MNScuba.com

Does anyone know the laws about harvesting wood from the bottom of lakes in Mn?

Nope, sorry Joe.  Can't help you there.  :-X

requires a very expensive permit from the state. Set up more for corporate type logging, very stringent standards. Lot of hoops to jump through and red tape. I was kind of hoping for a don't ask don't tell policy  there might be some loopholes if it was a night dive  >. make sure that you have a buyer in place, and get the wood to them as soon as possible. It will need to be treated in dried, otherwise it will be worthless.

Here is a quote from Minnesota's Submerged Cultural Resources Plan:
"Logging Underwater

Any place where log-driving activities or logging dams (e.g., spillways and sluiceways) are known to have been located are potentially fruitful locations for submerged logs and logging-related artifacts. The Department of Administration issues permits for logging underwater, and the applications are reviewed by the SHPO. The Department of Administration handles the requests because (at present) submerged logs are considered abandoned property, and since they are resting on state bottomlands, they are technically property of the state.

The SHPO currently allows this activity with the following conditions:

   * Permission from the state is needed prior to undertaking any underwater logging.
   * The location of the logging (and logs recovered) needs to be documented.
   * Any tools or logging related artifacts must be turned over to the state.
   * Any significant marks on the logs (such as stamps) must be documented with photographs."
Here is a link to this whole document:

Sounds kinda cut and dry (pun intended)

Well that is pine and dandy, but I was looking for a cutoff for log size, do I need. A permit to remove a twig? What about a stump? I wish they wood have made it clear, its pretty vague actually. I need some hard rules by the board.

Haha, that's great

Webster defines a log:
1
: a usually bulky piece or length of a cut or fallen tree; especially : a length of a tree trunk ready for sawing and over six feet (1.8 meters) long

The state is likely to be a pain in the Ash. You should get the Poplar kids together and Willow meet you Beech side. Before the day ends, Babinga, you got a 1.7 meter log!

roughly how does the treatment go for submerged logs?... or wooden artifact for that matter.

I don't know a ton about preserving wood that has been submerged, but I just finished reading a book called "Underwater Archaeology" by Bill St.John Wilkes. I am starting another book called "Archaeology under Water" by George F.Bass. These two books go into the process' of researching, finding, documenting, and recovery, but not so much on the preservation. Both books are from the 1970's and were bought by my mom recently from the Department of Archaeology in Cork, Ireland. She wants me to "visit" Ireland with my dive gear in her lifetime. Maybe, but that is another story...

As far as the preserving of wood... There is a ship called the Vasa that sank in the Stockholm Harbor in 1628. Here is a link to that ships story:


56 of the 64 bronze guns were salvaged within the first 5 years after the sinking in 32 meters of water. The ship sat there until 1958 and was re floated (95% intact) in 1961. once it was above the surface, the human aspect of preserving of the ship took the next 28 years. They used polyethylene glycol to slowly replace the water in the wood fibers starting with a mild concentration and increasing the concentration in the continuous mist until the whole ship was saturated with the chemical.

Here is a link to the wikipedia definition for polyethylene glycol and a small quote from that page as it relates to wood preservation:


"PEG has also been used to preserve objects that have been salvaged from underwater, as was the case with the warship Vasa in Stockholm,[20] the Mary Rose in England and the Ma'agan Michael Ship in Israel.[21] It replaces water in wooden objects, which makes the wood dimensionally stable and prevents warping or shrinking of the wood when it dries. In addition, PEG is used when working with green wood as a stabilizer and to prevent shrinkage.[22]"

I think that wood that was submerged for a long time will dry out and be destroyed if not preserved correctly. Keeping the wood wet or fully submerged until it can be preserved is the only way to keep it intact... with that said, I have heard that some people have taken small artifacts the size of a flintlock pistol (acquired legally I presume) and put them in the tank of their toilet to flush (pun intended) the salt water from the item and replace that with fresh water. If you think about that it makes sense. Every time you flush the toilet, the fresh water around the object is replaced with "fresher water".

Food for thought...

Dosen't alot of the decay of submerged wood have to do with whether its sunk in the muck or exposed on the bottom. I have found wood while out mucking that was totally buried in the bottom muck and was in FINE shape, I always assumed this was due to the lack of oxygen in the muck, below the actual bottom of the lake. I found (years ago) this ice chisel made from a baseball bat, when I swam up to it only the top 16" or so of the bat handle was sticking out of the muck and thought it was just a bat until I pulled it out, dont know how long it was submerged but you can see the part buried in the muck is still like new compared to the narrow end that was exposed. I remember years ago the guys harvesting oldgrowth hardwood from the bottom of Superior said they just milled off the outer couple inches and the wood was good to go, again a rather low oxygen enviorment.