Eyesore no more: Crews pulling derelict boats, debris from Alouette River

Amid the threat of snow and in frigid waters, crews were on the Alouette River Tuesday conducting an environmental cleanup years in the making.

“It’s a fair size job,” Adam Coolidge of Cold Water Divers told Global News.

“We have about a mile and a half of cleanup we’re doing. We’ve done the south side, now focusing on the northern side.”

2:13 Funding denied for abandoned vessel clean-up in Pitt Meadows

Coolidge and his crew were contracted by Transport Canada to pull as many as a dozen derelict boats along with decrepit docks and boathouses that have long presented the river mouth — presenting not only an eyesore but a significant environmental hazard.

Getting here was hard. The river falls under multiple local, provincial and federal jurisdictions, and local Mark Caros, who partnered with the Alouette River Management Society to get the work done, said complaints about the situation resulted in buck-passing for years.

Everyone was sympathetic, he said, but no one had the resources to clean the river up.

“It’s right in our backyard and my primary concern was all the toxic waste that’s on the boats: diesel, gasoline, oil, transmission fluid … if they’re not leaching into the system now they certainly will be over time,” he said.

“In this case, it was Transport Canada that finally stepped up … finally the buck did stop somewhere, but historically that hasn’t been the case.”

1:50 Safety concerns after boat fire in Vancouver’s False Creek

Caros credited the support of the City of Pitt Meadows along with a persistent phone, email and media campaign by concerned residents for getting to a result.

The move comes just months after advocates were turned down for provincial funding to clear the waterway.

The cleanup work is expected to take about a week and involve removing debris from about a kilometre of river between Silver Bridge and the Pitt Meadows Marina.

Greta Borick-Cunningham, executive director of the Alouette River Management Society, said the work will play an important role in protecting local fish stock.

1:58 Calls grow to do more to clean up B.C.’s coast of derelict vessels

“We actually have all five species of the Pacific salmon return to our river every year,” she said.

“Their habitat is getting cleaned up. They don’t typically spawn down this stretch of the river, but they have to obviously navigate this part of it.”

There are at least 1,600 known derelict or abandoned vessels listed on British Columbia’s coast, but those who monitor the issue believe the problem is much larger.

“We don’t have a real clue what’s out there, but I think pushing 4,000 really,” said John Roe, director of operations with the Dead Boat Disposal Society.

“It’s a blight. Every time I go out to look at one boat I always find about 10 or 12 more.”

2:08 Transport Canada to remove several derelict boats from False Creek

Canada enacted the Wrecked, Abandoned or Hazardous Vessels Act in 2019, but work to enforce it has been slow. As of July 2013, just two people had been fined under the legislation.

Roe said he feels like the federal government is finally taking the problem seriously, but still lacks an industrial-scale system to both track and recycle dead boats.

Coolidge, whose company books close to 98 per cent of its business in wrecked vessel salvage, said it’s simply far too easy for people to abandon their vessels without consequence.

“Because of our weather and our climate, a lot of people don’t pull their boats out like they do on the East Coast — it’s affordable living temporarily until the boat dies, and then they just walk away from it,” he said, adding many people inherit vessels without realizing the cost to maintain them.

“Because Canada has got a lackadaisical registry program, it’s not that enforced, it’s really difficult to track who owns a boat, so it’s easy to just grind the number off and walk away … the database needs to be a lot better.”

2:11 Federal government increases funding for derelict vessel removal

He believes Canada should look at emulating Washington state’s system, where owners are required to put tags on their vessels — similar to old ICBC decals.

If officials find a boat with expired or no tags, they can impound it immediately and either scrap it or auction it off, he said.

Caros, meanwhile, said the priority was getting the boats out of the river now — with the work of finding their owners still to come.

While the full cost of the cleanup remains unclear, the City of Pitt Meadows said Transport Canada will be tasked with tracking those responsible down and handing them the bill.