{"id":829433,"date":"2026-05-29T05:56:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T05:56:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/829433\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T05:56:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T05:56:19","slug":"its-hard-on-the-ecosystem-harris-county-partners-with-state-locals-to-dredge-abandoned-boats-houston-public-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/829433\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s hard on the ecosystem\u2019: Harris County partners with state, locals to dredge abandoned boats \u2013 Houston Public Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\"Abandoned<\/a><\/p>\n

Julianna Washburn, Houston Public Media<\/p>\n

An abandoned yacht is beached on the edge of Offatts Bayou in Galveston on Jan. 27, 2026.<\/p>\n

From above the surface, Clear Lake may seem pristine.<\/p>\n

But Harris County Commissioner Adrian Garcia said there’s a hidden hazard below the water: abandoned boats.<\/p>\n

“They sit there leaking fuel, leaking oil into the water, creating hazards for every vessel that is passing by above,” he said at a news conference Thursday.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Hello, Houston!<\/a> daily newsletter to get local reports like this delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n

Garcia announced that the county, Harris County Sheriff’s Office and Texas General Land Office (GLO) would work with locals to remove these boats.<\/p>\n

The GLO has removed more than 1,700 derelict boats statewide during the duration of its program targeting these vessels.<\/p>\n

“That amounts to over 6 miles of boat length out of our waters,” Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham said.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Sunken, abandoned boats prompt Galveston city council to seek solutions<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The land office has the legal authority to authorize removal of abandoned boats. Once boats are authorized for removal, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office will send divers to connect these vessels to heavy equipment, so they can be dredged from the water.<\/p>\n

“The longer the boat sits in the water, the more the integrity of the vessel is compromised,” said Capt. David Jasper with the marine unit for the sheriff’s office. “And so you can have oil leaking. You can have diesel, gasoline leaking.”<\/p>\n

Russell Lavigne is the CEO and director of the Dead Boats Society, which advocates for the removal of abandoned boats. He said leaking fuel from these vessels can kill wildlife.<\/p>\n

“This lake is full of shrimp and it’s hard on the ecosystem of the environment here,” he said. <\/p>\n

The removal project is the result of grassroots efforts. The Dead Boats Society brought light to the issue of abandoned vessels in the Clear Lake area near Houston, seeking to remove boats that were causing issues for locals. With help from the GLO and local governments, they were able to remove several abandoned vessels.<\/p>\n

“We just really started out as a group of concerned citizens,” Lavigne said. “So, a little Facebook post and the next thing you know, we had a ton of gentlemen from the area showing up, trying to figure out how to get this done.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Julianna Washburn, Houston Public Media An abandoned yacht is beached on the edge of Offatts Bayou in Galveston…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":829434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5130],"tags":[154683,193216,340428,340429,746,6386,224310,4345,425,50,358,207912,3187],"class_list":["post-829433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-adrian-garcia","tag-clear-lake","tag-dead-boats-society","tag-derelict-boats","tag-environment","tag-harris-county","tag-harris-county-precinct-2","tag-houston","tag-local","tag-news","tag-texas","tag-texas-general-land-office","tag-tx"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116656327886785156","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=829433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/829434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=829433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=829433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=829433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}