St. Petersburg to test program targeting derelict boats

Dozens of boats are anchored, sometimes for years, around the perimeter of this city, bobbing with the waves in bayous, coves and creeks. You can see them as you drive over the causeway that leads to Fort DeSoto Park or if you live in neighborhoods on the water.

Sometimes, their owners take care of them.

Sometimes, their owners don't.

When they don't, the boats often break loose from their anchors and sink or drift to shore, creating hazards for other boaters, pollution for the environment and eyesores for visitors. Removing them is costly.

There are no laws preventing a boat owner from anchoring his vessel in these pockets of seclusion, protected from the oft-violent weather.

The state is wondering if there should be.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is working with five cities to discuss whether to regulate where and for how long boats can anchor.

St. Petersburg is one of the five cities. A public hearing on the issue is scheduled for 6:45 p.m. Wednesday at the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, 100 Eighth Ave. S.E.

Currently, the state and local governments have virtually no power to enforce where boaters can and cannot anchor, said Les Miller, an officer with the St. Petersburg Police Department's marine unit.

"Basically, you can take your boat and anchor it wherever you want," Miller said.

Owners can keep their boat in a marina, which is expensive, or on a trailer in the driveway, which may constitute a code violation or draw a lawsuit from a homeowners' association in a deed-restricted community.

Or the owner can keep the boat on the water.

The pilot program was authorized by the Legislature in 2009, aimed at exploring options authorities might take in telling boat owners where on the water they can keep their boats and for how long.

Cities and counties used to have this power, but it was taken away that same year by the Legislature. They were told they couldn't regulate any boats – except those people lived on, or a business was operated out of – that were outside those areas they or a private company already managed.

The power was stripped away because, as boaters sailed along the coast, from one area to another, they found themselves governed by different laws, said Capt. Tom Shipp of the commission's boating and waterways division. The system was confusing.

Under the pilot program, the five cities will be allowed to draw up their own ordinances, which will be in effect only until 2014, when the pilot program comes to a close.

The fish and wildlife commission then will submit a report on the program to the governor and Legislature, which can decide what laws, if any, should be passed to address the problem.

The cities were picked because they already have, or soon will have, mooring areas where boaters can tie their boat to a buoy or piling, then ride in a dinghy to shore.

St. Petersburg's mooring field is expected to be by December, said Walter Miller, the manager of St. Petersburg's marina and port. Thirteen mooring spots, with their accompanying buoys, will be established in the Vinoy Yacht Basin in December, and, if all goes well, another 13 will be put into place 18 months to two years later, he said.

St. Augustine, another of the pilot program cities, is already toying with a program in which a boater has to drop anchor at least 50 feet away from any dock or boat ramp, and at least 100 feet away from any mooring field, Shipp said.

Another stipulation in the St. Augustine test ordinance is that an occupied boat can stay in one spot for a maximum of 10 consecutive days out of a 30-day period. After that, the boat has to either move on or move into a city mooring field.

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Under the same test ordinance, St. Augustine also would require boaters who keep their vessels in the water for long periods of time to bring the boat to the city marina twice a year to show it can move under its own propulsion.

Those are the kind of rules St. Petersburg would be interested in, said Miller, the marine officer.

Now, people from as far away as Canada anchor their boats at a variety of locations throughout the city, Miller said, including Big Bayou, Little Bayou and Frenchman's Creek. If the boats are neglected, they can leak fuel or sewage or sink.

Because the state's derelict vessel program is underfunded, the city often ends up having to dispose of sunken vessels. Miller works with other city departments to tow abandoned boats to shore, where a front-end loader picks them up and puts them in a dump truck to be hauled away as trash.

Miller and his colleagues try to find the owners, but often the boat has changed hands several times. The owner may be "someone in their 80s who sold their boat 10 to 15 years ago," Miller said.

"You got a lot of boats because people are too cheap to take care of them properly," said Jim Gee, president of the Coquina Key Neighborhood Association. "You shouldn't be leaving a boat over here."