Derelict boats are ‘chronic problem’ in SC waters. Port Royal has plan to fight back

Using a new state law, the Town of Port Royal is pursuing tough new mooring rules to keep derelict boats at bay as it prepares to pour nearly $1 million into building a new shrimp dock.

On Thursday, the Town Council unanimously OK’d the first reading of an ordinance that requires a permit for mooring and bans anchoring within a certain distance of public boat landings, bridges, private docks and marinas. The aim is to prevent boats from being abandoned and then cluttering waterways, causing environmental damage and creating a cleanup bill for the public.

The ordinance, which still needs final approval, also gives the town the authority to seize and tow vessels in violation and bans abandoned and derelict boats, which the state Department of Health and Environmental Control has called a “chronic problem in our coastal waters.”

“We’ve seen some examples of it obviously, and we want to get out in front of it before it becomes more of an issue,” Town Manager Van Willis said of boats being abandoned and “left to rot in the water.”

For years, the town has seen the problem at its shrimp docks where old boats have been abandoned. Several have even sunk, including an old shrimp boat in July.

Last spring, in preparation of tearing out its aging shrimp dock on Battery Creek and building a new one, the town issued an April 15 deadline for owners to move their boats. A sailboat and shrimp boat still remain tied to the dock and will need to be removed, along with two sunken vessels.

Willis also pointed to abandoned boats cluttering Charleston marina as an example of the problem.

The town, Councilman Kevin Phillips said, has spent “a pretty good chunk of change” to clean up the situation at the docks.

“I think it’s great when you can be proactive on issues,” Phillips said of the ordinance.

The state of Florida has passed strict laws regarding boats, Willis said, which also has resulted in a migration of derelict boats up the coast.

The Town of Port Royal, Willis said, is among the first in South Carolina to pass stricter rules under a state law passed in 2021. It was introduced by state Rep. Spencer Wetmore, D-Charleston, who saw the derelict boat problem first-hand as the Folly Beach administrator.

“This simply allows local governments to take a strong stance on mooring,” Wetmore said.

The idea, Wetmore said, is to catch owners before they abandon boats.

“You couldn’t dump your car on the side of I-26,” Wetmore said. “Why would you be able to dump your boat on the side of Port Royal Sound?”

The cost to the public of removing the boats — and the environmental damage — is considerable, she noted, and it’s not an isolated issue. Folly Beach, she said, had removed some 30 boats before it passed new rules.

Since 2004, DHEC has worked with federal, state and local partners to leverage the removal of more than 100 abandoned vessels from coastal waterways stretching from Horry County to Hilton Head.

In addition to harming fragile marsh habitat, DHEC said, abandoned vessels are a recreational hazard and a “visual blight on the landscape.”

Work on the new shrimp dock will begin as soon as all of the boats are gone, Willis said.

In 2021, lawmakers designated $900,000 for redevelopment of the town-run shrimp dock in Port Royal, where seafood processing operations were suspended last year after years of financial losses. The town plans to partner with a third party to build and run a new facility that would process seafood caught by the owners of working shrimp boats that use the new dock.

The town has an additional $600,000 in escrow from an insurance settlement after a 2015 fire destroyed a seafood market and shrimp-packing equipment.