ABSTRACT
A Abandoned Shipwreck Act CASAl The national law establishing how historic shipwrecks are to be managed by federal and state agencies. This statute (43 U.S. Code 2101-2106; Public Law 100-298) was enacted to provide a consistent national approach for the management of historic shipwrecks in the United States. The statute reflects a compromise worked out over nearly a decade between archaeologists and historic preservationists and those who want to exploit shipwrecks for commercial gain. The need for a national law became apparent to archaeologists and historic preservationists concerned about the protection of historic shipwrecks when several legal decisions nullified the rights of state governments that had enacted state laws protecting historic shipwrecks to control access to, and use of, these resources. The basis of these federal-court decisions was that federal admiralty law held supremacy over state laws. These decisions raised severe problems for those who wanted to protect and preserve historic shipwrecks. Admiralty law provided for means of establishing the rights of individuals to salvage shipwrecks and had been used for many years by salvors to protect their claims to specific shipwrecks. Without any federal law addressing the preservation or management of historic shipwrecks directly, treatment of shipwrecks as salvageable resources under admiralty law was the only alternative (National Trust for Historic Preservation 1988).
