At the bottom of Lake Michigan, shipwrecks race against invasive species

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Shipwrecks are preserved better in the Great Lakes than any other place in the world. The cold, fresh water acts to stop the clock on wrecks, making for excellent scuba diving for those hoping to see a living preservation of history.

Up until a few years ago, the wrecks in Lake Michigan looked almost the same as they did the day they went down. But lately, a new invasive species — the quagga mussel — has taken over, changing the way the ships look and speeding up the rate of decay.

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SHALLOW WRECKS MOST AT RISK

Scientists say quagga mussels will look different depending on the depth they are found. The quaggas found in shallower depths are darker and heavier. Unlike invasive zebra mussels, which need sunlight to live, quaggas can colonize the deepest parts of Lake Michigan, clinging to anything on the lake floor at depths of hundreds of feet.

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The mussels, combined with constant wave action, have put the shallowest shipwrecks most at risk of falling apart. Professional Association of Diving Instructors staff instructor Mike Palmer said he remembers the mussels taking over on Lake Michigan. The new added weight has already claimed some of the wrecks.

“Some of the wooden wrecks would get so heavy, the deck would weigh down and the sides would collapse and it would all pancake out,” Palmer said.

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That could pose a threat to scuba tourism in Lake Michigan because the shallow wrecks are the ones most visited by divers, who typically can only descend to 60 to 100 feet.

DEEP-WATER WRECKS LIKELY TO SURVIVE

The shipwrecks settled in the deepest waters of Lake Michigan have the best chance at survival.

Dusty Klifman of Blueyes Below is one of the very few divers around Lake Michigan with enough training to dive into several hundred feet of water. On the deepest dives, he says the ships are incredibly preserved.

“These aren’t degraded. There’s glass in the windows, the steering wheels are there. The masts are standing. A lot of them look just like they are sitting at the dock, essentially,” Klifman said.

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The coating of quagga mussels is thick, but the wave energy so far down is substantially lower. Often, wrecks found in several hundred feet of water look eerily similar to the day they went down.

Below: Blueyes Below dives the W.C. Kimball wreck in about 300 feet of water near the Leelanau Peninsula.

Of the 600 shipwrecks thought to be lost in Lake Michigan, only about 210 have been identified.

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TIME RUNNING OUT FOR HISTORIC PLANES

About 80 World War II planes are still sitting at the bottom of Lake Michigan. They wound up there because the U.S. Navy used the big lake as a training ground.

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To date, about 40 of the planes have been rescued from the water. The Air Zoo in Portage is restoring one of them. Though it was broken when it crashed in 1944, its core was well preserved and still in excellent shape even after more than 60 years in the water. But when the plane was pulled up, it was completely covered in quagga mussels.

“Fresh water doesn’t corrode metal very quickly, but these quagga mussels, sitting, attaching themselves to the metal, creating this acidic environment, has really damaged this aircraft,” Air Zoo CEO Troy Thrash said.

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Experts estimate because of quaggas, researchers may only have three more years to rescue WWII airplanes before they are disintegrated.

WATER CLARITY THE BEST EVER

Even with the quagga and zebra mussels creating a threat to local shipwrecks, the water clarity the invertebrates are producing makes diving visibility the best it has ever been on Lake Michigan. Scuba divers say they can see up to 100 feet on some of the deeper shipwrecks. The clarity has led to a boom for local dive shops as new divers look to explore.

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Water clarity is expected to remain even if the population of invasive mussels is eventually brought into check.

Still, Ashley Elgin, Ph.D., a research scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, cautions that just because water is clear doesn’t make it clean.

“Clear water does not always mean clean water. You can see through it but it doesn’t mean it is contaminant-free,” Elgin said.

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