GAINESVILLE, Fla. – When Stephanie Price took over as manager of an RV park near Fort Myers Beach in southwest Florida, she had a problem: The bay bordering the park had abandoned, sunken boats.
"One of them, you didn't even see it until there was low tide, and there would be a little tiny bit of the mast,” Price said. “That was a danger. It was a danger to people out there boating."
Across Florida, there are nearly 900 derelict vessels dating back to 2020, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Now, the Legislature is tackling the problem. Lawmakers passed a bill this week that would punish owners who abandon derelict vessels and make them responsible for paying to remove them. The bill awaits the signature of Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“ Derelict and at-risk vessels that are left on Florida's waters threaten public safety,” Sen. Ana Maria Rodriguez, R-Doral, said during a committee hearing on the proposal. “They're dangerous to our environment and they're expensive to remove.”
The cost to remove all the derelict vessels in Florida waters could range between $10 million and $20 million, based on state figures and estimates.
The new legislation also would create a long-term anchoring permit program that would be managed by the wildlife commission. It would force boat owners that want to anchor in one place for more than 30-days in a six-month period to obtain a permit.
Owners who refuse to pay for their boat’s removal can’t buy another vessel or vehicle under the new bill.
Currently, removal costs are covered by the state, the boat owner or local governments.
“ We make every effort to try and work with those vessel owners to get it brought back into compliance,” said Bradley Johnson, a spokesman for the wildlife commission. “Or have them get it removed off the water, so we can reduce that cost to taxpayers.”
Boat owners can’t always be found. In at least 130 cases in state records, the hull identification numbers for a derelict vessel was unknown.
Currently, the wildlife commission administers a state-funded grant program to help counties pay for the removal of derelict vessels. In the case where no grant is available, counties and local governments have to eat the difference.
For example, in the West Coast Inland Navigation District, a multi-county special taxing body that covers Lee, Sarasota, Charlotte and Manatee counties along Florida’s west coast, the total cost to remove derelict vessels from 2018 to 2024 was about $1.3 million. The district paid about $700,000, according to data provided by the taxing body.
There were only two cases out of 187 where the owner removed the vessel, according to the district’s data.
The sunken boats cause legal issues, according to Philip Purcell, the CEO of the Marine Industries Association of South Florida.
“It’s an unintended vessel that's probably got fuel in its tanks … and oil in its engines,” Purcell said. “No one's maintaining it. It can break loose, it can end up on private property. It can run into another boat that's anchored legally.”
Offshore from Price’s RV park, she said boaters cruising the bay could have punctured the derelict vessels or injured themselves in a crash.
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This story was produced by Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. The reporters can be reached at gvelasquezneira@ufl.edu. You can donate to support our students here.