In the water, the abandoned boats pose a collision hazard to other boaters and can pollute beaches and bays with fuel and engine oil. On land they mar the view and become receptacles for trash. While several agencies have contributed to sporadic cleanup efforts, the city has never fully addressed the problem of boats left on shore. Neither the Department of Environmental Protection nor the police department responded to requests for comment. Of those, more than half are not on the Coast Guard's list.
More boats litter the banks of the Harlem and East rivers.
Some have lain idle for years, others for just a few months. Ranging in length from 14 to 40 feet, the boats either break loose from their moorings during storms or are discarded by owners who decide that the boating life is too expensive, according to marine salvage experts and Coast Guard officials. The Coast Guard and the Army Corps of Engineers cooperate to remove drifting vessels that pose hazards to navigation. Officials from both agencies said that a boat's owner is responsible for its proper disposal, but finding the owner is nearly impossible when a boat has been deliberately abandoned. He said that the Coast Guard usually finds that the registration and identification numbers have been scraped off the hull, so the owner can't be traced.