It’s the perfect boat in the perfect port with the perfect name — Enchantress, says Bill Mitchell.

However, the Washington State Department of Ecology has not changed its Aug. 15 deadline for Mitchell and other members of his Save Our Shipwreck group to come up with a plan to get the derelict vessel out of Fidalgo Bay.

Ecology wants the boat removed because it risks contaminating the bay with leaching materials such as lead, asbestos, oil, tin and mercury.

The Port of Anacortes has entered into an agreed order with Ecology to help remove the tug by offering its contracting abilities.

Ecology will reimburse the port for costs including an evaluation done by Historical Research Associates of Seattle that found the Enchantress not of enough historical value to list on the National Register of Historic Places. The study was a requirement by the Washington Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation because the tug is more than 50 years old.

Mitchell said the HRA’s report to the port was a “farce” and thin work for $19,000.

“It basically said there’s not enough boat there for the historic register,” he said.

It fails with integrity because “key physical elements” have been removed from it that would show its significance as a Miki-class tug, HRA said in its report. “Better and more complete examples of Miki-class tugs exist elsewhere in Puget Sound.”

The Enchantress is one of 36 Miki single-engine tugs built for the U.S. Army and one of 10 built on the East Coast. Another 25 Miki Miki class tugs were built for the service but had twin engines.

The tug had a series of names throughout its operation after serving as the LT-495 with the Army Transportation Service.

It became the John Michael after it was surplused, and then the Leslie Foss, Enchanter, Polar Navigator, Western Sea I and finally the Enchantress.

The boat’s last owner, Richard Carnes of Sedro-Woolley, towed it to Anacortes and illegally moored it at the Custom Plywood Mill site in the bay in 2000. In 2001 Carnes was shot and killed.

Today the tug rests on the mud at the bottom of the bay and is caught on a piling from the old mill site that is also in line for cleanup by Ecology through the Puget Sound Initiative.

If SOS fails to come up with a plan, Ecology is expecting to spend up to $300,000 to break up the tug and get it out of the bay in September, Ecology’s Toxics Cleanup Program manager Tim Nord told Mitchell and others at a public meeting in February.

At that time, Nord suggested the community take several steps to remove the vessel itself in order to keep it intact.

Those steps included presenting a plan addressing how and where the tug would be removed, a hazardous substances assessment, a plan to contain those substances, insurance, an approved U.S. Coast Guard tow plan, compliance with local, state and federal laws and proof of the funding in hand to do the job to completion.

Mitchell reorganized the Anacortes Renaissance and Revival Confederation group created in the 1980s for the Anacortes mural project to start work to save the tug. He said in February he planned to turn the organization into a nonprofit entity, organize volunteers and start looking for grants.

Since then, he has changed his approach, calling the steps advised by Ecology an “impossible task.”

Following the February meeting, Mitchell told the group’s members to take a three-month vacation to recharge their batteries, he said.

They are now making other plans but Mitchell did not want to say what they were.

“They (Ecology) can start making plans to fight our plans,” he said.

An approach the group had early on was to moor the Enchantress at Lovric’s Sea-Craft marina, where it wouldn’t be in anyone’s way, Mitchell said.

New plans seem to concentrate on trying to talk Ecology into leaving the tug where it is and let it deteriorate naturally.

“People like her as a shipwreck,” he said. “They don’t want her restored.”

Mitchell has designed coffee mugs depicting the Enchantress and has been selling them for $10 each.

The money and other donated funds are going to the printing of the mugs and other literature and phone calls made in the effort to leave the tug in the bay, Mitchell said.

In a PowerPoint presentation to Port of Anacortes commissioners July 17, Mitchell showed images of several tugs that have been built or operated in the Anacortes area.

The first ferry service to the San Juans was done with a tugboat and tugs towed the piles out for early fish traps, he said.

Mitchell still said it’s counter productive to get rid of the Enchantress, because the potential it has to draw tourism to the city.

“All the exciting things we can do with it will be gone if she’s destroyed,” Mitchell said. “That boat represents the fun and history of Anacortes.”

HRA found the vessel could not be used as an archeological site in the water because of its potential to break up, or out of the water because removing it could “only be done by demolition since she has been severely attacked by teredos (ship’s worms) and therefore a major part of her hull structure is missing,” it said. “The missing structure would likely allow the main engine to fall out of the bottom of the hull.”

In addition, all the windows and doors have been removed as have the forward and aft masts, winch, roller chock, brass fittings, steering wheel, compass, engine order telegraph and original booby hatch.

Mitchell pointed out the anchor is still on the tug, but admitted someone would likely sink their own vessel if they tried to take it.

Some modern equipment has been installed and “does not match her original design or any other vessels of her era,” the report states. One example is the steel tripod mast in place of the two wood masts.

Changes made to the vessel through the years “were performed without regard to historical materials or construction methods,” which is part of the reason HRA found it “not a good representation of a Miki-class tugboat.”

“She is no longer the best or even a good representation of her type,” said authors of the report, Gretchen Kaehler and Gail Thompson.

Another truer example of a Miki tug still operates as a commercial tug in the Puget Sound, it said. The Dominion owned by Floyd Waite was built by Grays Harbor Shipbuilding of Aberdeen in 1944 also for the Army Transportation Service and is a nearly original example of its class.

The Enchantress will be removed under the Washington State Department of Natural Resources’ Derelict Vessel Program sometime in September, depending on when the tides allow it, if SOS does not come up with its own plan, said Seth Preston, Ecology communications manager. After the Aug. 15 deadline, Preston said Ecology will inform the community what steps will be taken next.

The SOS group meets once a month at 7 p.m. the second Saturday at the Anacortes Public Library. Mitchell offered to give his PowerPoint presentation to other community groups.

The historical evaluation of the Enchantress by HRA report is available at port offices.