Beached and Abandoned: Santa Barbara County Confronts ‘Toxic’ Boat Wrecks   

Derelict and abandoned boats have repeatedly wrecked on Santa Barbara County beaches, where cleanup is often a hazardous and expensive headache. Finding any feasible solutions has been a daunting task for the county, but the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday discussed ways to turn the tide. 

“When these vessels wash ashore or fail, they quickly become a public safety and environmental issue,” said Wade Cowper, chief of staff for Supervisor Roy Lee, whose office brought the item to the board. 

According to Cowper, the county has seen more than 31 boat wrecks since 2021, averaging out to six to 10 wrecks per year. Most boats are either uninsured or owned by people who do not assist in cleanup or cover related expenses.

Cowper said they brought the item to the board in response to the City of Santa Barbara’s recent “enforcement changes” for its anchorage that “appears to have pushed more decrepit vessels into county waters,” shifting risk to county beaches, offshore marine ecosystems, and nearby coastal communities. 

He added that wrecks seem to be most frequent around Montecito and Summerland, which are unincorporated parts of the county in Supervisor Lee’s district. Two wrecks hit Montecito’s Butterfly Beach in just one week this July. Others occur in remote or hard-to-access areas, where removal is exceedingly difficult and costly. 

No matter where a boat wrecks, he said, removal is not simple: It involves hazardous materials, heavy equipment, challenges with beach access and conditions, and coordination between multiple agencies — such as nonprofit Heal the Ocean and waste management company MarBorg. 

The boats can contain fuel, oil, sewage, and other toxic materials that pose hazards to the community and environment, especially if the boats are damaged and able to break apart onshore. 

The current response is often reactive, after the boat has already run ashore. Karina Johnston, executive director of Heal the Ocean (HTO), told the board that her organization usually funds the removal, which can cost anywhere from $5,000 to $15,000 or more per boat.

Although HTO works with the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office to pursue grant funding to address the problem — through the state’s Surrendered and Abandoned Vessel Exchange (SAVE) program — this year’s grant award provided only enough funding to cover one boat that had already been removed, Johnston lamented. 

“The need is significantly greater than the current resources available,” Johnston said, more than what their nonprofit can take on alone. 

Repeat offenders — when the same person has been responsible for several boat wrecks — and uninsured vessels make cost recovery especially difficult, Cowper noted.  

Adding to the problem’s urgency is the potential for increased storms related to the incoming, so-called “Super El Niño.” Any derelict boats bobbing offshore are likely to become additional hazards and more problematic, Johnston said. 

Heal the Ocean’s field consultant Harry Rabin called derelict boats offshore “ticking time bombs,” and cited the issue of people “peddling vessels to those who can’t afford a home, and are certainly incapable of maintaining a vessel in an anchorage.” He suggested the county implement something similar to the Boat Wreck Task Force that HTO created with the City of Santa Barbara five years ago. 

“The earlier the county can intervene, the less likely a vessel becomes an expensive beach wreck,” Cowper said. “Prevention is key.”

He said the goal is to move from a reactive response to a proactive response. But first, the county needs to understand what authority it already has, what legal authority it might be able to implement, how it can act, and how owners can be held accountable. Not all “acts of God” can be avoided, he noted, but the county should have a better picture of available tools to address preventable wrecks.  

“Ultimately, I believe this is a state responsibility,” said Supervisor Joan Hartmann.

The state of Washington, she said, has a model where buyers of used boats have to secure insurance for a 12-month period, covering the cost of the boat and removal if there is a crash, and then provide proof of that to the seller and the state’s licensing agency. These provisions also say the seller can be held liable for the cleanup if no such insurance is procured. To prevent seedy transactions that are sometimes disguised as a boat’s disposal, she suggested an inspection program that determines whether the value of a boat is less than the cost to repair it. 

She also said the state’s SAVE fund requires a match — suggesting 10 percent — from the county. “If that’s been a hindrance, then I think we have to ante-up,” she added. 

The City of Santa Barbara’s new insurance requirements for boats in its waters, implemented in January, has inadvertently exacerbated the issue for the county by pushing boaters into less-regulated county waters, she said. “We really need to work together,” she said.

The supervisors voted unanimously to direct staff to identify options — such as potential amendments to county code, enforcement procedures, cost-recovery mechanisms, interagency agreements, or other policy or operational recommendations — for potential solutions around prevention, cleanup, enforcement, and cost recovery for boat wrecks on county shores. The timeline is to be determined.