Waterway waste | Abandoned boats blemish coasts

A boat tilted on its side hangs off the marsh near the Intracoastal Waterway in Little River, mud seeping up its deck and water filling its white hull.

At some point in its life, the Endeavor was probably a favorite possession used for weekend adventures and fishing trips, but now it sits abandoned and run partially aground near the Cricket Cove Marina. It's one of a growing number of boats littering the waterway near Little River creating eyesores and potential navigational issues. They also may be creating environmental hazards by leaking contaminants such as motor oil or human sewage into the waterway.

But removing the boats has been a convoluted process complicated by overlapping jurisdictions and little to no funding help available.

Abandoned boats that have been run aground or anchored in navigation channels have become an increasing issue nationwide, with hundreds of boats being pulled from the water and destroyed in popular boating towns like Miami and along the Gulf Coast every year.

According to a log from the S.C. Department of Natural Resources, 240 abandoned boats have been reported along the coastal waterways and rivers in South Carolina in the past few years, and more than half were found to be derelict - without an owner and in bad enough shape to be unsalvageable.

Rob Barton, who runs charters from Cricket Cove Marina up the Intracoastal Waterway and into the ocean, helped to move part of a dredge boat that was left in the waterway earlier this year, pumping it out, removing any hazardous materials and helping sink it to be used as part of an artificial reef near Little River.

"I think part of it is the economy - people not being able to afford the docking fees or the repairs on an older boat," Barton said. "After that they just let them get wrecked. But more things outside of them are affected. I mean, we don't want anything leaking out of those boats and contaminating the water. We make a living off of that water, either taking people out on charters or fishing."

The process

DNR is charged by a state law passed two years ago to identify and tag the abandoned vessels, eventually launching investigations into ownership and taking cases to court to hold owners responsible for removing them. However, the state organization is not mandated to remove the boats once the litigation is settled or if the owners cannot be found.

"If we find a boat, we mark it similar to how the highway patrol marks cars on the side of the road. It's considered abandoned if it's been there for 45 days, and we do a lot of legwork sometimes to establish that," said Lt. Robert McCullough, spokesman for DNR. "We aren't charged with moving them, just identifying them. There are actions we can take if it's blocking navigation or if it's found to be stolen."

If DNR does find an owner and litigation begins, the boat or boats involved in the case have to be left where they are as evidence against the owners unless they are a hazard. At least two of the boats littering the waterway in Little River, including the Endeavor, fall into that category.

The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control had operated a grant program through its Ocean and Coastal Resource Management division that helped coastal cities remove the boats by providing matching funds to pay for the expensive removals. A project on the Ashley River in Charleston that started earlier this month emptied the last of the program's federal resources from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the $100,000 allocated from the state legislature last year. With federal and state budgets looking dire again this year, program administrators are not hopeful about continuing the program in the immediate future.

"We're going to be seeking funding everywhere we can and monitoring all of the potential grants as they are posted," said Dan Burger, director of program administration and communication at DHEC.

"There's no direct regulatory responsibility to remove the vessels. Ultimately, the individual owner is responsible. Each removal is unique, but all of them are expensive. Removals can run an average of $10,000 - that's the average price we are quoted in bids on a regular basis."

Burger said the office is starting a program that will lend mobile GPS units and train frequent travelers on some of the coastal waterways to log the locations of possibly abandoned boats. The more vessels that can be catalogued, the better Burger said DHEC's case will be when trying to demonstrate the need for the removal program.

The S.C. Coast Guard also keeps a log of abandoned vessels, although the agency has little involvement in removing them. Petty Officer Timothy Washington at the Georgetown station said the Coast Guard wants people to call them when they see abandoned boats in case the owners have fallen into the water and a search and rescue mission may be needed.

Outside ideas

Horry County representatives have started a conversation about what they can do about the boats and have looked at what other cities and counties have been able to do. Mi ami's marina manager Stephen Bogner has a second home in Surfside Beach and when he heard about Horry County's problems with abandoned boats, he volunteered his extensive experience and some advice.

The Miami Marina includes almost 1,000 vessels docked inside and on the outskirts of the marina, and Bogner and his staff handles the removal of hundreds of boats every year. Several coastal counties in Florida experiencing issues with abandoned boats got together to start a special tax district, where a small millage for all property owners in the coastal counties goes to pay for coastal issues, including removing the boats, beach renourishment and other programs. Bogner said he has negotiated a contract with a local marine company to lower the cost for removing and destroying the boats to about $1,500 each, paid through the designated millage.

"This is not a one-time issue, this is something that will definitely be ongoing, so I told [Horry County] that they needed to think about a larger solution than just immediately getting rid of the boats already in the waterway," Bogner said.

Florida has seen an additional problem as a homeless people move onto some of the larger boats and owners become "slum lords" Bogner said, renting out the boats to tenants for a small amount but not bringing them up to good or livable conditions.

Bogner recommended that the Grand Strand communities deal with the boats before that problem develops here.

Local actions

The responsibilities of the state agencies to deal with abandoned boats does little to help Horry County physically remove the eyesores from the waterway.

Horry County Councilman Brent Schulz boats on the Intracoastal Waterway every weekend and has been working to remove the vessels through the proper channels for almost a year. With the pending DNR litigation, at least two of the boats will likely have to remain for several months as evidence. As for the other boats, with little grant funding available and no local channel to deal with them, Schulz faces an uphill battle to clear them out.

Horry County Planning Director Janet Carter said there is no ordinance on the books at the county level that regulates abandoned vessels. Schulz said he plans to work on creating an ordinance to allow the county to bid out the destruction of the boats. A local water towing company, Towboat U.S., has volunteered to pump out the boats and haul them to a nearby landing, but doesn't have the equipment or liability coverage to lift them out of the water and destroy them.

"Why people haven't gotten killed running into them at night, I have no clue," said Brian Cogeshall, owner of Towboat U.S. "We probably get two or three questions a day about what's going on with the boats in the waterway. They have their hands tied, and there's only so much we can do. ... We'd be more than happy to get them out of the water, but we don't have anybody who wants to take them out to sink them or break them up."

Several coastal counties and cities have drafted local ordinances to provide for the identification and removal of the boats, which range from removing boats left unattended for 30 days to a City of Georgetown ordinance that says boats can be removed after seven days if an owner does not come forward.

Representatives from Georgetown County and Brunswick County, N.C., said they've had occasional abandoned boats, but haven't had to deal with the issue to the extent that the city of Georgetown has.

Georgetown County adopted a resolution last week to support statewide legislation to give counties the authority and jurisdiction to deal with abandoned property.

The city of Georgetown has had a lot of experience with derelict boats and received a matching grant from the OCRM program in 2007 to deal with the growing problems in its waterways. The city took two years to gather the matching funds and removed a log jam of boats last year, but the situation persists, said City Manager Chris Eldridge.

"We're trying to tackle the problem in the most cost-efficient means," Eldridge said. "It's one of those problems where you get rid of three or four, and three or four more show up."

Eldridge said abandoned boats turn up in the harbor, as well as in the five rivers that flow into town. He knew of at least two abandoned boats currently awaiting action, a tug boat on the Sampit River and a barge that can be seen above the new boat landing at Maryville.

The city drafted an ordinance that addresses abandoned vehicles and boats, but it's the process that puts local authorities in a bind, he said.

"What makes it so hard is there's no way to get these boats - 20-, 30-foot vessels - out of the water," Eldridge said. "With one, we had to use a track hoe to drag it up on land. It's not like a junked car somewhere."

Eldridge said that for a 100-foot shrimp boat, if you get it out of the water, you still have to consider the work involved in cutting up steel and the disposal, all of which takes time and money.

"In a time where local governments don't have money laying around to address this, we're trying to stay afloat," Eldridge said. "That's really the case - $5,000 or $10,000, that's hard to justify."