No stimulus money to remove sunken ships off Georgia coast

By Kristi E. Swartz

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

There are a lot of stories about state projects receiving federal stimulus money.

This isn’t one of them.

The state Department of Natural Resources bid unsuccessfully for $7.2 million in federal stimulus money to remove 111 sunken or abandoned vessels in Georgia’s coastal waters off Savannah and Chatham County.

The grant could have solved two problems.

The work was enough for 253 jobs at a time of high unemployment, said Charles “Buck” Bennett of the DNR’s Coastal Resources Division.

Then there’s the boats – their number having grown to 129 since the DNR submitted its bid in March – which will remain at the bottom of the ocean or floating free.

The vessels are more than an eyesore, as their rotting wood and leaking fuel pollute waters, and pieces of these wrecks can break off and ram into jet skiers, hit other boaters or slam into docks, Bennett said.

“People invest a lot of money into their docks and into their boats, and people routinely [abandon] their vessels because they think they can,” Bennett said. “You cannot leave your vehicle on I-95 and walk away from it. It would cause a pileup.”

It’s a pricey problem to fix. The recent removal of a barge from the Ogeechee River cost $120,000 because it had to be cut up and taken out in pieces. Hauling out a fishing vessel cost about $40,000. Without the stimulus funding, that has left the state and local communities to pay the bills.

Forcing owners to pay for their abandoned watercraft is nearly impossible because anything that can reveal their identity has normally been stripped from the boats.

State Sen. Eric Johnson (R-Savannah) in 2007 introduced legislation that would hold accountable owners of abandoned vessels, making them pay to dispose of their boats or, if they refuse, keeping them from getting a boat or vehicle license again. The Senate approved the bill, but the House did not.

Jill Andrews, the grant coordinator for the DNR’s Coastal Resources Division, said she isn’t sure whether the state will have another crack at the stimulus funds designated for coastal restoration and the removal of marine debris, which are managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

In all, NOAA received 814 requests for funding totaling $3 billion.

“It was a very competitive grant program,” Andrews said. “There were a lot more requests than funding was available.”

Meanwhile, Georgia’s efforts to clear its coastal waters will remain frustrated.

“We’d like to just do our job,” Bennett said. “We would like to have had the money to make the waterways safer and cleaner and to preserve our coast.”