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AJ Jones: Even though diving to view most shipwrecks in the Great Lakes is legal, the wreckage site of the Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior has been deemed off-limits to divers for almost two decades. To discuss why that is and the other rules surrounding dives, WCMU's Tina Sawyer recently sat down with Ron Bloomfield from Michigan's Underwater Salvage and Preserve Committee. Ron began the discussion by explaining why The Fitzgerald is considered "sacred ground."
Ron Bloomfield: It's off limits by the Canadian government, and that was in response to there was a couple of divers in 1995 that actually dove it on open circuit scuba. But the Canadians at that point were concerned about the ramifications of people diving on the wreck.
Tina Sawyer: Would there have to be a certain amount of years that have passed in order for someone to say, okay, well, obviously they don't have any family members left. It's a 100-year-old shipwreck. Should that be allowed?
RB: There is actually a law in place that specifically, it does address 100 years. From what I understand of the law, there's questions as to how that would be be enforced. Everybody has to look at the ethics part of it on their own terms. The Michigan legislature in 1997 passed the law about not being able to take pictures. There's a penalty for taking pictures and distributing them of bodies on wrecks. And that was very much a, well, in any grave site actually, and that was very much a reaction to the body that was found on the Fitzgerald in one of the expeditions in the early 1990s and put into a video. There again, it's a very specific circumstance. I don't know that we've even seen any prosecutions or any even potential prosecutions that have come out of it. It's only going to deal with a very small subset of shipwrecks.
TS: Let's say of the Edmund Fitzgerald, a lot of those family members are no longer with us. And how would you be able to go back down in there? Would you have to, you know, go to the Canadian government and ask them for permission?
RB: That's in Canadian water, so yeah, absolutely. They have total jurisdiction over it.
TS: So even if the family members said it's okay, they'd still say no?
RB: They have the right to say no to it. But knowing what we do with permitting for bringing objects up, my guess would would be they would require something to talk about how are you going to deal with these types of things if they're found, including human remains.
TS: These laws also apply to anything under the water or just shipwrecks?
RB: I would assume in reading the way that the definition is of what the grave site is, it could be that a plane, so that is a good point, that there are planes, but the way that I understand it, a lot of these plane wreckage are going to be more debris field than anything else. And if I'm not mistaken, some of these have been, people have been found, but you know, it could even be if a car was pulled out of the lake as well.
TS: It is the 50th anniversary this year of the sinking of the Fitz. And they did a swim this past summer from the wreck, Lake Huron, into Detroit. But they did so with some iron ore pellets that they claimed were aboard the Edmund Fitzgerald. How are they allowed to have that cargo without any penalty?
RB: That's a good question. I did hear that as well myself. But that is Canadian Waters. If the Ontario government issued them a permit to be able to do that, it may have been stuff that was pulled up at the time. I mean, like I said, there were several. Submarine expeditions that went out, so it is possible that was stuff gathered at the time. Without knowing specifics about it, yeah, I would say that's how it would be handled in Michigan. We would be requested a permit, we would give a permit...in this case it would be Canadian, if I remember correctly, they have a similar type of a process where you have to apply for permits.
AJ: That was Ron Bloomfield from Michigan's Underwater Salvage and Preserve Committee talking with WCMU's Tina Sawyer.
WCMU learned after this interview was recorded, that iron ore pellets, carried by the swimmers, were donated by Burlington Northern Railroad, Dock No. 1 in Superior, Wisconsin and were not from the Fitzgerald. The dock was where the Edmund Fitzgerald's final voyage began in 1975 with over 26,000 tons of taconite pellets.
