A Boat Sank in a City’s Drinking Water. It Took Months to Come Out.
On May 29, a 46-foot wooden boat named Seaforth sank off Lake Whatcom Boulevard in Washington. The boat was 98 years old. The lake it sank in is the drinking water source for the city of Bellingham.
The Salish Current reported on September 18 that more than half of the boat had finally been removed, after nearly four months below the waterline.
How It Went Down
The owner told the Current that a mild windstorm exposed structural damage left over from a boat accident four years earlier. The boat had been docked outside his home on the lake for more than 20 years.
When it sank, the county sheriff's office, the Washington State Department of Ecology and Whatcom County Public Works were all alerted. Public Works provided a sorbent boom, a floating tube that contains and absorbs oil and fuel, in case anything leaked. Early sheriff's reports mentioned a possible spill of less than five gallons of gas, lubricating liquid and oil. An Ecology spill responder who visited the site observed a sheen on the surface. There was no confirmation of what caused it.
The Work Fell to One Person
The owner began taking the boat apart himself the day after it sank. He cut off and hauled away the superstructure and removed most of the rest over Labor Day weekend. He told the Current there was nothing left on board and no toxics, and that he would remove the remainder as time off and weather allowed.
The state's Department of Natural Resources runs Washington's Derelict Vessel Removal Program and is listed as the lead agency on the case, but it did not appear to be helping with the physical removal. The Current noted that abandoned vessels can sit for long periods because of the cost and difficulty of getting them out.
Why Source Water Raises the Stakes
Lake Whatcom has been on Washington's list of impaired waters since 1998 for failing to meet state standards for dissolved oxygen. In a lake that already struggles, anything that sinks and stays sunk is one more thing the water has to absorb.
That is true everywhere, not only in Bellingham. Our Utah Waterways Submerged Debris Atlas documents an estimated 499 submerged items across 20 Utah lakes, including 56 vehicles and 103 vessels that are individually confirmed. A sunken vehicle carries a fuel tank, engine oil, ethylene glycol and a lead acid battery. Under the Clean Water Act, a discharge that leaves a visible sheen on the water is reportable, and the U.S. Geological Survey has tracked petroleum contamination persisting in groundwater for decades at its research site near Bemidji, Minnesota.
What Fathom Does Today
Fathom Restoration is a disabled-veteran-led Utah 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and our volunteer divers work Utah's lakes and reservoirs today, bringing up the debris that settles where nobody can see it. On October 10, four of our divers worked Haws Point at Strawberry Reservoir and came up with about 35 pounds of trash by our estimate, including three folding chairs, an umbrella and a kite. On two September crew dives at Deer Creek Reservoir, we brought up about 58 pounds more.
That work is done by hand. The vehicles and vessels in the Atlas will take more: lift bags, the right equipment and qualified divers. We are building toward that recovery work, and we are doing it in order: insurance, permits and commercial dive certification first.
Months Is a Long Time Underwater
Seaforth went down beside its own dock, with an owner who knew exactly where it was and spent his own time off getting it out. Even so, it took months. Most of what sits on the bottom of Utah's lakes has no one doing that work. It just stays down.
Fathom Restoration is a disabled-veteran-led Utah 501(c)(3) nonprofit running volunteer dive cleanups on Utah's lakes and waterways and building toward the recovery of submerged vehicles and vessels. Donate or volunteer at fathomrestoration.org.
Source: https://salish-current.org/2026/09/18/removal-underway-for-sinking-boat-in-lake-whatcom/
