Boat recovery ongoing
MOUNT PLEASANT — Four sunken vessels will be lifted out of Shem Creek today as part of an effort to clean up town waters.
Cape Romain Contractors will work from a barge and use a crane to lift three sailboats and a motorboat that are visible at low tide from the Bailey Docks. The docks are part of 43 acres on the creek that the town purchased last year for $6 million to create a waterfront public park.
Watercraft using the creek have crashed into the sunken boats, said Hillary Repik, the town stormwater manager. "They're a pretty big hazard to navigation. We know the boats have been hit because there are some scrape marks," she said.
Shem Creek will remain open to traffic because the sunken boats are not in the channel. Boaters should use caution during the operation, which is expected to begin in the pre-dawn hours at low tide and continue during the day.
Oil, gas and sewage must be removed from the boats before they can be pulled out of the water to prevent additional pollution of the creek. Unanswered is whether the sunken boats can be lifted out using straps or whether they are in such a state of decay that they will fall apart if hauled out that way. The alternative is to lift them using a type of giant bucket, Repik said.
The state Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management provided a grant of $37,125 for the salvage work. The town contributed $12,375.
The Shem Creek work is expected to take about two days. Once the work is completed, Cape Romain Contractors will move its barge and crane to near-shore Charleston Harbor waters at Crab Bank, a protected rookery. There, it will remove a pile of waterlogged "mystery debris" and a sailboat hull, Repik said. After that, the contractor moves to Hobcaw Creek, where a sunken boat will be hauled from the water. The entire operation is expected to take about a week, she said.
The town will try to track down the owners of the sunken boats. The salvage operation is a part of a larger town effort to address the problem of abandoned boats.
Recently, Town Council approved fines for abandoned-boat owners ranging from $1,000 to $5,000. The punishment for an abandoned boat offense could include 30 days in jail. With associated court costs, the fines could total from a minimum of about $2,000 to a maximum of about $10,000, officials said.
Police are tagging boats identified as abandoned to begin the process of notifying owners. The number of tagged boats was unavailable Tuesday. If a boat is determined to be abandoned, it can be seized as evidence.
Town Councilman Gary Santos pushed the abandoned boat ordinance. The legal process includes the option of the town auctioning an abandoned boat. Santos said he has received calls from Michigan, Virginia, North Carolina and Kentucky from people interested in acquiring an abandoned boat.
"Based on the response we've gotten, I don't anticipate us having any problem getting rid of these boats," Santos said.
In April, the city of Folly Beach removed 10 abandoned boats from the Folly River. The city received a $46,000 state grant for the work, and it provided $15,000.
In recent months, Charleston and Georgetown have adopted laws against abandoning boats. A state law making boat abandonment a crime went into effect in January. There are more than 200 unclaimed boats in state coastal waters. Officials have speculated that the boats in some cases may be a sign of the sour economy because owners can no longer afford them.
