Mike Provost has always loved the water. He joined the navy after high school and served for 21 years before retiring to sell electric boats. In his free time you’ll find him cruising the Lynnhaven – a tidal river near his home in Virginia Beach. As we pass a neighbor’s dock, Provost gives a friendly wave, but he’s not happy with what he sees.
“He had a boat that was left aground on a marsh that I removed previously, and the boat on the left there is the next one on my list,” he laments.
Just over a year ago, Provost spotted an abandoned boat off his favorite beach – the one where he swims with his three kids. It sat there for weeks with fuel, quarts of oil and other toxics on board.
“I called 30 different offices," he recalls. "I spoke to a hundred different people and no one had the funding or approval to do anything about it, and I was explicitly told that if I personally didn’t take care of it no one would.”
So Provost and a buddy did just that – raising enough money to get the boat ashore, break it into pieces and take it to a landfill. Then Provost founded a non-profit – the Vessel Disposal and Reuse Foundation – and started lining up sponsors.
He needed $28,500 for his biggest project – the Fantasy, a 35-ton, twin-masted sailing vessel stuck in the mud and taking on water in Norfolk’s harbor.
“You’ve got to bring out a barge. You have to have a tug boat to pull the barge," he explains. "On the barge you’re going to have a crane with a grappling bucket. You’re probably going to have six or so crew working the issue.”
But even more modest bills are too much for many boat owners.
“They’re either elderly, indigent, physically handicapped, mentally ill or they have some type of substance abuse going on,” Provost concludes.
It is technically illegal for people to dump their boats in state waters, but the law is rarely enforced, and some unscrupulous owners give their boats away or sell them to someone else for a song.
“If you go and look on used boating forums, you’ll see a lot of boats that were made in the70’s and 80’s that are being sold for $100 or offered as free, and the people are just trying to offload the liability of having to deal with it. If I can sell my 40-foot boat for $100, that’s going to save me thousands of dollars in having to dispose of it.”
At Lynnhaven River Now, an environmental group on Virginia’s coast, Jim Deppe is tracking the problem. He says it’s getting worse with at least 200 derelict vessels identified statewide -- more than a dozen sunk in a single place.
“In Southern Virginia Beach on the North Landing River there’s a derelict boat graveyard where people have just rubbed off all the identification marks and pulled them up into the marsh and sunk them," Deppe says.
As the boats degrade, small bits of plastic get into the water – into the fish and into people or animals that eat those fish. Abandoned boats pose a hazard to oyster farmers and discourage those who come here for scenery.
“People come here because of this view, but if you’ve got an abandoned vessel right in the middle of where you’re looking then that detracts from our tourism.”
The state legislature recently set aside $3 million to study the problem and create a small office to deal with it, but Mike Provost says it will cost a lot more to dispose of boats here, on Lake Anna, Smith Mountain and other inland lakes. He thinks it’s time to collect a small fee from 225,000 registered boat owners in Virginia – something the state of Oregon already does. That money will likely be needed in the years to come. People saw boating as a safe way to weather the pandemic, and the National Marine Manufacturers Association reported record sales in 2020.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
