Mobile begins derelict boat removal on March 4

Mayor Sandy Stimpson and other City of Mobile officials will be at Dog River Park (2459 Dog River Drive N.) on Monday, March 4, to kick off a derelict vessel recovery program that will remove nearly a dozen abandoned boats and other pieces of marine debris from local waterways.

Through a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Marine Debris Program and in coordination with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s Hurricane Response Debris Removal Fund, the City of Mobile will be removing 11 boats and 15 docks, piers or boathouses that were identified by the Mobile Police Department following Hurricane Sally in the fall of 2020. The first will be an abandoned boat near Dog River Park that has generated numerous complaints from citizens.

Employees from the City of Mobile will be coordinating with a Homeland Security Marine Detail to remove several vessels beginning Monday, March 4. The grant from NOAA is providing more than $460,000 to help offset the cost of staff members’ time and specialized equipment and contractors needed to remove some of the larger vessels this same grant helped identify back in 2022.

This project is supported by the NOAA Marine Debris Program, with funding provided by the Extending Government Funding and Delivering Emergency Assistance Act of 2021.