On a trip up the Noyo River on this chilly Memorial Day weekend, perhaps the busiest site was Ralph Abernathy”s dock. The 78-year-old entrepreneur runs a business where his boats take sea urchin shells from processing plants out to sea.
The boats are moored next to a bald, open stretch of flat land that nobody would look twice at. Gone is the evidence of one of the most famous, voluminous and troublesome collections in Northern California.
For more than a decade, that now empty land between the Noyo Harbor District Mooring Basin and Dolphin Isle, was home to a literal mountain of boats, cars, semi-trailers and other piled up barely recognizable items. Rubbernecking was irresistible. Tourists drove by just to see and reporters traveled from far away to talk to Ralph Abernathy. Smithsonian Magazine, the LA Times and the Santa Rosa Press Democrat were among the media outlets to feature Abernathy”s unique mountain of vintage boats in stories about the demise of Noyo Harbor salmon industry.
In January 2010, Mendocino County ordered Abernathy to stop operating a junkyard without a permit, remedy numerous building code violations and remove virtually all of his vehicles and vessels. Ralph Abernathy, a longtime lover and operator of ocean going boats, had accumulated more than 700,000 pounds of junk, treasure and stuff that had been under more stuff for so long it was unrecognizable.
Now, seemingly suddenly, the land is level and empty. The field that once housed retired semi-trailers and geriatric boats out of a Winslow Homer painting is now covered by something that looks like white Astroturf. Real grass has been seeded and pokes through the alien looking mat.
After two final weeks of work in May by the California agency known as Cal-Recycle, an awesome 350 tons of material, that Abernathy had accumulated over the years in his boat salvage operation, has been removed.
State workers were able to sort out 28 tons of metal, which was sold and credited to the Abernathys. Nevertheless, the net cost of the operation was roughly $180,000, said Steve Santa Croce, a waste management engineer with Cal-Recycle.
State crews spent 11 days on the property in the cleanup, using big trucks and heavy equipment.
“It was a very dramatic accumulation. And Mr. Abernathy got rid of a lot of material himself before we came,” said Santa Croce.
Metals went to a yard in Ukiah. About 70 tires went to a tire disposal facility. The state will seek a deferred lien on the Abernathy property that will allow the couple to continue to live there.
The Abernathys have been affable and cooperative with state and county officials, all involved say.
But Pat Abernathy could see a different side of her husband”s massive and unique outdoor collection.
“He knew where everything was out there. And there were parts that nobody else has that he had saved?. Now it”s all gone,” she said.
Ralph Abernathy said when he started buying used boats more than a decade ago he had hoped the fishing economy would turn around and he would sell at a profit.
Pat and Ralph Abernathy both agreed with authorities that the property needed to be cleaned up.
“We signed that we wouldn”t fill up the property again,” Pat said. “There were things that could have been done better.”
Asked to elaborate, she said the couple could have sold a lot over the past year if they had been granted a salvage license.
The Abernathy”s were cited for not having such a license, among other violations. The county and state then worked to create a cooperative solution. But Pat said part of that cooperation could have been to grant them a license to sell, rather than haul it all away with the meter running.
“They took along things that could have been sold. Some had some real value, just needed to be cleaned up,” Pat said.
Many items remain, including a 1940s era crane that is used on a regular basis and other heavy equipment.
Pat said the couple is still waiting to find out the amount of the lien they will face. The couple is waiting to find out if a posted county ban on use of heavy equipment will be lifted.
Is the process at an end?
“I hope so,” said Pat.
Reporter Frank Hartzell can be reached at fhartzell@gmail.com.
