on campus could harm efforts to recruit new midshipmen to the campus, causing some to go elsewhere.

"We were told, though, by academy officials that this is something that affects their ability to compete against similar institutions, because there's so much choice out there," Barranca said. "While the academy is very attractive to students. ... These are students that are also very competitive and have a range of opportunities out there."

Maintenance issues and structural problems at the service academy are a longstanding issue.

In 2021, the National Academy of Public Administration published a wide-ranging report addressing problems at the academy, including critiques and photos of "crumbling concrete, drywall and paint, leaking pipes and water damage, mold present in rooms and hallways."

Since then, the academy has taken on numerous projects, including upgrading academic buildings to fiber optic networks. But larger, ongoing projects, such as improvements to a stormwater management system and repairing a seawall, show officials do "not have policies establishing how it estimates costs for capital improvements," something that could cause delays and inadequate funds to address the longstanding problems.

Projects to renovate Samuels Hall, a simulator facility used to train midshipmen on shiphandling, as well as the campus' main data center and laboratories in the Fulton-Gibbs Complex, are set to be finished in 2025 and 2026, but Von Ah warned that upkeep of those newly completed facilities will be crucial.

"The biggest issue is maintenance, ongoing preventative maintenance at the academy, so that when they do complete this project, Samuels Hall and Fulton-Gibbs, that they're able to maintain it at a level of good repair into the future for the next 20, 30, 40 years," Von Ah added. "That has proven to be sort of an Achilles' heel, and you see it kind of all over the campus."

GAO officials pointed to problems with staffing of maintenance teams to oversee and do recurring upkeep on the academy's facilities, as well as with top officials who oversee that work, calling for "continuous leadership in the academy's Office of Facilities and Infrastructure." And they recommended "strategic workforce planning to determine the needed resources, capabilities, and any skill gaps" for addressing issues on campus.

The GAO also called for the Merchant Marine Academy to establish better policies for estimating costs on future projects to more accurately determine widespread improvements that will be needed in the future.

T.V. Johnson, a spokesperson for the Maritime Administration -- the Department of Transportation agency that oversees the Merchant Marine Academy -- told Military.com on Wednesday after publication that the agency "concurs with the GAO recommendations."

Conditions seen at the service academy mirror issues that Military.com has reported at Department of Defense locations for all the service branches, including mold being found in Marine Corps barracks and an Air Force dining facility closing due to pests. Another scathing GAO report last year identified a whole host of quality-of-life issues at military facilities across the country.

Editor's Note: This story has been updated with comment from the Maritime Administration provided to Military.com after publication. 

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