| Abandoned Vessels on the Great Lakes | |
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I’m hoping you can help me. We are working with a few of our members on the Great Lakes on the issue of abandoned boats. The problems with abandoned boats in the Great Lakes obviously arise from the cross state traffic. If a boat is abandoned in Illinois but is registered in Michigan, which state has to go through the process to find the owner and dispose of the boat? And if those state policies on abandoned boats differ, which policy is at work? It seems that the most effective way to handle this in the Great Lakes is to have some sort of Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) or similar agreement among the states for how to manage this issue. If the states could come up with some type of agreement on whose problem the abandoned boat is in different instances, or, knowing this is a long shot, a standard policy across Great Lakes states for handling abandoned boats, a lot of problems could be alleviated. I’d like to be able to start the process or consideration of an MOU, but am not familiar with the workings among the Great Lakes states, so I’m hoping you might be able to provide some insight into how to make something like this happen. I’m assuming it would be an agreement among the agencies in each state that cover abandoned boats, but maybe not. Wendy Larimer |
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