As the so-called McBarge sinks to a watery grave, the growing problem of derelict vessels in B.C. is getting renewed attention.
The McBarge, then known as the ‘Friendship 500,’ served as a floating restaurant on False Creek during Vancouver’s Expo 86. But it has been left vacant for decades and now sits half-submerged in the Fraser River.
“It’s iconic for people of a certain generation because it was a floating McDonald’s and it was a novelty back in the day. There was a lot of good intentions of what it could be repurposed for, and unfortunately, it has become derelict,” said Mark Caros, a board member with the Alouette River Management Society.
“Once it’s completely submerged it becomes exponentially more difficult to have it removed from the river and from the environment. So that’s my priority concern at this point and time is not on our side.”
Maple Ridge Mayor Dan Ruimy told Global News the city has been pushing for years to have the derelict vessel removed.
“This is unacceptable,” he said.
“As a municipality, as a province, as a country, it should not be that difficult to remove these hazards from our waters. It takes a very long time it’s very costly, and we don’t know who is responsible in a lot of cases the owners can’t afford to do that.”
The Canadian Coast Guard assessed the barge in 2023 and concluded there were no pollutants on board.
But Ruimy said he doesn’t believe that means it isn’t an environmental threat.
Caros has become something of an expert in derelict vessels and the environmental hazards they pose.
Last year, he helped spearhead a cleanup in the Alouette River that pulled more than 200 tonnes of material from the waterway, including multiple boats, collapsed docks and other structures.
The multi-jurisdictional tangle of potential authority governing the problem makes getting the green light — and the money — to do something about it difficult, he said.
“There’s the Coast Guard, there’s Fisheries and Oceans Canada, there’s the Ministry of Environment, there’s Transport Canada, there’s just multiple jurisdictions that have some authority,” he said.
“A lot of doors get closed because the resources and the will isn’t there, because of triaging other apparently more critical situations.”
In 2019, the federal government passed the Wrecked, Abandoned or Hazardous Vessels Act, making it illegal to abandon a boat in Canadian waters.
As of 2023, the federal government had a list of nearly 1,400 derelict vessels, about two-thirds of them in B.C.
The McBarge’s fate has since been handed over to Transport Canada, but it remains unclear when action will be taken to address it.
In 2017, owner Howard Meakin told Global News that he envisioned the McBarge as a facility that could highlight Canada’s advances in undersea and deepwater technology. Global News made several attempts to contact Meaken, but did not receive a response.
Likewise, Transport Canada did not respond to a request for comment.