Last month’s raising of a sunken tugboat from the waters of the Oakland Estuary was just the beginning of an estimated two-month cleanup of the strait by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), California Department of Resources and Recycling (CalRecycle), and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The costs associated with raising or removing something from the water are not only more than owners can afford, they’re also too high for most cities and counties leaving us with scenes like the one above. Currently, there is no process for dealing with abandoned boats like there is with cars. Photo by Brock de Lappe
By Bill Picture
Published: December, 2013
Last month’s raising of a sunken tugboat from the waters of the Oakland Estuary was just the beginning of an estimated two-month cleanup of the strait by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), California Department of Resources and Recycling (CalRecycle), and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Among the other items on the team’s punch list are a second sunken tug and sunken commercial fishing vessel, as well as many abandoned recreation boats and dilapidated docks, piers and pilings. Some of the items being removed pose a considerable navigational hazard to passing vessels, particularly at low tide, to warrant their removal.
Some of the items may also contain higher-than-allowable concentrations of substances that are detrimental to the estuary’s health, such as lead paint, tin-based antifouling agents (which are being phased out by the shipping industry because they’ve proven harmful to the environment), and long-banned toxic PCBs.
"There’s bound to be some marine batteries down there too," said EPA On-Scene Coordinator Will Duncan. "But thankfully no mercury or anything radioactive has been found on this project."
Walking away from responsibility
That an owner could leave behind a sunken vessel for state and federal agencies to deal with—in some cases decades later—may surprise some. The problem, Duncan explained, is the result of several contributing factors.
"When a car is abandoned, the police call a tow truck. Then a tow truck comes and takes the car to the city tow yard, where they try to track down the owner," Duncan said. "And if they can’t track the owner down, the car gets auctioned off, either to a new owner or for scrap metal. There’s a process in place."
Duncan said there is no such process for dealing with sunken ships. And the costs associated with raising something from the water are not only more than owners can afford, they’re also too high for most cities and counties as well.
"And remember, there is no city tow yard for ships," he said. "So even if you could afford to remove it, what do you do with it? Where does it go? Just figuring out the logistics alone is tough, and overwhelming and costly enough that a normally responsible party will throw their hands up and walk away."
Thus, the job ends up resting in the lap of the first agency bothered enough by the existence of a sunken nuisance to do something about it. In this case, that was CalRecycle, which contacted the EPA and Army Corps last year to ask for help from the agencies.
CalRecycle offered up $1.3 million of the State’s money. The EPA then pitched in another $3.4 million. CalRecycle will be partially reimbursed with money from the penalties that were levied against the owners of the Cosco Busan, the container ship that struck the Bay Bridge in 2007, tearing a hole in the vessel’s side and spilling 53,000 gallons of bunker fuel into the San Francisco Bay. Of the $10 million penalty, $2 million was allocated to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation for environmental projects in the Bay Area. Bay pollution watchdog group Baykeeper then advocated that a portion of that $2 million be used to clear abandoned boats from the Bay.
Alameda-based Bay Ship & Yacht Company has pitched in another $75,000 as part of a mitigation fund for its new floating dry dock. Bay Ship & Yacht has also offered up to the team space at its yard for the dismantling of the raised vessels. The dismantling of the first raised tug, nicknamed Captain Al, was nearing completion at Bay Ship & Yacht at press time.
"The health of the Bay impacts our customers, so naturally we have a vested interest in it," says Bay Ship & Yacht’s General Manager Alan Cameron. "But as a person who enjoys recreational boating on the Bay myself, it also impacts me."
A threat to public safety
The 40 derelict recreational boats being removed as part of the cleanup effort pose a variety of problems. In addition to being eyesores, the boats, whose owners moored them to the nearest fixed item protruding from the water—in most cases, old pilings and dilapidated piers—before abandoning them, have become illegal collection sites for, among other things, old paint, oil and solvents.
"Derelict boats are damaging the environment and putting public safety at risk," said CalRecycle Director Caroll Mortensen in a written statement. Baykeeper reports that squatters have illegally taken up residence on some of the abandoned boats, which lack working systems for sewage collection and treatment. Some of the boats are also reportedly being used as floating production facilities by methamphetamine cooks.
While state and federal agencies intend to pursue the owners of all these abandoned vessels (whether sunken or still afloat), Duncan doesn’t expect that the penalties they stand to collect will even make a dent in the project’s estimated $5 million-plus price tag.
"We spent a half-million dollars just to remove the sediments that had collected in Captain Al so that we could raise her," he said. "That’s one ship. And imagine, the Oakland Estuary is just one waterway of many where this is a problem that needs addressing."
Like it or not, Duncan insisted the Oakland Estuary will eventually require another such cleanup, as it’s just a matter of time before mishap and misfortune send another ship (and another after that) to its temporary underwater grave.
"We’d be foolish to think this won’t happen again," he said. "As long as there’s gravity, this is something we have to deal with. So the way we should be looking at this is, we have a clean slate to build the processes and procedures necessary to minimize the time it takes to respond to a sinking boat, and to deal with a boat that has sunk, because in both situations, the longer you wait, the more complicated and expensive it becomes."
Sunken ships may contain substances such as lead paint, tin-based antifouling agents and long-banned toxic PCBs. Photo by Brock de Lappe
On the left is a section of the Oakland Estuary riddled with debris, including several abandoned small boats along the shore. On the right is the same area after being cleaned up during an estimated two-month project by the EPA, CalRecycle, and the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers. Photos by Brock de Lappe
