Abandoned

[Music] the Chesapeake Bay bridging Maryland in Virginia is a 200m Marvel of nature bustling with Commerce and brimming with recreational Allure the impact of our waterways is huge for oura everything is close to water everything as the US's largest Estuary it's a vital artery for over 100 million tons of merchant traffic in a Haven for activities like boating and fishing drawing countless enthusiasts to its Serene Waters this has really great highquality waterways in the summertime we're in this water every single night you know growing up and and being part of the water just depends part of who you [Music] are this ecological gym enriched by over 150 rivers and streams forms a unique ecosystem where freshwater blends with the Atlantic saltwater it's a Lifeline for local communities producing over 500 million pounds of seafood annually including the famed blue crab and oysters however something dark Looms in the waterways threatening the way of life of many residents in the surrounding communities right now they're over one 50 abandoned boats rotting in Virginia Waters this vibrant landscape faces a silent crisis abandoned and deric vessels the Forgotten and decaying vessels leak toxic pollutants such as hydraulic fluid battery acid and microplastics to name a few advs also pose as a serious navigational threat endangering boers and Commercial vessels alike what I think the the issue will be in the near future is just kind of a graveyard of advs littered throughout this beautiful you know Resort Waterway the northlanding river home to one of the many generational boat dumping grounds in the Hampton Roads this whole graveyard which is illegal resides next to the North Landing River Natural Area Preserve on the uh left side of the river bank there was a brand new dual console that is was not here last time I came down and inventoried the abandoned vessels it's cuz people get the perception that when their boats you know not working well anymore they can go and dump it it's not worth value it costs more to get it out of the water than to just to dump it I really was invested in the fact that this is something that I can't believe nobody has done this before that nobody has said like yes somebody needs to help get these out of here we need stakeholders in the community that are stepping up to work to solve this problem Mike Provost a retired Special Operations veteran and a steward of the community took matters into his own hands to remove these advs and Mike really has taken the bull by the horns and really is making this happen yeah Mike was calling and calling chasing me down really I didn't take him too serious cuz a lot of guys call me about these boats before nobody's able been able to raise the funds they needed to get them up walking the trails of First Landing State Park and looking out and seeing a an abandoned vessel sitting in the middle of Broad Bay it just not a good impression of our area so once that happened I got very motivated and very determined to get this thing removed so at that point I called over 30 different offices I spoke to over 100 different people in all the different city state federal nonprofit anybody that would listen i' talk to and I quickly found out that no one was able to do anything about this vessel my children candidly asked me like hey who's going to take care of that boat who's going to remove it and I said that I would and through that discovered this larger network of an issue plastic metal Nets rigging and more advs are part of this man's Mission limit the negative environmental impacts of an abandoned adic vessel each one cost several thousand to remove once those vessels sink the cost for removal and disposal triples the cost for the nonprofit to remove an abandon and der vessel $14,000 good we're around but there are environmental and safety issues fuel there's oil VD RF cleaning up our waterways one vessel at a time he's kind of been a oneman band he took that on and is now trying to bring on the next generation of leaders to help continue to push this Mission forward and help support the state to understand what the negative implications are and how we can work together as a team to solve this issue something as simple as just booring the event leaning to part of the mission of vdrf is public Outreach and education and that's why we reached out to the Environmental Studies program with Virginia Beach Public Schools so this is June 21 obviously no vote so go for one slide and those juniors seniors are helping vdrf as we try to validate the gigantic list of abandoned their vessels in Virginia abandoned derck vessels reside in this gray space and it's in between the authorities and funding of different agencies to the point where no one will do anything about it because they can't I was a bit confused when no agency seemed to um have any jurisdiction over it for just sitting you know there there was no there's no laws or guidelines mean I thought there was they can't block the inter Coastal but I guess if you want to live on it you can live on it I live well I I moved here in 2017 uh and originally there was uh about four four or five tenants um really what uh the boats that that are sunk are the one that are that lack maintenance and that the people that usually it's they have people that live on it but they're down thren people people they're going through something or they've been they have went through something and they crash landed here I mean we've we've had three three people because they were older they were from the an older crowd they passed away on their boat and within within that week I mean the boat sunk welcome to Virginia Beach welome the chess feet and it just kind of puts this Persona that the waterways aren't taken care of and that it's run down or that Virginia Beach isn't doing its job by protecting the waterways so you have the hazard substances leeching out into the Waterway and if you dig even further you'll notice that fiberglass over time breaks down into microplastics fish and marine life eat the microplastics we eat the marine life and the fish and then it gets into our in our system we think about pollutant from a point source pollution as an abandoned derc vessel that might be leaking chemicals into our Waterway diesel fuel and the like that is definitely going to be affecting our benic uh invertebrates our our critters the B valves that are in our waterways that are actually helping us filter and clean our water a slight change in salt a slight change in temperature pH can kill them so uh I don't I don't have any statistics on what gas or oil or diesel will do to them but I don't imagine it's very [Music] good as a farmer you know you preach sustainability in restoration and so when you see these objects fling on your Shore and your your farm it's that makes a direct impact on um our operation martime law states that if a boat is anchored off Channel away from all navigation rights from other boat traffic and is not disposed in any hazardous ways it could sit there for the duration of of my life my Farm's life and potentially whomever else is [Music] [Music] this Z Plankton net has a micron mesh size that will let water flow through but we'll catch all the micro invertebrates here we'll be able to then uh have this be in the water for a little while collect our our samples go back up and look at the under the micros while we're doing this we're going to use our hydrolab sand to get a profile of what the water quality we want to understand what the threshold is for the base of that marine food web which is pretty darn important when you think about uh phytoplankton and zup Plankton that's the very base the heart of what everything else feeds off of in our Bay Mike has been an example of how do you maybe not know the full extent of a problem but jump headlong in and learn as you go [Music] we're going to get underway go to the north ly river boat graveyard and attach uh notices that basically describe our intent to remove the illegally dumped vessels I've been waiting I've been waiting there's no fall lines to quck and leave me [Music] a he's got $275,000 more in order to get the job done I'll explain that at 5:30 on the North Landing River Andy Fox 10 on your son this is two years in the making this has been my non-stop Obsession so definitely fired up to get it done I mean Pungo has beautiful natural areas and when you see all these illegally dumped boats you quickly realize this is not how we protect our sensitive waterways this is not a demonstration of Law and Order and this is frankly not what veterans fought for that's why vdrf is absolutely thrilled to work with the City of Virginia Beach to remove every single one of these abandoned andero vessels I told like city of virin Beach and they were like what are you talking about we don't know about that I was like you don't know about this it's been here for 20 years but all these abandoned Bic vessels are essentially in the vicinity of historic boat holes so Wooden Boat holes with a rebar and nails and things sticking out and those boats have been here since the 1800s 1900s very old vessels and they're actually on the department of historic resources inventory so trying to get to these abandoner vessel is a real challenge because there's debris sticking up there's things to run over I'm making my way by foot I'm having to step over pieces of metal and all types of really uh unfortunate stuff in the water so but we're getting it done this is the last one we have to do we'll get this placard on get it done safely and get out of here there's a there's a horizontal piece of wood that your prop is under but your out out drive is not your out drive is not it's like so there's obviously a lot of debris back in here and so we hit a piece of horizontal wood that actually got stuck between our propeller and the uh part of the out drive go and trim down a huge like 8 by8 piece of wood that was sticking horizontally under the water and the motor motor bumped into it okay we're free we're free go trim all the way up all the way up keep going as you can all right that's good just I'm going to walk it back that other over there yeah we got to put one over [Music] there honestly man I don't know if I want to risk going out to that one I really don't know if I want to risk going out to that one cuz there's so so much debris [Music] [Music] so at the North ly River book graveyard we had 13 abandoned and der vessels in the water since around 2003 and if you look at this fiberglass boat as example the fiberglass is breaking down over time just from being exposed to the Brack water and it's flaking and turning into microplastics and polluting the water wave and then specific to this location it's extremely frustrating because directly adjacent to this boat graveyard is the North Landing River Area Preserve which is 3,000 Acres of protected Wetland and then right on the border you had 13 of these sunk boats but with vrf's drive and h&h's assistance all 13 of these vessels are coming out of the water this week so I I first learned about the North Landing River boo graveyard in Fe February of 2022 and I remember being completely shocked that nobody was taking action to correct this this location and so seeing this 2 years you know 26 months later it's um it's really hard to believe I always knew we were going to get here but seeing it come to fruition it's just a great moment it's a great moment for Virginia Beach and the community and everyone that supported brf my goal is to remove every abandoned Thug vessel that we have within our waterways

Channel: Vessel Disposal & Reuse Foundation

Views: 82,948

Keywords: ADV, Virginia Beach, Vessel Disposal and Reuse Foundation, Nonprofit, Environment

Id: UgU9x04_UCU

Length: 15min 57sec (957 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 18 2024