After years of planning and outreach around its effort to clean up Quartermaster Harbor, the state is poised to pull nearly 50 private mooring buoys at Burton to clear the way for a field of new environmentally friendly buoys.

Last Friday officials from the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) boated around the harbor at Burton, attaching notices to 45 to 50 buoys in the cove, some of them holding boats and others floating alone. As soon as mid-April, the state will remove the tagged buoys from the water and will begin issuing permits to dozens of people who have applied to have new buoys there.

Nearly 100 local boaters have now submitted applications to place buoys in new parking lot-type buoy fields to be created by the state at Burton and Dockton or in front of their waterfront homes, all part of an effort to rid the harbor of abandoned boats and buoys and to better regulate those in use.

“It will be great to start getting things in order there and try to take some of the really scrappy and old, half-sinking buoys out of there,” said Stacy Birk, an environmental planner with DNR’s Aquatic Resources Division, which is heading the effort.

About four years ago, DNR began planning for its ambitious and controversial project to bring greater order to Quartermaster Harbor, part of the state-owned Maury Island Aquatic Reserve. As the number of boats in the harbor has grown in recent years, state officials have said they’ve become concerned about the conditions there. The bay now contains boats that are too close together, abandoned buoys that pose navigational hazards, anchors that drag and damage the underwater habitat and a handful of derelict and deteriorating boats and other structures.

The state has received complaints from boaters and waterfront residents concerned about the state of the harbor, an important habitat for forage fish and birds. From time to time a boat has broken loose from its mooring or sunk.

The state, in turn, has historically not enforced licensing regulations in Quartermaster, leading to a laissez-faire attitude among boaters. When DNR began its planning in 2011, only a handful of the buoys in the harbor were properly licensed.

“Part of it is that the harbor has gotten so run down that it seemed to invite people to drop off their sinking boats and just kind of leave them,” Birk said. “It was kind of like a junkyard that attracted more trash.”

In 2013, the state finalized its plan to create two strategically placed buoy fields at Burton and Dockton, as well as a smaller one at the mouth of Judd Creek. There, officials say, will be room for about 120 boats spaced far apart and attached to modern anchors. Anyone moored outside of the specified areas or without the proper anchor could face fines, and all with buoys must start paying annual licensing fees.

Over the last two years, DNR representatives have worked with King County, the state Department of Fish & Wildlife and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to obtain permits for the planned buoys that it can in turn issue to the public, streamlining the complicated application process for boaters. With permits now in hand, Birk said the state is ready to start the project by pulling old buoys in Burton, with hopes that boaters can start putting new ones down this summer.

“If people think their buoy should not be taken out, they should contact us loudly in the next 30 days,” Birk said.

Sometime after April 16, divers employed by the state will cut the chains on the tagged buoys, many of which DNR believes are abandoned. While the state considered pulling up anchors as well, Birk said many of the anchors are embedded in deep silt and likely covered in sea life. Those working on the project decided to leave them rather than disturb the floor of the harbor.

“It’s a damned if you do and damned if you don’t kind of thing,” Birk said. “Neither choice is good.”

The state has also emailed notices to buoy owners it knows of, so many are expecting the buoys to be pulled, Birk said. Officials are still determining how to handle the approximately 20 boats that are on buoys in Burton and hope most of them will be moved by the time they return.

“Some of the boats appear to be quite awful. They’re probably abandoned,” Birk said. “But some of the boats are cared for, and we assume someone cares about them.”

She noted that perhaps people could store their boats at home for a few months, and the state may check into long-term moorage at the county-owned marina at Dockton as well. Boats could be moved back to the area as soon as August, when the state will allow new permitted buoys to be installed in the designated areas.

“I would hope that people can shift those boats somewhere else, but we haven’t gotten to a solution for all of them,” Birk said.

The state’s plan has been met with mixed reactions from Vashon boaters, some of whom have opposed greater regulation in the harbor or said the state should focus its efforts only on derelict boats and buoys.

Many have also expressed concern about the costs associated with installing the new anchor systems required by the state. DNR is asking that all new buoys be attached to helical-style anchors that screw into the sea floor, have mid-line floats and don’t drag and scour the bottom like traditional anchors. They also have shorter lines, allowing boats to moor closer together without risk of running into one another. Installation of helical anchors, however, can run between $2,000 and $5,000, depending on the size of the boat.

“It is (expensive),” said islander John Jannetty, “but in the long run, it’s probably cheaper than anything, cheaper than being in a marina.”

Jannetty has a buoy in Dockton, where DNR will create a buoy field as well. He said that he’s glad to see the state taking action, noting that for years he’s watched boats drag around on insufficient anchors, swing close to one another and even break loose.

“For people who are serious boaters who care about their boats, the safety of them, I think they would be for this,” he said.

Alex Wigley, an avid sailor who moors a boat at Burton, said he’s even had people tie their boats to his buoy. He called Quartermaster the Wild West and said he has already applied for a buoy in the new field at Burton.

“I think it’s a big improvement to have an organized situation where everybody knows … where their buoy is, what it is, and there will be a small fee for that. Then it will be organized and no more of this nonsense.”

Birk said she will likely email another notice to buoy owners before the state begins pulling them. The buoys will then be available for pick-up at the King County Roads facility on Cemetery Road. She said she still hears concerns about the costs of the new anchor systems, but called installing them “simply the right thing to do at this day and age.”

“We’re headed for a brighter future,” she said, “but the middle will be challenging.”