Boats that fall into disrepair pose threats to fish, shellfish and the broader marine ecosystem. That’s especially true of derelict vessels that have broken away from their mooring or are otherwise stranded in places where they shouldn’t be.
Derelict vessels may spill or leak fuel into the water, as well as expel other chemicals over time as the structure deteriorates.
In an effort to reduce those risks in waters around the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community’s homelands, the tribe is encouraging boat owners who are unable to properly maintain their vessels to turn them over for responsible demolition and recycling through a Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR) program. The idea is to address these vessels before they have a chance to become derelict and impact the environment.
The removal of a 65-foot vessel last year from the shoreline of the Swinomish Reservation underscored the challenges that come with abandoned vessels. They are often stranded for years and removal is expensive, in addition to the impacts they have on the environment.
The local partnership for DNR’s Vessel Turn-In Program allows boat owners in the area who can no longer take care of their vessels to hand them off to La Conner Maritime at the Port of Skagit. In addition to Swinomish, partners include Skagit County, Skagit Marine Resources Committee, Northwest Straits Commission and Washington Department of Ecology.
“Swinomish is very grateful for this opportunity to co-host the vessel turn-in event,” said J.J. Wilbur, a tribal senator and chair of the tribe’s Port Authority. “We’re a tight-knit fishing community and our team here has battled abandoned and derelict boats for many, many years. It’s helpful to partner with all of these outside entities to tackle the problem.”
This summer, the program processed about 45 vessels.
La Conner Maritime workers demonstrated for a group of project partners, program users and political leaders in August how a vessel turned over through the program is reduced to a tangle of wood, metal and carbon composite for safe recycling and disposal. Swinomish descendant and reservation resident Tiana Mcleod, who was in the audience for the demonstration that day, said the program had great value to her family, enabling them to part with nine retired fishing and pleasure boats this year.
“My dad has been a fisherman in the community for his whole life, and my grandpa and uncles,” Mcleod said. “We’ve been a fishing family for multiple generations.”
But as her father reached elderhood and became unable to continue fishing, the family’s boats sat idle on their land along Indian Road, eventually falling too far into disrepair to fix and becoming too costly to dispose of. The opportunity to hand off the boats through the vessel turn-in program has helped the family move on.
“It’s an incredible gift to be able to move through some of the skeletons, some of the boat graveyard,” Mcleod said. “Now the space feels more open. We have space for our young ones to play and space for my dad to just sit back and relax and be at peace. It’s a good way to honor him and his legacy.”
Vessel Turn-In Program partners said the Mcleod family story is an example of a common problem: personal and financial issues combining to make vessel upkeep unmanageable, along with memories and emotional connections to the watercraft making them hard to give up.
“The best thing we can do for those memories is make sure that they are not polluting the water and impacting critical fish and wildlife habitat,” said Washington Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz, who helped secure ongoing funding for the DNR program.
Above and below: An excavator operated by Doyle Schmidt, a contractor with La Conner Maritime, pulls apart a boat surrendered through DNR’s Vessel Turn-In Program of which the Swinomish Tribe is a partner. Photos and story by Kimberly Cauvel.
