Noticeably fewer vessels are illegally moored or anchored in Palm Beach’s jurisdictional waters within the Lake Worth Lagoon, Police Chief Nicholas Caristo told the Town Council at its meeting on February 10.
The police department’s marine unit has been stepping up enforcement of a state law against illegal mooring and of a new town law that limits long-term anchoring to 30 days within any six-month period in town waters.
“Since the end of December, we’ve given out a slew of citations” for violations ranging from illegal mooring to lack of registration for the vessel,” Caristo said. “We posted violation notices on about 34 vessels” during that period.
Last month, Caristo reported police had documented 167 vessels anchored or moored within town waters. As of February 10, he said that number had fallen to 110.
About 14 “transient” vessels have arrived in the lagoon, and their owners were waiting for the weather to break so they can travel to the Bahamas, he said.
Mooring refers to the attachment of a vessel to a fixed structure on the floor of the lagoon and is different from anchoring, which involves the use of a heavy object retrieved from the boat. Mooring is illegal without a state permit, which town officials say is difficult to obtain.
Police say there is only one legal mooring permit within town jurisdictional waters, which police say extend from the channel markers near the Lake Worth/Palm Beach Inlet southward to 3475 South Ocean Boulevard, and from the town shore out to the Intracoastal Waterway navigational channel.
Town officials say abandoned and derelict vessels are environmentally detrimental and a navigational hazard. They also result in water pollution caused by fuel leaks, garbage and sewage.
The town limit on anchoring began taking effect on January 20. Those boat owners are being notified they must leave town jurisdictional waters or authorities will have their vessel towed to a storage facility. Owners are required to pay for the tow and storage before they can retrieve their boats. If they don’t, the vessels will be auctioned, Caristo said.
Most of the owners are complying with the law to avoid being towed. “We have about 40 vessels that have left through voluntary compliance,” he said.
As of February 10, the town had towed about 10 vessels. “We will continue doing so. We have another four or five we will be towing this week.”
Towing is time-consuming and requires a lot of effort because the vessels being towed are in the range of 30- to 40-feet long, he said.
One derelict vessel “has been there forever” and is proving to be especially challenging to remove, Caristo said.
“It’s a huge boat and it’s solid steel and it’s loaded with about 100 gallons of diesel,” he said. “It’s also filling up with water.”
The owner is not cooperating with the town, Caristo said. “The person that owns the boat does not want to speak to us. He answered the phone and as soon as we identified ourselves, he hung up on us.”
Caristo said the town sent the owner a notice informing him of the town’s intention to seize and destroy the vessel if it was not removed within 21 days.
Removing vessels can be expensive – averaging $20,000 to $25,000, officials say. The non-profit Palm Beach Police and Fire Foundation is assisting the town through its gift of up to $250,000 toward the cost of removals.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has agreed to partner with the town on the removal of the steel boat, Caristo said.
“It’s going to be very expensive,” Caristo said. “The boat is 80 feet long. It’s got to be pumped out, then cut up into pieces.”
Another man has for years been installing illegal moorings in the lagoon and then selling or renting them to boaters for thousands of dollars, Caristo said.
The town’s marine unit and dive team have been photographing and documenting the illegal moorings as part of its enforcement effort, he said.
“I give a lot of credit to the marine unit and especially the dive unit because we had two weeks of seriously cold weather and they were diving in that cold water,” Caristo said. “It shows you how committed they are.”
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