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From: Wendy S.
Category: Shipwreck Research
Date: 28 Jun 2007
Time: 08:11:45
Remote Name: 24.180.195.151
I thought I'd see what the prevailing opinion is regarding the following situation.......
Many of you may know that Stan Stock located the wreck of the Kyle Spangler in July of 2003. This wreck was positively identified since the name board is clearly visible on the wreck.
In one of NOAA's own publications the Spangler is listed as having possible national historical significance. We have a copy of this NOAA publication. In fact, if you Google "Kyle Spangler" you will get a link which says "National Historic Landmark" and the link takes you right to the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary's page which is of course a NOAA publication.
So........here's the thing............if you read all the way to the bottom of the Sanctuary's page about the Spangler it still lists the wreck as not found. The Sanctuary was notified by Stan after it was found and filmed, and Mr. Gray (Sanctuary Manager) indicated that they were most definately interested. However, a meeting was never possible since Mr. Gray was never be available when he indicated he would be. Stan would not give Mr. Gray the coordinates to the wreck over the phoe prior to meeting with him so the Sanctuary couldn't take any credit where it was not due. He was advised by several people not to release the coordinates until some type of agreement could be reached regarding a possible survey, etc.
After all this time don't you think the Sanctuary's website should list this wreck as having been found?? After all, the website is a Federal Government publication paid for by our tax dollars and shouldn't it be correct?? I contacted Mr. Pat Labadie many months ago and asked him why it was not correct. He advised that at the time whoever was entering this information on the web page must not have known the wreck was located, and that he would see to it that it was corrected. It still is not correct.
Obviously, Stan has a lot of footage of this beautiful wreck that would be benefical to the Sanctuary museum as well, but they are not interested. Now why is that? Does this wreck suddenly have less historical significance since it was not located by the Sanctuary? Maybe since Dr. Ballard didn't find it in his million dollar (so we've heard) search of the area it can't possibly have as much siginificance since a "lowly local diver" found it?? The same diver that found several of the wrecks that Dr. Bob "found" again in Thunder Bay?
In a reply to me Mr. Labadie indicated that it was too bad Stan and the Sanctuary were never able to get together on this since it was too late now to do a survey on the wreck due to zebra mussel encrustation. Too late?? Really?? It certainly wasn't for lack of trying on Stan's part to get the meeting set up. In fact he was at the Sanctuary several times when Mr. Gray wasn't available (even though he indicated he would be there) and was amazed by all the neat technological gadgetry they have a their disposal. (You'd be amazed to know what your tax dollars have bought.) Now back to the survey of the wreck.............Does Mr. Labadie mean to say that this wreck is all of a sudden not worth surveying? What happened to the historical siginifance designation given to the wreck by NOAA? Suppose the wreck were to be found this year instead of 2003. Wouldn't it be surveyed in the condition in which it was found, regardless of encrustation? The wreck had zebra mussel encrustation on it when it was found in 2003. I can't believe that if it were found tommorrow it wouldn't be worth surveying such as it is. "National historical significance" just doesn't go away all of a sudden.
I have my own opinion on why this wreck isn't listed as having been found almost four years later. It's not as though they haven't had ample time to list it as found. I'm not saying they should give Stan credit for finding it on their website, but they should list it as found. Perhaps it could be listed as "located by a local diver in 2003". Perhaps they should reconsider their standpoint on surveying the wreck and having information available to the public to view in their museum as well.
So...........what do you think? Am I way out in left field on this, or do you agree??