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From: Ron Bloomfield
Category: Shipwreck Research
Date: 26 Feb 2004
Time: 14:09:02
Remote Name: 66.19.19.97
Dave, There are quite a few wrecks in the Saginaw River area over here on the Sunrise side, including the remains of the largest wooden vessels ever built on the Great Lakes, however the visibility is akin to diving in coffee (and I wouldn't want to dive it in anything but an industrial quality drysuit and full face mask). Industry (and other factors) over the past 1 1/2 centuries have really compromised the water quality. At present, all we can hope for is a big wind to blow the water out into the Bay (happens a couple times per year) so we can see how much the known ones have degraded and find new ones. Most were burned to the waterline (or simply rotted in place) after they had been abandoned for some years in the river, but still have hull bottoms and machinery that is fairly intact. One bright spot (depending on how you look at it) is that with the influx of Zebra mussles, the Saginaw Bay has started to clear up, however it won't be in my lifetime that we see any progress on cleaning up the river so it has diveable visibility. Plus, it's hard to tell just how much particulate is contaminant related and how much is from sediment and dredging. Ron Bloomfield