With limited resources and staff shortages, the Port Orchard Police Department marine patrol unit managed to remove 35 derelict vessels on Sinclair Inlet over a year, addressing potential environmental and public safety concerns.

Most vessel owners move their boats after receiving notices from Port Orchard police, but in some cases, officers were unable to identify or hear back from vessel owners. The marine patrol unit ultimately impounded five derelict vessels and will destroy them later, said Port Orchard Police Department Sgt. Trey Holden, one of the four marine patrol officers in the department.

Officers checked illegally moored vessels, put out notices on the boats and in the newspaper and sent letters to notify vessel owners. The state's Department of Natural Resources prohibits a vessel from mooring in the same spot for over 30 days. Owners need to move the boat at least 5 miles away from where it first moored after 30 days, Holden said.

"I've talked to the people who live out there ... I don't want to write you tickets. I don't want to impound your vessel, and I certainly don't want to destroy it if this is valuable to you. However, you have to play by the same rules as everybody else," Holden said.

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Lack of manpower is the biggest challenge for the department when it comes to identifying and removing derelict vessels in its jurisdiction, Holden said. The officers who work the marine patrol unit have other responsibilities in the department. 

"We're short-staffed, and this is a duty that takes us off of the road, so I can't do this when it's just me and one other officer on the road to take care of an entire city," Holden said.

The marine patrol unit aims to address criminal activities on the water, keep the environment clean and increase education and safety for vessel owners, the sergeant said. Crimes they respond to on the water include theft (both from other vessels and from property along the shore) and domestic violence. Some dump waste in the water, harming the environment. 

"It's just about everything you can think of on land can also happen in the water," Holden said.

If a derelict vessel sinks, chemicals and fuel leaked from the vessel are detrimental to the ecosystem. It is also expensive to destroy a boat or remove a sunken one. It costs about $8,000 to destroy a derelict vessel and $24,000 to salvage a sunken vessel to the surface, Holden said.

Beginning in 2002, the marine patrol unit in Port Orchard Police Department started with a rowboat, which Holden said he found washed up on shore, and life jackets borrowed from a life jacket loaner program. 

Twenty years later, Port Orchard Police Department now has two boats for officers to maintain safety on the water. The department got a boat for free from a military surplus and installed engine services and the electronics on the boat through donations from the community in 2002. In 2009, the department received a federal grant that the State Patrol helped to attain to purchase a 31-foot boat with three engines that stays ready to respond in the marina.

Derelict vessels are an ongoing issue. When vessels are told to leave, they typically head to other areas in Puget Sound and then come back after a while. Keeping the time and resources to stay proactive in removing derelict vessels is the marine patrol unit's goal, Holden said.

"We are a small department and it's hard to find extra time to go out there, but that's part of our struggle and that's what we're dealing with," Holden said.

Reach breaking news reporter Peiyu Lin at pei-yu.lin@kitsapsun.com or on Twitter @peiyulintw.

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