Coast Guard sinks abandoned tugboat

JUNEAU (AP) – The U.S. Coast Guard has sunk a derelict, abandoned tugboat in 8,400 feet of open water 145 miles west of Juneau.

The Coast Guard, in a news release, said the 107-foot-long, steel-hulled Lumberman was sunk May 2.

Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Janessa Warschkow said crews scuttled the tugboat by opening water valves to flood the vessel, with rounds fired from the Coast Guard Cutter John McCormick to help speed up the process.

The cutter had towed the Lumberman to the site where it was sunk. The Coast Guard said it cooperated with the City and Borough of Juneau and a marine services company in the scuttling.

Hazardous materials previously were removed, and the city obtained a permit for the vessel’s disposal at sea, the release stated.

The abandoned World War II-vintage tugboat has been a fixture on Juneau’s Gastineau Channel for several years. It was moored at the city-owned cruise ship dock in the fall of 2020, after it broke its anchor line on state tidelands more than two years earlier.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency gave the OK to sink the vessel after it was thoroughly cleaned, first by the Coast Guard in 2018 and more recently by contractors who removed garbage and oily waste from the ship, according to public radio station KTOO reporting in October 2020.

The tugboat was last used as a makeshift live-aboard anchored outside of Juneau’s Aurora Harbor. Tragedy struck in 2017 when a skiff with five people heading to the tug overturned, KTOO reported. Two men on the skiff were never found.