Fuel Finally Removed From Boat Polluting The Savannah River

Fuel Finally Removed From Boat Polluting The Savannah River (Added: January 21, 2010)

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The abandoned boat has been bothering environmental groups for months, but it became a bigger concern more than three weeks ago when it started leaking diesel fuel into the Savannah River. A costly clean up is over after the red tape was sorted out so the boat could be cleaned out. WJBF News Channel 6's George Eskola has the story.

By: George Eskola | WJBF News Channel 6
Published: January 21, 2010

Augusta, GA -- It was a lot of attention for one abandoned boat, a half dozen members of the U.S. Coast Guard, out of Savannah, and environmental clean up crew, but it meant that after three weeks, there was finally going to be a solution to the pollution in the river.

“There is a huge delay the funding is not available for the government agencies anymore,” said Tonya Bonitaitbus, Executive Director of the Savannah Riverkeepers.

It was the Riverkeeper group that was rocking the boat to get some agency to do something about the boat polluting the river.

The abandoned boat located south of the Riverfront Marina was first reported to be leaking fuel to the Augusta Fire Department, on January 1st.

Coast Guard officials say in these types of cases the first step is to find someone to hold responsible.

“Alot of the guidelines we follow, we have to find the RP, the responsible party to assist and, per regulations, we have to give them the opportunity to clean it up or take care of the situation,” said Lt. Jonathon Cooper, of the Coast Guard’s Marine Safety Unit, out of Savannah.

Unable to find the owner, the Coast Guard federalized the clean up, and contracted with a private environmental company to get the fuel off the boat, more than 1,500 gallons of the toxic stew of diesel fuel and engine oil and river water was removed, ending the pollution threat to the river.

The actual clean up took about two hours, even though it took several days to get through the paper work to get the federal funds to pay for it.

“It's time consuming, a lot of paper work we have to do we have to dot those eyes and cross those t’s and then once we take over a project it gets pretty costly,” said Cooper.

This was no nickel and dime operation...the clean up cost $20,000.

Riverkeeper officials say it points to the need of what they are working on, a private program to remove abandoned boats from the Savannah.

“The government obviously is not going to allocate the funds required it needs to go into the hands of the private sector and let us deal with them,” said Bonitaitbus.

The plan is to turn the boat over to a new owner, with the Richmond County Dive Team expressing an interest.