Abandoned boats on St. Croix River causing issues

HUDSON, Wis. — Boats big and small are being beached and abandoned in the St. Croix River.

City leaders in Hudson are trying to chart a course on how to clean them up.

One half-sunken boat has been rusting away on an island in the river since midsummer.

Three others are sitting in Hudson's impound lot, all abandoned in the last year or so.

Geoff Willems, Hudson's chief of police, says the Department of Natural Resources and Coast Guard both say it is not their jurisdiction, which leaves it up to the city to do something.

"It is frustrating," Willems said. "This problem came up and we had to try to figure out how we were going to solve it and there was really no good answer."

Willems says it would cost $6,000 just to hoist the latest abandoned boat to shore. The city isn't interested in footing the bill if it can help it.

At a city council meeting last month, Mayor Rich O'Connor said abandoning boats is "unacceptable conduct."

The council passed an ordinance at that meeting to start fining people hundreds of dollars for abandoning boats.

Willems says when they reached the owner of the boat in the river this week, he said he sold it to someone else for just $1.

That new owner will now be given the chance to remove it.

"If they just don't want to get the boat back, now we're stuck with a 54-foot houseboat and a $6,000 debt," Willems said. "We don't want it to become a habit for people to abandon their junked property in the city and think we're going to take care of it for them."