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Thousands of abandoned and derelict vessels around the U.S. pose environmental and navigational challenges.
A Florida man’s dream to build a 100-foot-long submarine known locally as the “Yellow Submarine” has ended. Workers hauled the giant steel tube out of a Keys mangrove swamp to be recycled.
The former industrial equipment was once envisioned by a Marathon resident as an eco-tourism attraction, but ran into financial challenges. The vessel had been sitting in a canal on Boot Key since the late 1990s. In 2008, its then-owner told a reporter he planned to renovate it and float around it on a homemade raft.
Contractors recently removed the rusted 100-ton tube with rigging and float bags, highlighting challenges posed by abandoned vessels from Florida to Alaska, Minnesota, and Oregon. Florida law allows the government to seize and remove abandoned vessels and charge owners for cleanup costs.
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Monroe County’s senior administrator for marine resources, Brittany Burtner, said the vessel was still floating but contained no usable interior. Abandoned boats can leak diesel fuel, oil, and cleaning supplies into waterways.
The federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is separately funding the removal of more than 300 abandoned vessels across six states over the next four years. NOAA is providing $69 million for this work, which also includes removing abandoned fishing gear, tires, and marine debris.
People often buy cheap used boats intending to renovate them but get in over their heads, leading to abandonment. Burtner explained it’s difficult to tell the difference between a boat that’s just sitting there and one that has been abandoned.
“It’s really hard to solve this problem from many different angles,” she said.
