Removing Derelict Vessels

Five years ago Representative Phil Rockefeller got a bee in his bonnet. Someone called him in his district that had a sunken vessel in their marina. They wanted help from their elected representative on how to get it out.

Rockefeller’s district, the 23rd in Kitsap County, is surrounded by water. He quickly realized that the problem was more widespread than just the one marina in Liberty Bay. A few months later, he attended an Aquatics Lands conference and again learned that the problem of removing derelict vessels was not unique to Washington State.

Other states were grappling with the same issues like: Who is the owner? Where is the owner? Who has the right to remove and salvage a vessel? How do you protect the owner’s legal rights and at the same time get an environmental hazard out of the water?

As it turns out, Rep. Rockefeller is a person who gets things done and before long, with help from the Department of Natural Resources, they drafted a plan and it was approved by the legislature and effective on January 1, 2003. Funding for the program came from adding $2.00 per year to the vessel registration fee, which now raises $500,000 per year.

Since then, four things have happened.

1.) Rep. Rockefeller has become Senator Rockefeller from the 23rd District.

2.) Over 250 derelict vessels have been removed from our waters, either by the DNR, by other public entities authorized under the derelict vessels act (RCW 79.100) or through pressure on the actual vessel owners to take responsibility for their vessels.

3.) The DNR has identified over 150 additional derelict vessels and many of these are large and very expensive to remove (The average length is almost 50 ft.).

4.) The program does not have enough money to remove the backlog and new vessels are added to the list weekly.

So this year, Senator Rockefeller has sponsored a bill that, if approved, will significantly increase funding for the program. His bill has been endorsed by the Recreational Boating Association of Washington (RBAW) as well as the NMTA. As I am writing this, the bill has made good progress in the legislature, but we will not know if it will be approved until later in April.

Additional funds will come from an additional $1 being added to the vessel registration fee (raising about $250,000) and most important of all, it will recapture $1M from the Watercraft Excise Tax (WET) that boaters pay each year. Currently the WET goes to the General Fund, not into “boating related programs.” Connecting the dots of money from boaters to boating programs is the major focus of our legislative efforts in Olympia this session.

Over the last few weeks, we have been asking all of you to support HB 1651, sponsored by two other friends of boating, Rep. Bill Fromhold of Vancouver, Washington and Rep. Gary Alexander of Olympia. That bill is still alive in the legislature and the intent of the bill is to also connect the WET with boating programs. There is a nexus between our efforts to clean up our waters by removing derelict vessels and our efforts to get money paid by boaters directed to boating programs.

Stay tuned. More will be revealed in April as the legislative session comes to a close. We will keep you posted. In the meantime, please feel free to contact me if you have questions or suggestions.

With warm regards,

Michael Campbell
President
michael@nmta.net