Dump truck in mine

[lahrcm]

Article in the Brainerd newspaper.

[Shooter]

Good job guys! Nice volunteer work.  This is why I enjoy  PSD diving.    Lt. Oliver(detectorguy) and I are going to try and retrieve some important documents out of the van today. It will be some excellent training. Based on your report we will go west to look for the other truck.
Standby for report.

[BG9879]

I will be there all weekend (Friday night through Monday afternoon).  I am also a public safety diver and would be interested with someone local (PSD) to dive this site and maybe share some training ideas.

Let me know if anyone is interested (day and time) and I will not have access to internet after about noon on Friday.

Thanks!

[MERCDIVER]

there are 7 dive entry points on huntington, could you be more specific on which one it is please. thanks,, mercdiver

[DetectorGuy]

If these systems aren't sealed, our shop would be very busy replacing motors. 

When we pulled a car out of a local lake that had been down on the bottom for 8 years it still had all those components in it.  When the air bags started lifting the car off the bottom, a fuel line must have cracked causing fuel to shoot to the surface.
[/quote]

I am not a mechanic (and I hate working on vehicles) but the following are my reasons I believe the liquids could leak in certain underwater conditions.
I might have mis-spoke on the possibility of liquids leaking from a submerged vehicle...
The oil as far as I know is a pressurized oil system to a point, as the valve train is lubricated by splashing oil on the valve stems and lifters. This oil that splashes is fed into the valve covers through oil galleys in the heads. The valve covers are then vented using PCV valves. It would need to be in ideal conditions for all the oil from the engine (which is lighter than water) to rise up through the oil galleys into the valve cover and then out through the valve covers.
The fuel also is a vented system as the top of the fuel tank has a vent line to prevent vacuum in the tank as fuel is being consumed and also to prevent over expansion of the fuel tank on hot days. The cap on a fuel tank is obviously not an "O-Ring" tight seal. This would also need to have ideal conditions to make it leak on a car as these vents would need to be facing up to leak while under water.
The rear differential is vented also and even though this is 90 weight gear lube, It could evacuate through the vent.
The antifreeze is a pressurized system and I believe the radiator caps on most have a 14 PSI pressure cap before releasing antifreeze into the overflow reservoir. The antifreeze in the reservoir would be subject to leaking as this is just a plastic snap-cap.
The battery acid in modern batteries is sealed but the older batteries with the individual caps (or 3 gang caps) would leak.
The power steering and brake fluid should be sealed with no possibility of leakage with out damage to a line.
Sealed beer bottles will not leak at depth but while bringing them up from 110' they will force the contents through the sealed lid  :'(. (I tried this one)

I agree it would be hard to have anyone of these liquids drain completely but it would be hard for me to say that some liquid from most all of the systems hasn't left a vehicle when submerged

[doug67]

Howed the dive go dude?

[BG9879]

Yes, could someone please clarify which dive access this is?  Or PM the info if you do not want to post it publicly...

[lahrcm]

It's the public access on Huntington or "boat launch".

[DetectorGuy]

The coordinates to the public access on Huntington are N46 28.681 W94 00.715

Shooter and I dove the 2 vehicles at the pit yesterday and I will need to wait until tonight or Saturday to get the video on Youtube. We did our first dive using HP 100's 32%Nitrox. We dropped down to the dumptruck and shot a couple minutes of video. On the same first dive we then went to the van and my camera button was stuck so no video was shot on the van this first dive from me although Nate got some nice video of it. They were both in about 100' of water but somehow I read 104' as max depth. The temp at the bottom was 41 degrees with decent light for that depth. While traveling from the dump truck to the van, I noticed that my compass was not reading right so we used the directions that Curtis and Doug gave (which were right on) to locate the van. While at the van Shooter launched a bag and hooked his finger spool to the door to make it quicker to find on our second dive. This first dive was about 31 minutes.

The second dive we surface swam out the the lift bag marking the van and dropped down the line. This lift bag from the surface showed the van location almost in the middle of the width of the pit which was an eye opener to me. The trench that is about 105' deep down the middle is surprisingly narrow in this portion of the pit. This second dive was to recover some paper maps that the Crosby Police Department asked us to retrieve for them. The maps showed where all of the below ground water valves were for the city of Crosby. They told us that there are no copies and that if we could retrieve them, they would be gratefull. Then they would not have to find and re-map them all. This second dive we used LP 120's and I did get some nice video of the van to document the condition of the maps as found. When we got to the van shooter used my lift bag to temporarily hold the rear door open while we entered the van. He had a small freeflow during this but it stopped after a bit.  We used the scientific method of "rock-paper-scissors" to determine which of us would enter the van and search for the maps. I had 5 gallon sized ziploc bags in my thigh pocket to put the maps in for the ascent. Nate went to the side door of the van and opened it to create a second egress point and to add his lighting to the search. He also directed me from there as to what to move and look under. There is a lot of sh!t in there but I could not find a single map. The card board boxes are still intact and I think if the maps were in there they would have been OK too... But they were not in the van. I swam up to the steering wheel from the back multiple times. It looks bigger in there than it is until you are in there. There are quite a few long T-handled water valve wrenches in the back of the van that my hoses kept getting snagged on. After about 23 minutes on the bottom of this second dive we still had some minutes left but I was getting down to 1100 PSI and needed that for the ascent so we disconnected the lift bags and made our ascent.

There is a big blue metal box that has pipe threading equipment in it that the City of Crosby would like to have returned to them before the van is raised. The box is too heavy for my 50 pound lift bag so I moved it to the tailgate to eliminate anyone from needing to go inside the van to get it prior to lifting the van. The blue gangbox is about 36" x 18" x 24" and it is heavy and estimated weight is 150# + or -. The lid is not shut or latched on it but a caribiner could secure the simple hasp prior to lifting it. If anyone gets to the van and removes this box, please return it to the City of Crosby Police Department and contact Kim Coughlin. I don't think she would appreciate her cell number being on a website.

Videos and photos will be posted later.

[BG9879]

I will be there this weekend and I have a 150 pound lift bag that I could use.  If it is still there tomorrow, I will attempt to retrieve it and let you know. 

I look forward to the training opportunity!