A 110-foot wooden subchaser built for the U.S. Navy in 1942 is finally coming out of the Columbia River near Longview, four years after it went down. The vessel had been converted to private use, and its last owner intended to turn it into a floating bed-and-breakfast before a rogue log was blamed for sinking it in 2022.

Crews with the Washington Department of Natural Resources are now taking the hull apart piece by piece. The urgency is environmental: oil remains aboard, and the wreck is suspected of carrying asbestos and lead. Removal work has run to roughly $600,000 so far. Because the subchaser was originally federal property, the cleanup qualified for grant funding through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“All these removals, when it comes to an end like that, and we know it’s going to be disposed of in an environmentally friendly way, is awesome. It feels good,” said Jerry Farmer, a natural resource specialist with Washington DNR.

State officials used the project to make a familiar point about derelict vessels on the lower Columbia: pulling a boat before it sinks is safer, faster and considerably cheaper than recovering it afterward.