These days, the only threat posed by a 120-foot-long Navy torpedo vessel is to the marsh outside of Charleston, S.C., where it has been grounded for four years.
Now the owner, who bought the Navy boat in an auction, has been arrested in the latest move by state and federal authorities to remove the unusual abandoned vessel from state waters.
The arrest of Samuel Kodaimati, announced by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources Tuesday, was the first under the state’s newly enacted abandoned boat law that went into effect this year. The law gets tough on a never-ending problem on the state’s coast: Abandoned and derelict vessels that threaten the salt marsh ecosystem that provides vital habitat for fish, shellfish and shorebirds and acts as a natural filter to maintain water quality…