Editor's Note: You may be wondering why this story's headline "THE ANSWER IS #3." It is the answer to our 2021 news quiz series titled "Deeper Dive News Trivia Quiz." This quiz is drawn from the newsletter each week. If you'd like to participate then click here to subscribe to our newsletter.Waterway Guide Media is participating in the ongoing work of several organizations dedicated to addressing Abandoned and Derelict Vessels (ADV), including the Virginia ADV Work Group and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), by offering insight, information and data specific to boating trends and activities in the regions covered by our publications. Recent efforts by the State of Georgia’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) specific to anchoring regulations are, in part, prompted by reaction to an increasing number of ADVs in coastal waters. The heightened attention paid to ADVs is essential to the health and well-being of America’s waterways. Solutions are complex but are being pursued by many dedicated organizations, agencies and individuals. Read NOAA’s policies and actions here. Background on the Virginia ADV Work Group is available here.

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Mike Provost is determined to get rid of the “pirate boat” haunting the waters of Broad Bay.

That’s the name he and his three young children gave the white, fiberglass vessel slowly sinking off First Landing State Park.

Provost and his family love to be out on the water and first noticed the boat weighed down with debris in late summer. His kids were reading “Pout-Pout Fish Cleans Up the Ocean,” a children’s book that teaches about environmental cleanup, and soon his son asked who would clean up the pirate boat.

Provost, a retired Navy officer decided he would. He’d recently launched a training and services company called Virginia Maritime Solutions.

But in the past few months, Provost encountered one brick wall after another. A series of phone calls to a host of state agencies, local governments and other organizations taught him about the maze of jurisdictions and lack of funding that stop nearly everyone from taking action.

Each official either directed him elsewhere or wanted to help but had no ability to do so, he said.

Too costly to dispose of properly, the boats’ owners often leave them to sink, posing environmental and navigational hazards no one is tasked with cleaning up. There’s little recourse for abandoned vessels left rotting in Virginia waterways.

A state working group has been investigating the issue for the past year and plans to recommend changes soon.

Read more.

See also Derelict boats trouble neighboring businesses along Columbia River