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Mysteries In Lake
Washington Probed

By Jeff Switzer
King County Journal Reporter - WA
10-23-3

There's a mysterious object on the bottom of Lake Washington, as wide as a football field and resting not far north of the State Route 520 floating bridge.
 
It's 200 feet down in cold, dark muck, unseen for generations.
 
Nessie on a vacation? A crashed UFO? A Spanish galleon with enough doubloons aboard to pay for the new bridge?
 
Beginning today, a team of investigators hired by the state will dive to the lake bottom to find out just what it is, and whether the state could or should move it.
 
The mystery object -- as long as 160 feet -- was one of three unexpected silhouettes that turned up on sonar scans in July.
 
Two of the three, the state believes, are sunken barges.
 
Preliminary work on the third was inconclusive, said Julie Meredith, project manager for a new SR 520 bridge.
 
It might be a large boat.
 
``Most of what we could see was an old wooden structure that was deteriorating,'' she said after viewing sonar scans and rough video footage.
 
It's unknown how old the barges or mystery object might be, Meredith said.
 
``If they are of any archeological significance, we'd like to identify that up front,'' she said. ``One person's old deteriorating structure could be very important to someone else.''
 
Consultants Golder and Associates are the international underwater sleuths hired for the task.
 
``We've got archeologists to figure out whether we need to save it or if it's environmentally or historically important,'' said Jamie Holter, state Department of Transportation spokeswoman.
 
All this is necessary because the DOT is worried. A replacement floating bridge -- to be built when the state comes up with $2 billion or more -- will be tied to the lake bottom with long anchor cables, and the mystery object might be in the way during construction.
 
It's lucky that's all the state found in the way. It could have been much worse.
 
Lake Washington has a long history as a burial ground, said Rick Hansen, manager of Puyallup-based Maritime Consultants.
 
``There's railroad cars, timber on the north end of the lake, and some airplanes people pay pretty big money for, but they're Naval aircraft and the Navy doesn't give up rights to those,'' Hansen said.
 
Some planes still sit temptingly on the bottom, perfectly preserved in fresh water.
 
Lake Washington is cold, dark and murky, offering none of the interesting colors or sea life Puget Sound.
 
``It's mostly muck,'' Hansen said. ``You maybe have 2 feet to 8 feet of visibility, which is not very much.''
 
Hansen is also vice-president of both of the world's shipwreck groups, Shiprex International Inc. and PROSEA, Professional Shipwrecks Explorers Association.
 
Could the mystery object be an important key to the lake's past?
 
Hansen's instincts tell him not to get his hopes up. His notes and a phone call gave him less hope.
 
There were shipyards north of Webster's Point near the dive site, and barges and old hulks were regularly stripped and sunk, sometimes even burned, Hansen said.
 
``There would be no ship's bell, and you're not going to read any identifying mark,'' Hansen said. ``The paint's probably gone. It would be just a hulk with whole bunch of mud and muck around it.''
 
Still, there's hope.
 
``If it is an unknown, there's the excitement of creating history or knowledge, and that does pique my curiosity,'' Hansen said.
 
``Wouldn't it be neat if it was something really significant?''
 
Officials will investigate one object each day through Friday and issue a report within a month.
 
Jeff Switzer can be reached at jeff.switzer@kingcountyjournal.com or 425-453- 4234.
 
SECRETS FROM THE DEEP
 
Items discovered in the murky depths of Lake Washington include:
 
* Two World War II Corsair fighter planes (1983, 1984);
 
* 18 wooden coal cars that fell off a barge in 1875;
 
* A 100-pound bomb (1986);
 
* An 11-foot sturgeon weighing as much as 2,000 pounds was found floating in the north end of the lake in 1987;
 
* A late-1940s Republic Seabee (1991);
 
* Two Curtiss SB2C Helldivers and two Grumann F4F Wildcat fighters (1987);
 
* Ancient forests slid into the lake off the southwest shore of Mercer Island about 1,000 years ago in a massive landslide, possibly caused by an earthquake.
 
http://www.kingcountyjournal.com/sited/story/html/146723
 

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