A derelict boat that was anchored in a tributary of the lower Kennebec River broke free earlier this month and drifted onto the nearby mudflats, becoming a public problem.
The sportfishing boat, called Hook, Line and Sinker, had been anchored by the water-encircled town of Arrowsic since August. Now, town officials are at a loss for how to remove the busted-up vessel, which has a hole in its keel and is littered with hypodermic needles that may have been used to inject meth.
It’s an increasingly familiar struggle for coastal Maine communities. In recent years, there has been an apparent uptick in boats being abandoned in public waterways, which officials have attributed at least partly to Mainers getting rid of watercraft they bought during the early days of the pandemic.
Regardless of the reasons, that has created headaches for the communities that must deal with the abandoned boats. In some cases, state or federal officials have stepped in to help with the removal — as when the U.S. Coast Guard removed the Jacob Pike, a 75-year-old sardine boat that sank off Harpswell in a storm last year.
In others, municipalities such as Arrowsic, which is just across the Kennebec River from Bath, must try to figure it out on their own.
In this case, around Feb. 1, the boat broke free near the Max L. Wilder Memorial Bridge and floated down a channel, onto the mudflats of a property owned by Arrowsic resident Bob Nelson.
The town has reached out to the U.S. Coast Guard, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection and other agencies to see if any of them can remove the boat or provide the town with funding to do so, but it hasn’t had any luck yet, Select Board Chair Walter Briggs said at a meeting on Monday night.
“Where we sit right now is a problem that requires money to be solved,” Briggs said. With a note of sarcasm, he added, “There is, surprisingly, no money coming from the federal government.”
However, because the boat isn’t in the channel, the Coast Guard does not have authority over it, according to Sagadahoc County Sheriff Joel Merry, who also attended the meeting.
Briggs contacted a boat towing company for an estimate on how much it would cost to remove Hook, Line and Sinker. The company told him that it could have contractors drag the boat with a barge to a property where it could be disposed of, but that would cost $25,000.
The company could also float it with balloons and drag it that way, but it would be unable to do that until the ice packs melt.
Yet Arrowsic has neither the money nor the interest in waiting, and the owner of the vessel has not cooperated with its efforts.
DEP officials put booms around the boat to prevent it from leaking any more oil into the water, according to Briggs. But after police searched the boat in December and found the needles onboard that appeared to be connected to drug use, officials have been unwilling to go on it without a hazardous materials team, Merry said.
In an effort to begin the removal, the Arrowsic Select Board voted unanimously on Monday to declare the vessel abandoned. The members will now write a letter that Merry will deliver to the owner.
According to Maine law, the owner will then have 60 days to remove the boat — or, if it is icebound, 60 days after it’s released from ice. If it is not removed, Arrowsic will then be authorized to contact a third party to step in.
Jules Walkup is a Report for America corps member. Additional support for this reporting is provided by BDN readers.