February 20, 2005
Treasure in Alabama Waters
Over my last 32 years of relic hunting and 41 years of scuba diving I have been asked hundreds of times about the lost Confederate gold and cannon barrels laying on the bottom of rivers and creeks. To these people I must say it is time for you to get real. You are reading too much fiction and should start reading history. The Confederates had cotton not gold. Confederate money was paper and practically worthless. To put it in terms I understand, they were dirt poor. If there ever was any Confederate gold that was buried don't you think the buriers would have gone back and dug it up to keep their families from starving? They would not have advertised the fact that they had dug it up. As for as cannon barrels go, I hope to find one someday. My 5000 plus dives so far have produced none except for tourist type dives in the Caribbean. If I am ever able to find a cannon barrel I will spend the many thousands of dollars that it will cost to raise the barrel and then I will put it on display at a deserving museum or city. I won't give it to them because of the high risk of them either selling or neglecting the relic. The first and most important thing to do is find something that is lost. This past week in Montgomery I heard the great Senator Jack Biddle make one of the most accurate statements I have ever heard. He said that "An artifact ain't nothing till somebody pulls it out of the mud." This is what we learn from.
The Professional Archaeologists and government staffers can write all the plans, grants, contracts and schemes that they charge us millions of dollars to write, but nothing really happens until some amateur gets his hands dirty, spends his own money and really finds something. The Professional Archaeologists who collaborate with the Alabama Historical Commission love to call us looters and plunderers. What we really are is the public. We are the people. We also are the people who have found almost all of the artifacts that are on display in all of the museums, libraries, public buildings and public displays throughout the world and we write the books that people read. I for one am tired of these greedy, self-serving, arrogant parasites on our government. They call us names so I call them names. They refer to themselves as academic, scientific trained colleagues. When in reality they are conspirators against the public. They write pamphlets at great government expense to share with their fellow collaborators. They get little or no results and they do not serve the public. You may notice that I use the word public alot. I do this because so many people now don't understand what public is. I talked to a legislator in Montgomery who told me that the public and state are the same thing. That is wrong. The state and government was created by the public. The government exists to serve and at the will of the public.
My words today are plain and blunt as I write to you. When I am in Montgomery I am much more proper and I freely admit to being cowed down by our legislators. I am very respectful of the men and women and I like almost all of them. I should and do respect these people because they were elected by and represent the public. They work for and serve the public. The staff of the AHC seems to believe that they are independent of any supervision. For many years now they have run rough shod over the public. Now they are being brought down. In the past 2 years we have fired their leader and we cut their annual budget from 12 million to 7 million dollars. This is a good start
Alabama's State Archaeologist in the meeting Wednesday afternoon with the State Representatives said he would do whatever they wanted. Several times he looked at the Representatives and assured them that he would do whatever they wanted. Never once did he look across the room at the public and tell us that he would do what we want. He was instructed to work with me and Bob Cox from Gulf Coast Divers in Mobile to work on HB125. After the meeting I told the State Archaeologist that we want to get together ASAP and see if he has any suggestions to improve the proposed law. I have not heard from the AHC since and I will be surprised if I do. What our proposed law will do is set up a 15 member oversight committee to control salvage of shipwrecks. The members will be elected legislators or their appointees, there will be dive school, historians, collectors and archaeologists on the oversight committee. Under the current law the AHC has no oversight committee and all diving on and salvage of shipwrecks is controlled by Professional Archaeologists who are paid by anyone trying to get a permit to dive. Under current law we are prohibited from finding isolated finds. The new law will permit isolated finds. The new law also reads that all Indian mounds are off limits to diving. This is good and we can try to stop the Professional Archaeologists from robbing these graves. I started this letter talking about treasure in Alabama waters so lets get back to it.
Treasure for a scuba business is training new divers and selling them equipment so they can explore the majority of our planet. We train and open the door to the underwater world. The current Alabama law closes that door and prevents our citizens from using our public lands and waters.
Treasure for the state of Alabama and its businesses is the potential tourism and other revenue generated by encouraging people to use and visit our waters. This is big dollars for our state businesses and could help some of our cities to be more like Charleston or Savannah. Treasure for historians and collectors is the wealth of knowledge that we divers can provide to the world. Alabama has 77,000 miles of waterways. We have 7 times more than Florida. Florida has a great diving industry and Alabama wastes our great underwater potential.
Treasure for a Civil War relic hunter like myself is to be able to track iron ore from the Jefferson County area in the form of pig iron ingots to Selma. Where they were changed to tools of war, and track these items on to cities and battles. This is how historians learn more. It will take thousands of divers who are amateur archaeologists, historians and artifact hunters to even start to explore the muddy bottoms of our blackwater rivers. There is no visibility in most of our rivers so the only way people can see anything is for a diver to use metal detectors and grope through the logs and mud and recover items that have been thrown away in our rivers and streams. We should appreciate and encourage these adventurers. The state of Alabama could never afford the tremendous expense of even searching 1/10 of 1% of our vast waterways. We must use the wealth of our individual citizen divers to explore. They have the money to spend and are willing to pursue their hobbies if allowed access to the public waters. Fishermen are allowed to fish, hunters are allowed to hunt, boaters go boating so why can't divers explore? Our young people especially need this door opened.
Under the current law its illegal for a person to walk along a creek or river and pick up a bottle over 50 years old or an arrowhead. Our law will allow these people to find isolated items without being arrested. Divers are not the only people affected by the current law. At 8:00 AM last Wednesday morning about 100 people were at a hearing for SB128 in Montgomery. Four people were allowed to speak for the bill and three against it. Archie Phillips, Charles Harris, Bob Cox and myself spoke for the bill and the public. I think you were well represented. About half the people in the room were for SB128 and half were opposed. The difference is that the supporters are individual citizens and were taking a day off of work and coming at their own expense. As far as I can tell by researching the opponent names, almost all of them either work for or have strong ties to the AHC or they are Professional Archaeologists with a vested interest in continuing to be the only people who can get a permit to find anything underwater in Alabama. Most if not all of these people who oppose SB128 are not divers and will never look for or find anything. They will sell their signature on a permit for a diver to explore.
Archie Phillips has been a diver longer than I have and he is extremely well known for his Taxidermy business and his TV show. We are not related. He is also an amateur archaeologist and relic hunter. He spoke well for us and he asked the Professional Archaeologists if they think they have a monopoly on brains. The Senators passed our bill out of committee but we need to keep writing, calling and emailing our legislators now more than ever to keep our bills moving. Our opponents are not letting up in their efforts to keep the public out of public waters.
I want to thank all of the people who have contacted the legislators in support of SB128 and HB125. Please keep it up and contact all Senators and Representatives. You do make a difference. I also want to thank the wonderful people who took off work and came to Montgomery to support. You are priceless.
Sincerely,
Steve Phillips
Save Our Lost History
4515 5th Avenue South
Birmingham, AL. 35222
205-595-3052
http://www.ssdsupply.com/
Treasure in Alabama Waters
Over my last 32 years of relic hunting and 41 years of scuba diving I have been asked hundreds of times about the lost Confederate gold and cannon barrels laying on the bottom of rivers and creeks. To these people I must say it is time for you to get real. You are reading too much fiction and should start reading history. The Confederates had cotton not gold. Confederate money was paper and practically worthless. To put it in terms I understand, they were dirt poor. If there ever was any Confederate gold that was buried don't you think the buriers would have gone back and dug it up to keep their families from starving? They would not have advertised the fact that they had dug it up. As for as cannon barrels go, I hope to find one someday. My 5000 plus dives so far have produced none except for tourist type dives in the Caribbean. If I am ever able to find a cannon barrel I will spend the many thousands of dollars that it will cost to raise the barrel and then I will put it on display at a deserving museum or city. I won't give it to them because of the high risk of them either selling or neglecting the relic. The first and most important thing to do is find something that is lost. This past week in Montgomery I heard the great Senator Jack Biddle make one of the most accurate statements I have ever heard. He said that "An artifact ain't nothing till somebody pulls it out of the mud." This is what we learn from.
The Professional Archaeologists and government staffers can write all the plans, grants, contracts and schemes that they charge us millions of dollars to write, but nothing really happens until some amateur gets his hands dirty, spends his own money and really finds something. The Professional Archaeologists who collaborate with the Alabama Historical Commission love to call us looters and plunderers. What we really are is the public. We are the people. We also are the people who have found almost all of the artifacts that are on display in all of the museums, libraries, public buildings and public displays throughout the world and we write the books that people read. I for one am tired of these greedy, self-serving, arrogant parasites on our government. They call us names so I call them names. They refer to themselves as academic, scientific trained colleagues. When in reality they are conspirators against the public. They write pamphlets at great government expense to share with their fellow collaborators. They get little or no results and they do not serve the public. You may notice that I use the word public alot. I do this because so many people now don't understand what public is. I talked to a legislator in Montgomery who told me that the public and state are the same thing. That is wrong. The state and government was created by the public. The government exists to serve and at the will of the public.
My words today are plain and blunt as I write to you. When I am in Montgomery I am much more proper and I freely admit to being cowed down by our legislators. I am very respectful of the men and women and I like almost all of them. I should and do respect these people because they were elected by and represent the public. They work for and serve the public. The staff of the AHC seems to believe that they are independent of any supervision. For many years now they have run rough shod over the public. Now they are being brought down. In the past 2 years we have fired their leader and we cut their annual budget from 12 million to 7 million dollars. This is a good start
Alabama's State Archaeologist in the meeting Wednesday afternoon with the State Representatives said he would do whatever they wanted. Several times he looked at the Representatives and assured them that he would do whatever they wanted. Never once did he look across the room at the public and tell us that he would do what we want. He was instructed to work with me and Bob Cox from Gulf Coast Divers in Mobile to work on HB125. After the meeting I told the State Archaeologist that we want to get together ASAP and see if he has any suggestions to improve the proposed law. I have not heard from the AHC since and I will be surprised if I do. What our proposed law will do is set up a 15 member oversight committee to control salvage of shipwrecks. The members will be elected legislators or their appointees, there will be dive school, historians, collectors and archaeologists on the oversight committee. Under the current law the AHC has no oversight committee and all diving on and salvage of shipwrecks is controlled by Professional Archaeologists who are paid by anyone trying to get a permit to dive. Under current law we are prohibited from finding isolated finds. The new law will permit isolated finds. The new law also reads that all Indian mounds are off limits to diving. This is good and we can try to stop the Professional Archaeologists from robbing these graves. I started this letter talking about treasure in Alabama waters so lets get back to it.
Treasure for a scuba business is training new divers and selling them equipment so they can explore the majority of our planet. We train and open the door to the underwater world. The current Alabama law closes that door and prevents our citizens from using our public lands and waters.
Treasure for the state of Alabama and its businesses is the potential tourism and other revenue generated by encouraging people to use and visit our waters. This is big dollars for our state businesses and could help some of our cities to be more like Charleston or Savannah. Treasure for historians and collectors is the wealth of knowledge that we divers can provide to the world. Alabama has 77,000 miles of waterways. We have 7 times more than Florida. Florida has a great diving industry and Alabama wastes our great underwater potential.
Treasure for a Civil War relic hunter like myself is to be able to track iron ore from the Jefferson County area in the form of pig iron ingots to Selma. Where they were changed to tools of war, and track these items on to cities and battles. This is how historians learn more. It will take thousands of divers who are amateur archaeologists, historians and artifact hunters to even start to explore the muddy bottoms of our blackwater rivers. There is no visibility in most of our rivers so the only way people can see anything is for a diver to use metal detectors and grope through the logs and mud and recover items that have been thrown away in our rivers and streams. We should appreciate and encourage these adventurers. The state of Alabama could never afford the tremendous expense of even searching 1/10 of 1% of our vast waterways. We must use the wealth of our individual citizen divers to explore. They have the money to spend and are willing to pursue their hobbies if allowed access to the public waters. Fishermen are allowed to fish, hunters are allowed to hunt, boaters go boating so why can't divers explore? Our young people especially need this door opened.
Under the current law its illegal for a person to walk along a creek or river and pick up a bottle over 50 years old or an arrowhead. Our law will allow these people to find isolated items without being arrested. Divers are not the only people affected by the current law. At 8:00 AM last Wednesday morning about 100 people were at a hearing for SB128 in Montgomery. Four people were allowed to speak for the bill and three against it. Archie Phillips, Charles Harris, Bob Cox and myself spoke for the bill and the public. I think you were well represented. About half the people in the room were for SB128 and half were opposed. The difference is that the supporters are individual citizens and were taking a day off of work and coming at their own expense. As far as I can tell by researching the opponent names, almost all of them either work for or have strong ties to the AHC or they are Professional Archaeologists with a vested interest in continuing to be the only people who can get a permit to find anything underwater in Alabama. Most if not all of these people who oppose SB128 are not divers and will never look for or find anything. They will sell their signature on a permit for a diver to explore.
Archie Phillips has been a diver longer than I have and he is extremely well known for his Taxidermy business and his TV show. We are not related. He is also an amateur archaeologist and relic hunter. He spoke well for us and he asked the Professional Archaeologists if they think they have a monopoly on brains. The Senators passed our bill out of committee but we need to keep writing, calling and emailing our legislators now more than ever to keep our bills moving. Our opponents are not letting up in their efforts to keep the public out of public waters.
I want to thank all of the people who have contacted the legislators in support of SB128 and HB125. Please keep it up and contact all Senators and Representatives. You do make a difference. I also want to thank the wonderful people who took off work and came to Montgomery to support. You are priceless.
Sincerely,
Steve Phillips
Save Our Lost History
4515 5th Avenue South
Birmingham, AL. 35222
205-595-3052
http://www.ssdsupply.com/
