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Vessels can be navigation hazard, source of pollution Junk boats aren't sunken treasure, officials say
By REBECCA JACKSON, Smith Mountain Eagle
When a dilapidated, 50-foot houseboat sank in the waters of Hickory Cove early last month, it was not the first such neglected craft to slip beneath the surface of Smith Mountain Lake. Nor will it be the last. The last two to three years have witnessed a rise in the number of derelict boats sinking.
While not a daily occurrence, it is happening more and more, a Virginia Department of Fish and Game official says.
But owners of bargain basement boats had better take notice. If they sink, the people who own them, but fail to properly maintain them, will be subject to a hefty fine, and even jail time.
The houseboat had sunk more than once, when the same owner stored it across the main channel from Hickory Cove, in Franklin County, said Lt. Karl Martin of the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
Martin, chief game warden for the district that includes the Lake, and his personnel are cracking down on the owners of junk boats.
"A lot of aging boats are not being properly maintained," Martin said. "They're usually cabin cruisers or houseboats that are sinking. They're not easily removed for repair, so they're being left at docks. When they sink in the Lake, they leak oil and gas, polluting the Lake, and creating a navigational hazard, endangering, obstructing and impeding other boaters. There are quite a few large, old boats at Smith Mountain Lake that are not being maintained. We're strongly enforcing the law on this."
Under Virginia State law, the offense is considered a special misdemeanor, carrying a $500 a day fine for each day the boat remains in the Lake, and up to one year in prison for each day the craft is not removed, according to Martin. The person whose houseboat sank in Hickory Cove was charged with polluting state waters, Martin said.
A neglected boat is not only an eyesore, owning one is a criminal act, he added.
The bilge pumps may not work on some of the ramshackle craft, and that, combined with the accumulation of water above deck from heavy rains, as happened in early July, can send an old boat to the bottom.
Because of their size and weight, titanic boats can't simply be trailered out of the Lake like a runabout. A crane is needed to haul the craft out and place it on a flatbed truck for transport to a repair facility. Such a procedure is costly, so owners of large, dilapidated houseboats and cabin cruisers sometimes put off the job until it's too late.
Not only wooden-hulled boats, but also those with fiberglass hulls, if neglected, will deteriorate when left in the water for a long time without any maintenance, according to Martin.
"If the gel coat on a fiberglass boat fails, it can sink, too," he said.
People get saddled with big albatrosses when they purchase them at garage sale prices, thinking they'll have the time, money and skills to refurbish them later. Most large houseboats, sailboats and cabin cruisers are sold without a trailer, and there's a reason for that, according to Martin.
"Forty to 50-foot boats usually are conveyed by a flatbed truck, and they can become a storage problem," he said.
The aged craft may have been top-flight when they were manufactured back in the mid to late 1960s or early 1970s, but like a house built at the same time, they need regular repairs to stay on top of the water rather than beneath it.
"The boats that were here during the early days of Smith Mountain Lake are 40 years old, and that's old for a boat," Martin said. "If you built a house in the 1960s, it has needed repairs over the years, and if you've got a 40-year-old car, it's considered an antique. Maintenance requires removal of these old boats at some point to fix their hulls."
When one of them sinks, the Smith Mountain Lake Marine Volunteer Fire Department is faced with the burden of fuel containment, as well as floating the submerged boat.
"The Smith Mountain Lake Marine Volunteer Fire Department has responded to numerous calls about unattended craft, including sailboats," Martin said.
"It's a very frequent problem," said the fire department's chief, Jack Gautier. "Not only is it a navigational hazard, it can cause fuel leaks, which could lead to fish kills, and with two counties now drawing drinking water out of the lake, there's a possibility of polluting the water."
Raising a sunken boat, especially a mammoth one, gobbles up man-hours and costs money for fuel and other resources the all-volunteer fire company must pay for, according to Gautier. The fire company's estimated fuel budget just for its boat fleet this year is a whopping $40,000. Yet those the firefighters help often don't contribute the money they promise when a craft is pulled from the lake.
"They say they'll send money, and then they forget about you. Most people think we're paid," Gautier said.
As is the case for the houseboat that sank in Hickory Cove, other boats have gone down more than once. A few weeks ago, a 45-foot houseboat sank off someone's property near R-49, and the fire company was summoned to float it to the surface. Two weeks later, Gautier got a call at 2 a.m. on a Sunday morning that the same boat, towed to another location, went down in 10 feet of water.
"It took us eight hours, working with 10 people, to get the boat up the first time," Gautier said. "It's very time consuming. Some people leave their jobs to answer fire calls."
To raise a large boat, firefighters surround it with a hazardous materials boom to contain any fuel leaks, then divers hook straps attached to airbags beneath its hull. As the airbags are inflated, the craft floats to the surface.
Another lake resident once had three sunken houseboats at their property on the Bedford County side of the lake. Now, due to game wardens' persistence, that number has fallen to one and there are plans to remove it, Gautier said.
An astonishing number of craft out on Smith Mountain Lake are not seaworthy, because the state does not require boat inspections like those on cars, according to the chief.
"There's nothing in place to check the integrity of boats," Gautier added. "You could buy a boat 100 years old and put it out on the lake. You'd be surprised...there are boats out there so rotten that when they run aground, the bottom just busts out."
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