PORTLAND, Ore. — Maybe you've seen them, maybe you haven't, but the roughly half dozen derelict boats anchored in the Willamette River between the Hawthorne Bridge and OMSI are pretty hard to miss.
"Every single situation is unique, and we work with partners to find the right solution," said Ali Ryan Hansen with the Oregon Department of State Lands, the agency that oversees Oregon's publicly-owned waterways.
She said scenes like the one near OMSI are troubling, and the problem is worse than just a floating eyesore.
"Abandoned and derelict vessels impact water quality," she said. "They impact private property. They impact public property. They impact habitat."
The widespread impacts make it all the more important to get the abandoned boats out of the water. It's an objective the Department of State Lands is tackling in partnership with the Oregon State Marine Board and the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office.
An MCSO spokesperson said more than two dozen vessels have been removed from the Ross Island area in the past year. The boats near OMSI are likely spillover from that clean up effort, he said.
"Those boats, along with the many other occupied vessels on Portland rivers and other waterways around the state, represent a component of Oregon’s challenging issues with housing, homelessness, and behavioral health," Josh Mulhollem of the Oregon State Marine Board said in a statement sent to KGW. "The Marine Board’s mission focuses on boating safety and access, but the state is making a concerted effort with several new initiatives to address those broader issues."
The issue of derelict and abandoned boats is not lost on Oregon Governor Tina Kotek. Her budget wish list includes more than $18 million for the removal of these types of vessels.
"The public is asking the state to address this issue and our state elected officials are certainly listening," Ryan Hansen said.
Another piece of the puzzle is figuring out how to keep the boats from being abandoned on the water in the first place, Ryan Hansen said, but finding a solution to that problem may be easier said than done.