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62 Chapter Four  A SANCTUARY FOR AMERICA PROTECTING MONITOR Our high-quality photographs and video from the 1974 Seaprobe expedition clearly revealed Monitor’s unique armor belt, anchor well, gun turret, and other distinctive features. Also clearly recognizable on the images was the camera “Doc” Edgerton lost on the wreck the previous August, confirming that the Duke team had indeed found Monitor. Now officials could concentrate on protecting this historic shipwreck. Many historic preservation specialists, including myself, were convinced that Monitor was in immediate danger of unauthorized salvage. We realized that even though the wreck lay nearly 240 feet beneath the surface, objects could be removed by divers or even grappled to the surface using equipment that could be deployed from small boats. Had we disturbed Monitor’s resting place in order to give the proud ship a second life, or had we merely revealed its hiding place to those who would destroy it for its salvage value? We quickly learned that there were no easy answers. Because of Monitor’s location (sixteen miles offshore ), Federal antiquities legislation did not apply, nor did the jurisdiction of the US Coast Guard. The US Navy was concerned about Monitor’s protection, but since it had abandoned the vessel in writing in 1953, it believed it had no authority in the matter.1 In September 1953, in a memorandum to the Secretary of the Navy, the Chief of Naval Operations reported that “a group of laymen” wished to salvage Monitor “for the purpose of establishing the ship as a national shrine.” To perhaps assist in this quest, the CNO recommended that the Navy formally abandon Monitor .2 At the end of September, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy responded, “a formal declaration of such abandonment is hereby made.”3 Research and case law in the 1970s and 1980s determined that the US Navy’s abandonment of the USS Monitor consisted only of striking the vessel from the Navy list, an action more accurately cast as a decision to “surplus” the ship, not a legal abandonment of the warship as an item of federal property. In fact, aside from express authority from Congress, the act of abandonment is outside the authority of any agency, including the Navy. The Navy can decommission a ship, but must follow “surplus property” procedures administered by the General Services Administration (GSA) to actually dispose of the ship.4 In 1974, however, it was generally, if incorrectly, assumed that if Monitor were discovered, the wreck would become the property of the finder. This misconception undoubtedly encouraged other private organizations to seek the ship’s location. The question of ownership of sunken ships and other property has been debated for years, and court cases often become very complicated, especially when potential a s a n c t u a r y f o r a m e r i c a 63 that Monitor was scheduled for sanctuary designation in three months, NOAA and the Smithsonian Institution jointly convened a meeting of experts who could help develop management and protection regulations for the proposed Monitor sanctuary. Also, NOAA and NCDAH established the Monitor Technical Advisory Committee to provide advice and expertise for the review of proposals for research at the Monitor site.8 Monitor National Marine Sanctuary On January 30, 1975, less than eighteen months since Monitor’s discovery and 113 years since the ship was launched, the Secretary of Commerce designated the wreck of the USS Monitor as the United States’ first National Marine Sanctuary, to be protected and managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The fact that the designation took place only four months after the nomination was submitted is a good indication of the high priority NOAA placed on Monitor’s protection. At the time of Monitor’s designation, NOAA was in the very early stages of developing a program to oversee the new Sanctuaries Act. NOAA had anticipated that the first designations would be natural resource areas such as coral reefs, fish habitats, and other natural resources. One can only imagine the reaction when NOAA biologists learned that their first sanctuary would be a Civil War shipwreck! Nevertheless, the nascent program consulted historic preservation managers, nautical archaeologists, oceanographers, and other specialists and quickly began to formulate protection and research plans for the sanctuary. A Description of the Monitor Site at the Time of Designation Monitor lies on a relatively flat seafloor that slopes gently to the southeast for more than four nautical miles before there...

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