Sinking Sunken Treasures

From September 10, 1991 (update #10)

CHICAGO -- Zebra mussels could spell disaster for historic shipwrecks in Lakes Michigan and Superior, according to State Historical Society of Wisconsin Underwater Archeologist David Cooper. The mussels have already begun wrecking southern Lake Michigan's shipwrecks. The first sighting occurred in late June, when divers spotted zebra mussels attached to the DAVID DOW seven miles (11 km) off Chicago. Cooper said his colleagues in Ohio report that the zebra mussel has rendered some Lake Erie shipwrecks virtually unrecognizable. "They're to the point where they're really not the same. Some shipwrecks are so encrusted they're no longer visible," Cooper said. "To a recreational diver, it shoots the wreck's aesthetics; to the archeologist, you've placed all these sharp, bony little creatures between yourself and the site. These mussels secrete almost a kind of epoxy, and they're extremely difficult to remove. We're not looking forward to those things, but it seems inevitable.".

ID: 19910910-5.

The Zebra Mussel Update was a 4- to 8-page quarterly national newsletter published by the University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute from May 1990 through May 1997. The ZMU documented the spread of the zebra mussel -- an exotic nuisance mussel -- through North America's freshwater environments, especially the Great Lakes, and on efforts to control it.