Another abandoned boat has sunk off Vancouver Island's coast, adding to the number of vessels on the ocean floor that may be releasing gasoline, heavy metals, and other pollutants into the marine environment.
Devery Thornton, manager of the Campbell River Harbour Authority, said they learned on Monday (June 7) that the derelict 50-foot tugboat they had been monitoring for several years went down at Fisherman's Wharf in Campbell River.
"On one side of the dock, there is the bubbling of oil where the boat sank," said Thornton, who went out to survey the damage earlier in the week. "On the other side, there are thousands and thousands of herring feeding and salmon feeding on those herring.
"It was pretty unsettling to see," she said. "The smell was atrocious."
The vessel, called the Iron Horse, is believed to be over 40 years old. It was owned by an elderly man in his 80s who, when he learned it would cost about $100,000 to destroy it, abandoned it, Thornton said. The situation might have been prevented if there was a cheaper solution for old boats, she noted.
In 2023, the Canadian Coast Guard cleared the tugboat as a pollution risk after the owner got rid of all the pollutants he could access onboard, wrote Leri Davies, a media relations advisor with DFO, in an email.
"The sheening observed in the harbour this week is the result of residual pollution, which is non-recoverable and will naturally degrade and dissipate with wind and tidal action," Davies said.
John Rowe, the director of the Dead Boats Disposal Society, a Victoria-based organization that's been pulling sunken vessels from the ocean for 30 years, doesn't see it that way. He insists that abandoned boats are just as damaging to the ocean as plastics.
Thousands of old boats need to be removed from B.C waters before they sink and leach toxic pollutants into the ocean, he said.
"Look at the paints, the lead, mercury and zinc and copper and tributyltin that are involved with making these vessels," Rowe said. "It just doesn't magically disappear."
All levels of government should find a solution similar to recycling old cars, or fund an industrial service that makes it affordable for people to get rid of their old boats, Rowe said.
"It's wrong to put anything in our ocean," he continued. "We haven't learned that yet as a culture. You and I end up eating it sooner or later because the chemicals get absorbed in shellfish and other (seafoods)."
