Let them salvage.

 

A clear example of what happens to important artifacts if left to rot on the sea floor.

A recent report of a study into damage done to the worlds oceans by shipwrecks, has concluded that they have altered the microbiology of our oceans for the past 80 years at least. This is not suprising given that we have transported everything across our oceans for millennia. So the sea is being polluted by shipwrecks but this is not rocket science. Any fool knows that if you litter the sea with our stuff its going to have an effect.  Drop a car into any pond and see what happens if it is not removed. Billions of tons of iron, lead, copper, aluminum, plastics, just about everything, has gone into our oceans in shipwrecks. This is all pollution. Yet why is it that when a diver or salvage company want to remove some of these contaminants for profit, governments constantly get in their way. The Heritage bodies want the shipwrecks to be left alone to rot -thus further polluting our oceans.  Nature and environmental bodies think that salvage disturbs the eco system if a salvage company removes a contaminant! Our Receiver of Wreck in England is trying its level best not to clear up divers droits when they have removed contaminants- thus making it harder for them to want to remove or declare more.  The Marine Management Organisation is charging extortionate fees to anyone wishing to help remove contaminants also making it harder and too expensive to perform salvage.  Yet our government is continually pushing for us to clean up our environment! Isnt this backwards? 

'Vasa' salvaged from the sea makes millions in revenue every year.

shouldnt they all be helping those who wish to remove things to do so easily?. In fact these bodies should be paying for salvage not charging for it. If you want to clean up the mess we have made in our oceans then make it easier for us to do so. Make it profitable too by not charging us. The tax made on the billions of £'s to be made from salvage will far out weigh the fees of all these government bodies put together so why charge a fee? The salvage men need to win, so that the government wins with taxation -and the environment wins as the wreckage gets removed.  Every commodity lost in the sea still has a value. /lead/iron copper/ brass etc etc etc. But things wont change because governments are far too short sighted. All they see is heritage lost when the heritage is actually being saved. They think that by leaving it all down there they are somehow leaving it for future generations- when all they are leaving them to deal with is another eco problem. And its stupid to think that you can just leave things for future generations. Why? Well you see its like this-everything rots in the sea. And I do mean -everything................... 

Look at this image of a heavily pitted Bronze statue saved by salvage along with many others from the Antykathera wreck before it was too late. A computer made by Archimedes was also saved by salvage from this wreck advancing our knowledge of our ancestors.

...........................Even gold is worn away by the sea. Every iron gun rots to nothing eventually. If you take a huge iron cannon and drop it in the sea it immediately starts to rot. It's a slow process. First it bleeds iron which attracts the surrounding sea bed to it. This then forms a crust called concretion. This concretion does not save the cannon-because inside this concretion the gun still slowly rots away.  Inside this concretion the cannon gets softer and softer until it turns to mush. I have seen iron items at this stage of deterioration with my own eyes. This mush then seeps out into the open ocean until, eventually, all you are left with is an empty husk of concretion with no gun left inside. It may take 1000 years or more-but as sure as eggs is eggs it will happen to them all. Some rot faster than others depending on where they are situated. Bronze guns rot away to. They become more and more pitted until they eventually turn to dust and disappear. Even if they become buried they rot -just more slowly. One need only look at the bronze (and marble) statues of the Antikythera wreck to see what happens to them over time. Given more time all these thing will disappear completely-dissolving into our oceans. 

Iron cannon worn away by sea action and is still down on the sea floor. So whats being left to future generations here? Everyone looses here- even the sea.

 Some bronze guns that have been salvaged after just a few hundred years under the sea have been found very badly pitted. Yes these things last longer if buried in an anerobic environment but they will just rot away more slowly if left there. If these bronze and iron guns are not buried then they get worn away by the sea or sand- especially if found in shallow water. (See image above) So if they rot away then it must follow that they are a contaminate. If they are worn away by sand and sea, then the particles still contaminate the oceans just at a faster rate. It doesn't just disappear-just because we cant see it!  Yes there are indeed wrecks that need saving for posterity. These are mostly found in places like the baltic sea and the black sea. These wrecks are extremely valuable as very little is known about them as they are so old- but these too should be saved- not left down there to rot but lifted complete and conserved for everyone to study and enjoy and not just- "left for future generations". 

2500 year old shipwreck found in the black sea needs to be salvaged in its entirety and placed on public display.  The revenue from visitors would outweigh the cost of salvage.

To my mind every single wreck needs to be salvaged. Most for the value of the material but some in their entirety for public display. It needs all the nations of the world to do this. The cost would be considerable but the ongoing income from the museum displays outweighs this cost eventually. Shipwreck museums are popular with the public. Shipwrecks less than 300 years old should all be cleared away. We can learn very little more information from these sites. All the artifacts can be studied and recorded and then sold off. The sale of all the artifacts will pay for the salvage costs to these wrecks and the information retained before any sale takes place. Museums to be offered the items first before the public is. Would this be so terrible?  & Contaminant removed.

However slowly the deterioration of any shipwreck- it is all contaminating our oceans and seas and our short-sighted government bodies fail to recognise this fact and are in fact just getting in the way of salvage today.  So ask yourselves- Q. Just what are we leaving to future generations?  Answer- another massive eco disaster hidden on the sea floor?