Deborah Bach has the story at Three Sheets Northwest:
[Photos: Washington Department of Natural Resources]
It might have been somebody’s dreamboat once.
But by the time it was hauled out of the water earlier this year at Shilshole Bay Marina in Seattle, the 60-foot rumrunner had a hole in its side big enough to climb through. Thieves had been poaching items off the ship, and Port of Seattle workers had to pump it out repeatedly over the several months it took to arrange for demolition.
“This thing was a beast,” said Mike DeSota, environmental compliance specialist for the Port of Seattle. “It was sinking.”
The situation isn’t unusual. In waters around Washington, dozens of boats sit abandoned and on the verge of sinking, posing serious environmental hazards and costly nightmares for the marinas and government agencies left to deal with them.
There are currently close to 200 boats abandoned in Washington waters that authorities know about, but the real numbers could be considerably higher. And officials expect to see more boats headed for a watery grave as the effects of the recession drag on.
