[Rhodes22-list] News Item Re Economy and Boat Owners

[Ben Cittadino]

Man THIS is depressing:

 
"In bad economy, boat owners abandon their vessels
November 13, 2008 3:28 PM EST
SAN FRANCISCO - From Southern California to Maine, the foundering economy,
high fuel prices and poor fishing have driven boat owners to abandon perhaps
thousands of vessels on the waterfront, where they are beginning to break up
and sink, leaking oil and other pollutants.

Boats have long been a barometer of consumer confidence, disposable income
and the overall state of the economy. Now, marina and harbor officials are
reporting a sudden increase in the past year in the number of deserted
pleasure boats and working vessels.

In Antioch, a town about 45 miles east of San Francisco, harbormaster John
Cruger-Hansen showed up at his marina one day last spring to find the
horizon changed overnight. On the San Joaquin River, he saw an old crane, a
rusted barge, a tugboat and an assortment of other junked boats, all of
which had been hauled in and left illegally.

"Boating is a pure luxury and one of the first things to go when the economy
turns south," said Cruger-Hansen, who expects to see more abandoned boats by
year's end. "If it comes to the point of putting food on the table or paying
the boat slip fee, it's the boat that goes."

Unlike cars, wooden and fiberglass boats have virtually no scrap value. So
rather than pay the high cost of hauling their boats to the dump, people
ditch them or sell them for as little as $1 to anyone who will take them.
The boats often break up and go under, or pass into the underground economy
of nighttime scuttlers- who, for a fee, remove traceable identification
numbers, strip out salvageable items and sink the vessels.

"Oil, gasoline and sewage from these boat leaks into the aquatic
environment," said Sejal Choksi, program director at San Francisco
Baykeeper, an environmental organization. Boat paint often contains
chromium, lead, mercury and other toxic chemicals, and as a vessel
deteriorates, the coating flakes off and settles on the sea floor or river
bottom, where fish swallow it, Choksi said.

Government officials and environmental groups are calling for more programs
and funding to prevent and clean up the junkyard flotillas.

But removing just one sunken sailboat can cost upwards of $12,000, and
taking away larger commercial vessels is even more expensive.

With nearly a million registered boats, California - the second-largest
boating state behind Florida - spends about $500,000 each year removing
deserted recreational boats. The state has no money to remove commercial
boats, and unless they are leaking oil or blocking a navigation channel, the
Coast Guard is not required to take them away.

"At the state and federal level something needs to be done with these
derelict commercial vessels. They just sit there, falling apart," said
Contra Costa County sheriff's Sgt. Doug Powell, who patrols the mouth of the
San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta. Nearly 30 decaying tugboats, fishing
boats, cranes and barges make up the aquatic junkyard in Powell's county.

High fuel prices and several disastrous years in the nation's fishing
industry have led fishermen to desert salmon boats in Washington state, crab
boats in Maryland, trawlers in Oregon and lobster boats in Florida.

In Georgia, Charles "Buck" Bennett, a natural-resources enforcement manager
for the state, regularly finds wooden shrimp boats run aground and left to
break apart in the Atlantic Ocean swells.

"I'm not an economist, but when putting 500 gallons of fuel in a shrimp boat
costs more than the boat is worth, that is a sad thing," Bennett said.

Bennett keeps a growing list of broken down boats slated for removal,
currently 152 statewide. But with lean economic times and a declining shrimp
industry, he guesses there are hundreds more hidden along the state's
shoreline and waterways.

It's not just barnacle-laden junkers that are being abandoned.

In recent months, an increasing number of powerboat and sailboat owners have
been failing to pay their slip fees, according to Randy Short, chief
executive of Almar Management Inc., a company with 16 luxury marinas in
California and Hawaii.

When the payments are 40 days delinquent, the marina chains the boat to the
dock. Recently, a boat owner in one of Short's Southern California marinas
disappeared, leaving behind a $200,000 boat and no contact information.

"People get financially upside-down and ditch their boats," Short said, "and
you can just forget trying to sell a power boat right now. No one is
buying."

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. 
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