KINGSTON, Wash. — One week ago, neighbors near a Kingston beach first saw the grounded tugboat.
"I really felt like the next day, on the next high tide, they'd have a tug out here, pulling it off the beach," said Rick Butzberger.
When that did not happen, Rick and his wife Lynn began to worry about the wildlife and how long the vessel would be stuck off the shore.
Rick took photos, almost daily, showing the debris and fuel floating in the water.
"What this fuel would affect would be the geoducks, and the clams, and the crabs," he said.
Butzberger began contacting elected officials and letting neighbors know what he was learning - that contractors already removed about 100 gallons of oily water and a couple of gallons of fuel. There was a tank of fuel they could not reach on the 186-ton tugboat, he wrote in an email to neighbors.
The tugboat, named "Kokua," was built in 1943. The vessel had a number of owners Mostly recently, a couple had been living aboard, according to state records.
Kokua has been under review since 2019, with Department of Natural Resources posting a Notice of Intent to Obtain Custody under the Derelict Vessel Removal Program. Joe Smillie, a natural resources spokesperson, said the process to do that was slowed by the pandemic.
The department received the report that the tugboat had run aground on Feb. 22. It is considering a couple of options: Contractors could either lift the large vessel onto a barge or break it into pieces to move it out of the waters near Kingston.
Weather has caused some delays for the removal effort.