A ketch sailboat sits sunken in the Petaluma river on Friday February 28, 2014.

Charges eyed in sinking of Petaluma boat

State and federal officials are considering criminal charges or civil sanctions against a man whose 47-foot sunken sailboat they retrieved from the Petaluma River this week.

Eric Laughlin, a spokesman with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife's Office of Spill Prevention and Response, declined to identify the boat's owner, saying the investigation is continuing. The man wasn't cited.

The steel and reinforced concrete vessel had sunk previously in a smaller slough off the river, Laughlin said, but was re-floated by the owner.

State officials received a complaint that it had sunk again and was a pollution threat to the water and wildlife, as well as a navigational threat to other boats and kayaks.

Beginning about 6 a.m. Monday, workers from the state, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office began the salvage effort. A diver swam underwater while others helped from above with heavy-duty water pumps and airbags.

About 7 p.m., the boat was re-floated and towed out of the river to Sausalito, Laughlin said.

Once the boat was safely secured to a dock, its fuel tanks were pumped and five bags of hazardous materials were removed, Laughlin said. Items included a compressed-gas tank, paint stripping solutions and various household waste.

A vessel owner "can face either civil or criminal penalties for leaving a boat in there like that," Laughlin said. "It's definitely a pollution hazard."

The owner could be assessed $25,000 in state fines for each violation and $25,000 per day for federal Clean Water Act violations, said Lt. Kyle Hiatt of the Department of Fish and Wildlife. The EPA funded the salvage project.

In 2011, a larger cleanup effort in the river targeted 10 sites, including a rotted-out abandoned 80-foot barge that was built in the 1920s and had been in the Petaluma River for at least 20 years.

Other smaller vessels were removed, many of which had remained partially concealed by being tucked into little-traveled inlets.

The Petaluma River, used by kayakers, canoers, boaters and nature enthusiasts, is a slough that collects runoff from various streams around Petaluma and feeds into San Pablo Bay, leading to the Pacific Ocean. A variety of wildlife exists in and around the river, inlets and marshy areas surrounding the waterway.

The man in this week's incident signed over ownership of his boat to the Sheriff's Office. The boat will be disassembled.

Laughlin said anyone who sees a pollution hazard in a public waterway should call the Cal-TIP hotline at 888-334-2258.

(You can reach Staff Writer Lori A. Carter at 762-7297 or lori.carter@pressdemocrat.com.)

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