SRC Project Display

Divers mapping Stanley wreck site, Isle Royale NP, MI

The USS Arizona Memorial, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

The coral reef environment at Biscayne NP, Florida

A green seaturtle off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii

Pohnpei

Now a part of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), Pohnpei or Ponape, as it was known until 1980, is a former trust of the United States. When SRC first conducted dives there in 1981 while transiting to Kosrae, the island was operating as if it was still being administered through the headquarters of the Trust Territories of the Pacific Islands (TTPI) in Saipan. Much of what SRC did in Micronesia after 1981 was geared towards assisting the new island states as part of an agreement they had with the U.S. Government when they separated from but stayed in free association with the United States.

SRC diver inspects a Japanese gunboat at Pohn pei

In 1992, while conducting a submerged cultural resources assessment of the Western and Southern Pacific, a team from the SRC worked more extensively in Pohnpei. The project objectives were to participate in the Historic Preservation Office training course entitled Places of Value in the Midst of Change, teach a specific underwater course to meet the needs of the FSM Historic Preservation Officers, and investigate concerns raised by the Pohnpei State HPO about potential damage to submerged cultural resources from increased visitation and improper anchorage. In addition, the SRC helped island preservation officials develop a submerged cultural resources management plan.

Work in Pohnpei on submerged sites was reported on in internal NPS documents and reports to the Federated States of Micronesia. In addition, information was provided to principal investigators of a joint 2000 University of Hawaii/East Carolina University project to further investigate the whalers in Lott Harbor. That project was funded by a grant from the National Park Service's American Battlefield Protection Program.

1992 - SRC conducted submerged sites work around the prehistoric ceremonial complex of Nan Madol, a WWII wreck near the airstrip, and on submerged whalers in Lott Harbor.
1981 - Reconnaissance dives by Lenihan, Murphy and Carrell on several sites in Pohnpei as they transited to and from Kosrae.

References:

Finney, Suzanne S. and Michael W. Graves, 2002, Site Identification and Documentation of a Civil War Shipwreck Though to be Sunk by the C.S.S. Shenanndoah in April 1865. American Battlefield Protection Program, National Park Service, Washington D.C.
Carrell, Toni L., Editor, 1991, Submerged Cultural Resources Assessment of Micronesia. Submerged Resources Center Professional Report No. 10. National Park Service, Santa Fe, NM.
Lenihan, Daniel J., 2002, Chapter 19 in Submerged: Adventures of Americas Most Elite Underwater Archeology Team. Newmarket Press, NY.