Abandoned Shipwrecks Act particular case of the salvage of the "Nuestra Señora de Atocha", an historic and culturally significant wreck off the coast of Florida, in which the State of Florida was unable to prevent illegal salvage operations due to a lack of a suitable law that would disallow it, spurred action at the federal level to address the situation. On April 29, 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the bill (Abandoned Shipwrecks Act of 1987, Pub. L. 100-298, 102 Stat. 432) into law. The law provides that any wreck that lies embedded in a state's submerged lands is property of that state and
Abandoned Shipwrecks Act any parts, sediment, artifacts, etc., of the wreck. Abandoned Shipwrecks Act The Abandoned Shipwrecks Act is a piece of United States legislation passed into law in 1988 meant to protect historic shipwrecks from treasure hunters and salvagers by transferring the title to the wreck to the state whose waters it lies in. The Abandoned Shipwrecks Act (Pub. L. 100-298; ), also known as the Abandoned Shipwrecks Act of 1987, was passed into law due to severe damage to some 3,000 historic wrecks on the Great Lakes and other areas of the coast that had been salvaged, and in some cases