The Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast National Marine Sanctuary is one of 15 United States National Marine Sanctuaries administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), an agency of the United States Department of Commerce; NOAA co-manages the sanctuary jointly with the State of Wisconsin. It is located in Lake Michigan along the coast of Wisconsin. It was created in 2021 to protect shipwrecks considered nationally important archaeological resources.
Description
The Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast National Marine Sanctuary covers approximately 726 square nautical miles in Lake Michigan off Wisconsin's Ozaukee, Sheboygan, Manitowoc, and Kewaunee counties. It includes approximately of Wisconsin′s coast and lies entirely within the state waters of Wisconsin, extending approximately from the coast. Principal cities along the coast include Port Washington, Sheboygan, Manitowoc, and Two Rivers, Wisconsin.
At the time of its designation in 2021, the sanctuary included 36 known shipwrecks dating from the 1830s to the 1930s, including Wisconsin's two oldest known shipwrecks in terms of vessel construction date, the schooners , which was constructed in 1833 and sank in 1851, and , which was built in 1843 and sank in 1858. The wrecks provide a cross-section of the types of ships that connected Wisconsin with other Great Lakes ports between the early 1800s and the 20th century. Archival research indicated that the sanctuary could include another 59 or 60 such shipwrecks (sources provide both figures) that had yet to be discovered. Twenty-one of the known shipwrecks were listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Thanks to the cold, fresh water of Lake Michigan, several of the known shipwrecks were essentially intact and looked much like they did when they sank.
NOAA and the State of Wisconsin jointly manage the sanctuary.
History
Designation
In 2008, the Wisconsin Historical Society published a report titled "Wisconsin's Historic Shipwrecks: An Overview and Analysis of Locations for a State/Federal Partnership with the National Marine Sanctuary Program, 2008." Drawing on this report, the State of Wisconsin on December 2, 2014, submitted a nomination asking NOAA to consider designating the area as a national marine sanctuary. On February 5, 2015, NOAA added the area to its inventory of nominated areas eligible for designation as national marine sanctuaries. On October 7, 2015, NOAA announced its intention to designate the area as a sanctuary, initiating a 90-day public comment period during which NOAA held three public meetings on the designation in November 2015. On January 9, 2017, NOAA published a notice of its intention to designate a area as the Wisconsin-Lake Michigan National Marine Sanctuary, continaing the sites of 37 known historic shipwrecks. An 81-day public comment period and a series of four meetings in the Wisconsin towns of Algoma, Manitowoc, Sheboygan, and Port Washington during the week of March 13, 2017, followed which led NOAA to alter the sanctuary's boundaries, reducing its area to , including 36 known historic shipwrecks, and to change its name to Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast National Marine Sanctuary. NOAA published an environmental impact statement and final management plan in June 2020, designated the area as a sanctuary on June 22, 2021, and published the designation in the Federal Register on June 23, 2021. The designation was to take effect formally in the autumn of 2021 following 45 days of continuous session of the United States Congress after publication of the designation in the Federal Register. After the 45-day review period in Congress and by the Governor of Wisconsin was complete, the designation became effective on August 16, 2021. The designation was finalized and celebrated in ceremony attended by U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin, Governor of Wisconsin Tony Evers, NOAA Administrator Dr. Rick Spinrad, and local officials at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum in Manitowoc on October 9, 2021. The Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast National Marine Sanctuary was the first national marine sanctuary created in the United States since the designation of Mallows Bay, Maryland, as a sanctuary in 2019.