Sinking boat remains on Charlotte Harbor

PUNTA GORDA — Two weeks ago, Sox Youngblood reported a sinking boat in Charlotte Harbor. He reached out to agencies, but nobody did anything, he said.

For days, the licensed drone operator recorded video of the 35-foot boat which was leaking fluids into Charlotte Harbor. He shared it with the Punta Gorda Fire Department.

“If this had been a motor home tipped over on the interstate leaking gas, they would have been out there right away,” said Youngblood. “But since it’s a boat in the harbor, not much was being done.”

Youngblood said something was finally done to secure the spill.

“The Punta Gorda Police Department is aware of the recent sunken vessel in the Peace River,” city of Punta Gorda Assistant City Manager Melissa Reichert wrote in an email to The Daily Sun.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission in investigating the boat as a derelict vessel, according to Reichert.

“The Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the United States Coast Guard have also been notified about the potential fuel spill,” Reichert wrote. “They indicated that this is not a hazard at this time and residual fuel is normal due to tides...Out of an abundance of caution, the Punta Gorda Fire Department has constructed a marine boom around the vessel to contain any other possible fuel spills,” she wrote.

A marine boom is a floating device used to encircle a watercraft to contain leaking fluids and alert other boaters the vessel is sinking.

Youngblood said this isn’t the only abandoned vessel he has found in the harbor.

“You can’t see these boats from the shore,” he said. “I fly my drone over the harbor and too many times I find they (derelict boats) are leaking water. They really need to take some action on this one.”

Through the state’s derelict boat program, an officer must place a notification sticker on the vessel identified as derelict for 21 days. The owner can request an administrative hearing to determine if the vessel is derelict.

If there’s no response from the owner, the state begins the process of removing boat at the owners’ expense.

Current law requires officers to contact owners of derelict, at-risk or public-nuisance boats and mail notices to the owners before placing stickers on the vessels.

“I understand the due process part of the derelict boat program, but what about the environmental impacts to the harbor?” Youngblood said. “It seems like the process should be expedited when the boat is leaking oil.”

On Thursday, Richard Whitman of Heal Our Harbor was out testing waterways before the storm. The nonprofit is led by scientists and educators and is dedicated to restoring and preserving the Charlotte Harbor watershed.

“Removing this boat is imperative before it creates additional damage to the water quality,” Whitman said.

According to Phil Horning, FWC’s Derelict Vessel program administrator, there’s an ongoing grant program for local city governments to remove and dispose derelict boats from public waterways of the state.

Through the continuous rapid removal grant, city requests are processed “as soon as practicable” and are “expedited to the extent possible.”

Reporting derelict or damaged boatsStorm damaged boats that might be lost or abandoned should be reported to local law enforcement agency or the FWC Division of Law Enforcement at 888-404-3922.

Call 911 or use VHF Marine Radio Channel 16 to report distress and other emergencies.

Social media should not be used to report life-threatening distress due to limited resources to monitor the dozens of social media platforms during severe storm events.

Florida has a voluntary program that removes and destroys unwanted or at-risk vessels at no cost to the owner. FWC processes applications on a first-come, first-served basis until funding is exhausted or the program ends.

For more information on the derelict boat program or other programs, call 850-488-5600 or email VTIP@myfwc.com.