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Hudson River Shipwrecks Secretly Mapped
jonerik writes "According to this article in the New York Times (registration required) more than 200 shipwreck sites lying beneath New York's Hudson River have been mapped by sonar. In fact, scientists feel confident that the location of every Hudson shipwreck between Manhattan and Troy has now been pinpointed, adding that the nearly oxygen-free mud of the Hudson nearly guarantees that many of the wrecks and their contents are almost perfectly preserved. The hitch? For the time being the maps - paid for as part of the $186 million Hudson River Estuary Plan - are not being published since state officials are nervous about the prospect of so many shipwrecks suddenly being opened up to salvagers on one of the U.S.'s busiest rivers. 'We don't want to ring the dinner bell for people who have ulterior motives and don't behave responsibly,' says Mark L. Peckham, a historic preservation coordinator at the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. In the meantime, state officials are now attempting to determine the historical significance of the wrecks and how they might be protected, which should hopefully lead to the publication of the Hudson River maps at some future date."
Why don't the salvagers get their own sonar rigs? Then they could find the wrecks themselves...
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i remember some time last year, a couple driving across the george washington bridge (spans the hudson between new jersey and manhattan) reported that a small plane flew right between the supports of the bridge over the deck and crashed into the water.. the police looked into it and sent divers into the water, but it didnt seem like anything came out of it. the couple was supposedly "reliable", according to the Port Authority police (they control all nj/ny bridge and tunnel crossings). i haven't heard anything about it since.
I guess they have the right since they did all the mapping... but I still think it's funny that they are keeping stuff a secret so the "Indiana Jones" types can plunder the wreaks first. "...That belongs in a museum!!!" -Indiana Jones
. . . are not being published since state officials are nervous about the prospect of so many shipwrecks suddenly being opened up to salvagers on one of the U.S.'s busiest rivers. 'We don't want to ring the dinner bell for people who have ulterior motives and don't behave responsibly,' says Mark L. Peckham . . .
Could someone with some knowledge of major salvage work give some words on wether or not a permit is required?
I think i recall how US Navy technology found the wrecked of the Titanic. Despite that US funds were used to find the wreckage a French company brought up a small peice of it and therefore claimed rights to salvage. This left many people angry, especially relatives of passengers on that wreck who want their loved ones remains to be left alone. This bears similarity to this case here as responsible salvage companies need to be selected and given scrict guidelines on recovery procedure on a busy waterway.
-Foxxz
The Hudson (according to some) is loaded with PCB's from old General Electric dumping in the river. While they continue to fight the legal and environmental battle to decide how that's going to be handled...
The last thing they need is a bunch of yahoo's with treasure maps digging around in the sediment and silt looking for treasure while dredging up 80 years worth of PCB's.
The biggest opponents to cleaning the PCB's out of the river point to the environmental impact of disturbing all of this sediment. Imagine the nightmare when Joe Adventurer goes out and starts digging up the River.
...in a Cessna 172 and the ceiling of the NYC airspace down south of the GWBridge is 1000 ft, so we'd fly down the NYC side at 600 ft and down and around the statue of Liberty, then up the NJ side to Alpine tower. I haven't flown in years, but Im sure the regulations are MUCH stricter since 9/11.
On a second note, how many PCBs are in the riverbed and would be disturbed and brought downstream. Dont know if they'd "stir up" the environmentalists by suggesting going down for the wrecks/moving them.
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All other things aside, I find that declaring the contents of a publicly-funded project to be secret is food for thought. As big as I am on openess, I can understand the decision to hold off for now.
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My take is that the information is public knowledge, but releasing it would destroy public safety and public history. What needs to be done is a massive, organized effort to salvage and record the vast wealth of finds. Maybe private companies could be involved.
Interesting to think of - I wonder what other cases of withheld public information may be justifiable . .
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
Kartchner Caverns is a perfect example of a case when a state government spent a lot of money and effort researching and protecting a site of significant (in this case) natural importance without disclosing any of the information to the public until the "right" time. In this case, even the fact that the money was being spent, and what it was being spent on was, from my understanding, kept completely secret.
I'm sure there will be people on here screaming that the government has no right to keep the fruits of labor paid for by taxpayers money a secret, but it sounds like NY, just like Arizona, is doing it to protect the sites they have invested a lot of time and energy in.
People go on an annual swim around the entire island of Manhattan every year, up the hudson, through the harlem river, then down the east river (not actually a river, but a tidal estuary). It's called the Manhattan Island Marathon Swim. the water is actually a lot cleaner than most people would (rightly) suspect. More info at: Manhattan Island Foundation. Even more interesting is the fact that every year, harbor seals and even dolphins can be seen swimming around the Battery Park area in New York harbor (southern most tip of manhattan).
Dredging the river will decimate the shipwrecks
or salvaging the shipwrecks will spread PCBs back into the river, which is one of the big problems with dredging
More info is at the EPA. The article doesn't really mention this, which seems odd, since the PCB/Dredging issue has been a hell of a hot topic in the Upper Hudson Valley for the past year or two.
_sig_ is away
The government should make the bottom of the river a national park. This would ensure that the ships are preserved as long as our country. Imagine if the Greeks or Egyptians had done this.
First time I read this I almost passed it off as a troll. Thinking about it though, this seems to me a very good idea - there are a lot of Nava Battle sites around the world that are not in international waters (Pearl Harbor for one, which I think is officially a national monuement). Preserving such historical sites is important for future generations.
Good post that man! (or woman!)
The old Tacoma Narrows bridge ("Galloping Gertie") that went down in high winds in 1940(?) is a protected underwater landmark. You've all seen the video, right? Wouldn't want the souvenir hunters stripping it to nothing. Although why a collapsed bridge should be preserved is beyond me. It has no historical value at all. It's just a massive engineering failure.
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I think it's extremely cool that they found 200 year old perishable goods like leather and potatos preserved by the mud.
In think it would be even cooler if there was a similar project in europe or the middle east - places that have way more history than the US.
The oldest ships you'll find in the Hudson are going to be ~2 hundred years old. Imagine finding a shipwreck in the mediteranean, red sea, black sea, or caspian sea thats ~2 thousand years old!!
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
i was a tour guide on the hudson for new york waterway for awhile.
;-P
there is supposedly pirates treasure.
it would be nice to find one of these, called "General Washington's Watch Chain."
maybe a german u-boat?
or relics from the age of steamboats.
the hudson is also pretty deep in places. off of west point, for example (206 feet), or near bear mountain bridge (165 feet). it is an ancient river, as old as the appalachians. some of it was carved during the last ice age, and is similar to a norwegian fjord. plenty of room down there.
check this gem out, bannerman's island. an old arms dealer from the spanish american war blew up the castle he built with his business profits by locating his arsenal right next to his castle on his private island. oops. i've kayaked around it and can make out weird shapes in the shallow muck between the island and the shore. wonder what you would find near there!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I am an amateur treasure hunter. I have been called a looter by archeology types at times. My proposal is this:
How many historical sites/wrecks can be researched in 100 years? Take this number and double it. Now make a list of these sites. These sites would be "off limits" to looters, er treasure hunters.
Now if a "new" site is found, in order to add it to the list you must drop an existing site from the list.
My point is that there are so many sites there is no way they can all be researched, and without "looters" many existing museum pieces would not have been found and available for the public to see and researchers to study.
Thank goodness for maritime law and the law of salvage....
It's a serious disappointment that society has arrived (not recently) at a state where truly worthwhile information is rightfully withheld because we, as humans, can't treat things with respect.
This is only devil's advocate: the nostalgic feeling we have towards these shipwrecks is of arguable value, but the monetary value of the ships' materials can provide a direct injection of wealth into the economy.
Alas, choosing when to be sentimental is often hard (especially when spring cleaning comes around...)
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I don't know much about salvage rights and admiralty law, but maybe there's a relevant portion of some state statute regulating shipping and commerce on the Hudson and what happens to sunken ships? *shrug
More interestingly - what about GE and the whole PCB issue? I see a few problems with anybody digging anything up on a large scale:
a.) Scenic Hudson (or maybe it was another group, I forget) doesn't want anybody stirring up silt in the Hudson for the purposes of GE dredging the PCB-filled mud, so I can't think that they'd think lightly of lots of treasure hunters doing ths same thing.
b.) GE argued from the start that the biggest harm in removing the silt would be that it stirred up all of the PCBs which, over time, have become more benign (or at least less latent on the surface of the mud). Stirring them up, they said, would put them back into the fish, etc... this might relieve GE from its primary argument against dredging, so I've got to think they'd be considering it carefully.
c.) No matter what Scenic Hudson and GE think today about the Hudson, it is well-established that the silt is still chock full of PCBs, and as such, would qualify for treatment as a "hazardous material" upon its removal from the Hudson. Part of the dredging issue was figuring out what lucky Upstate NY town was going to host the geomembrane-protected "silt dump" for disposal of the stuff so it wouldn't leach into the ground and contaminate groundwater, etc. The rule of NIMBY has applied thus far, as far as I know... It would therefore follow that anybody trying to dig up ships would run into a big problem of what to do with the dirt they dug through. (Granted, it's not the whole Hudson, but it still creates an issue if you do anything but leave it there.)
That's my purse! I don't know you! -- Bobby Hill
but anyone with the money or power to go dig up ships has some ethics in them
Bzzzzzzz! Wrong...unfortunately. I've dove at least a dozen shipwrecks now in the great lakes, and ethics are pretty far from the mind of most people. If you want a great example of ethics, go read a book called "Deep Descent - Adventure and Death Diving The Andrea Doria". The Doria is one of the greatest wrecks in the world to dive. However...many people have foolishly died on the wreck in their efforts to collect something as stupid as china plates.
Salvers may be more ethical (I don't know any so I can't say) but I know that the mentality of a lot of divers is that it's finders keepers. There are underwater preserves in the great lakes, meaning that the shipwrecks are protected. But...most wrecks are found by private individuals and then pilfered of all the interesting stuff before they notify the government. So, when you actually get a chance to dive on the wreck most of the neat artifacts are gone. It's a shame...nothing can compare to the beauty of descended onto a wreck in the dark blue water and crawling through the hatches and seeing old tools, ropes...hundreds of years old. But a lot of divers only see a decoration in their living room.
Even a recent wreck (10 years old) - the US Coast Guard cutter The Mesquite - is in a protected area. When it was sunk, there were crew uniforms, utensils, logbooks - theres still a copy machine and a radio on the deck. A couple of years after the sinking you could find ad's in diving magazines of crew uniforms for sale from the mesquite. It's a HUGE debate in the diving community, about whether artifacts should stay on the wreck or if they should be collected...but ethics....hrm. More of a feeding frenzy on some wrecks...
Well, yes and no. I do not know all the issues involved, suffice to say it is complex, so if you want a real answer see a lawyer.
That out of the way, the insurance company only owns the wreck until the abandon it. If you try to salvage a wreck and the insurance company can prove they are in the process of trying to get it, then it belongs to them, and they can decide what to pay you for your efforts (read they will screw you).
However if you salavege a wreck long after it happens, and the insurance company has made no effort to get it, then it is assumed the insurance company has decided that the cost to salavage the wreck is greater than the benifits of doing so, and it is yours for the taking.
The key is while the insurance company is making efforts to raise the wreck it belongs to them. I wouldn't start any salavage operation without consulting a lawyer. International waters are a little more tricky, if you can get the loot to the right country you might be able to salvage it from under the insurance company.
Insurance companies generally don't bother with salvage unless they suspect the operation will turn up something other than the loot. Evidence that they don't have to pay the claim due to fraud is worth more than the claim itself if it keeps others from fraud. In minnesota they have divers bring up all outboards dropped overboard even though it often costs more than the claim because it teaches people that throwing a moter overboard will not get them a new one.
Note: This is posted as AC because my employer is directly involved.
What I don't understand is why the City of New York is doing it this way.
I'm employed by my local city government and within the last several years we've been developing a Geographic Information System. GIS is basically digital photos of the entire city with various meta data attached (street names; water, sewer, & electric lines; zoning info; etc.).
Long story short - it required photographs taken during VERY expensive fly-overs. Not only is the city going to use the GIS information internally (police, fire, planning, and engineering departments), but in an effort to recoup some of the costs the city is planning on selling the information to local businesses. How do you sell information that is publicly owned? Simple - don't let the public own it.
What they're doing is leasing access to the GIS data, but allowing a 3rd party (the ones who did the fly-overs) to actually own it. The city is then under no legal obligation to allow the public to get to it for free.
Why couldn't New York do the same and allow whoever did the sonar scans to own the data?
The Hudson is VERY heavily polluted with PCBs dumped by GE over the years. It got to the point where the govt. (EPA) has told GE to dredge the river and clean it out. GE's response is that the PCBs are now 'safely' underneath the bottom of the river, and dredging will do more harm than good, as dredging will stir up all the crap and get it back into the river again.
On the one hand, you can't fault GE for this line of thinking, as much of the dumping was done before the harm in PCBs were realized. On the other, if you treat an area like a sewer, you should own up to doing some sort of cleanup.
All that being said, there will be a big ecological impact if you're digging up ships buried for 400 years, well below where the PCBs are.
Growing up in Albany NY, I spent many summers in the 1950's and 1960's swimming in the Hudson River in an area about 14 miles south of the city. This was before cities had polution controls that are now in place along the river. Of course, the only problem was barge oil on the surface, which prohibited swimming now and then. But the tides carried it away in a couple of hours. I recall seeing many 1000's of people swimming in the Hudson. No health problems were ever identified.
Raising the ships was difficult. Preserving the ships after they were raised has been a major effort (costing a small fortune) and requiring many thousands of man hours. It is wonderful that the wrecks were raised, but I don't think either the UK or Sweden could have coped with more than one every ten years or so.
Steel and iron ships are actually harder than wood to raise once they are over a certain page where the hull is substantially oxidised and what you end up with is almost impossible to treat (iron oxide crumbles).
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http://www.melfisher.com/lobbying.html>Mel Fishers site may give you some insite into the problem of treasure hunting/salvage
Personally,I'd find all of them in probably one trip down river using not much more than a rebent coathanger in a comfy boat with a lil cold beer,but thats another discussion.heck,I'd even tell you depth and position.
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