Are abandoned boats on the Sacramento River allowed to sink? Your question answered

While on his usual bike ride on a path near Old Sacramento, Harry Starkey noticed something strange afloat the Sacramento River.

A large, capsized aluminum boat was sitting on the bank. It’s been there for several years now, and Starkey wondered why someone doesn’t try to retrieve it.

“There’s got to be value in it,” he thought.

On another occasion, a little further upstream, Starkey saw a boat anchored to the shore, half sunk and seemingly occupied.

“I had expected to see some attempt to try to recover the boats,” Starkey told The Bee in a phone interview. “Just because they would be hazards, I would think to other boating, and yet I never saw anything.”

He took to Bee Curious, The Sacramento Bee’s community-driven series, asking: “Are the boats ever retrieved or are they allowed to just simply sink to the bottom eventually? Is there any record keeping of the amount of boats that are at the bottom of the Sacramento River?”

Bee Curious spoke with Sgt. Darron Epperson of the Marine Enforcement Detail at the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office Central Division and researched previous reporting to answer the following: Why boats get abandoned, how many are out there, who removes them, the cost, process and what to do if you discover one.

Here’s what we found:

Why do boats get abandoned and how many are there?

There are 13 boats on the county’s radar, as of Nov. 30, Epperson said, located on the Sacramento River, San Joaquin River and various sloughs.

The sight of derelict vessels on the Sacramento River and nearby waterways is not new.

In a 2017 Bee report, it was estimated that about 200 boats were ditched in the water throughout the Delta region and Stockton.

Boats are dumped for various reasons. People may ditch them after getting into an accident or because of lack of maintenance, Epperson said. They may purposely leave them behind because they don’t want to own them anymore or because they were stolen.

Sacramento County tracks abandoned boat reports, keeping an updated board in the sheriff’s office.

Who handles abandoned boat removal and what does it cost?

The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office is responsible for about 300 miles of waterways, Epperson said, including the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers. The department works with neighboring counties, including Solano, Contra Costa, San Joaquin and Yolo, to clear abandoned boats.

With a limited budget for the sheriff’s office, Epperson said, the removal of boats depends on a state grant called Surrendered and Abandoned Vessel Exchange, or SAFE. The grant provides about $2.7 million to counties across California, as reported by the Division of Boating and Waterways. In June, The Bee reported it would take between $6 and $9 million to remove the approximately 30 boats in the waterways. A 2017 report said it costs an average $4,488 per vessel across the state.

Epperson explained that the department applies for the SAFE grant. Once they are awarded the funding, they work with a contractor to identify the sunken vessels and prioritize which ones to remove based on factors, such as location, design, hazardous waste or pollution.

Annually, he said, about 25 to 35 vessels are removed in Sacramento County. But this number fluctuates.

Are abandoned boats in the river allowed to sink?

Every vessel that’s dumped in the water will sink, Epperson said. The ones that do go down, if the department knows about them, they can still recover them — at a greater cost.

“Time is never on our side,” he said, adding that the process of removal can take a while as the department has to give written notice to the owner of the boat if they can be identified, and give them time to remove it.

For 2020 and 2021, Sacramento County Sheriff’s office was awarded $320,367 and Sacramento Police Department $160,134 to remove abandoned vessels. Money was not granted to the two agencies for 2021 to 2022, The Bee reported in June.

How are boats removed from the Sacramento River?

Removing the boat itself, Epperson said, can take about two to four days.

If it’s a large boat, he said, it can take a lot of rigging; or if there’s mud on board, it has to be pumped out. Divers may also be involved with the removal.

The entire process can take up to a year. This is because it entails identifying the boat owner — if the boat has a registration number — and reaching out to them. If they do not remove the vessel or there is no number, then the department must add it to its priority list of removal, wait for the grant approval and schedule a contractor.

“We can have a boat sitting in the water for a year on our list before we’re actually able to get it,” Epperson said.

Earlier this year, Sacramento County sponsored Senate Bill 1065 to create the California Abandoned and Derelict Commercial Vessel Program and designate funding for the purging of abandoned boats, instead of having counties rely on grants. The program would have allowed for the immediate authorization and removal of these vessels to keep waterways safe and clean from pollutants that can come from a boat’s battery, paint and solvents.

It passed in the Assembly and Senate in August and was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in late September.

See an abandoned boat in the river?

If you see a ditched or sinking vessel in Sacramento County, you can contact the sheriff’s office at 916-875-0471. You can find the contact information for Marine Patrols in other California counties online.

This story was originally published December 10, 2022 at 6:00 AM.