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The race to find shipwrecks before quagga mussels destroy them
The mussels have carpeted thousands of shipwrecks, layering themselves so thickly their weight could topple bulkheads and decks on wooden vessels.
MADISON, Wis. — The Great Lakes’ frigid fresh water used to keep shipwrecks so well preserved that divers could see dishes in the cupboards. Downed planes that spent decades underwater were left so pristine they could practically fly again when archaeologists finally discovered them.
Now, an invasive mussel is destroying shipwrecks deep in the depths of the lakes, forcing archeologists and amateur historians into a race against time to find as many sites as they can before the region touching eight U.S. states and the Canadian province of Ontario loses any physical trace of its centuries-long maritime history.
“What you need to understand is every shipwreck is covered with quagga mussels in the lower Great Lakes,” Wisconsin state maritime archaeologist Tamara Thomsen said. “Everything. If you drain the lakes, you’ll get a bowl of quagga mussels.”
Quagga mussels, finger-sized mollusks with voracious appetites, have become the dominant invasive species in the lower Great Lakes over the past 30 years, according to biologists.
The creatures have covered virtually every shipwreck and downed plane in all of the lakes except Lake Superior, archaeologists say. The mussels burrow into wooden vessels, building upon themselves in layers so thick they will eventually crush walls and decks. They also produce acid that can corrode steel and iron ships. No one has found a viable way to stop them.
Wayne Lusardi, Michigan’s state maritime archaeologist, is pushing to raise more pieces of a World War II plane flown by a Tuskegee airman that crashed in Lake Huron in 1944.
“Divers started discovering (planes) in the 1960s and 1970s,” he said. “Some were so preserved they could fly again. (Now) when they’re removed the planes look like Swiss cheese. (Quaggas are) literally burning holes in them.”
Quagga mussels, native to Russia and Ukraine, were discovered in the Great Lakes in 1989, around the same time as their infamous cousin species, zebra mussels. Scientists believe the creatures arrived via ballast dumps from transoceanic freighters making their way to Great Lakes ports.
Unlike zebra mussels, quaggas are hungrier, hardier and more tolerant of colder temperatures. They devour plankton and other suspended nutrients, eliminating the base level of food chains. They consume so many nutrients at such high rates they can render portions of the murky Great Lakes as clear as tropical seas. And while zebra mussels prefer hard surfaces, quaggas can attach to soft surfaces at greater depths, enabling them to colonize even the lakes’ sandy bottoms.
After 30 years of colonization, quaggas have displaced zebra mussels as the dominant mussel in the Great Lakes. Zebras made up more than 98% of mussels in Lake Michigan in 2000, according to the University of California, Riverside’s Center for Invasive Species Research. Five years later, quaggas represented 97.7%.
For wooden and metal ships, the quaggas’ success has translated into overwhelming destruction.
The mussels can burrow into sunken wooden ships, stacking upon themselves until details such as name plates and carvings are completely obscured. Divers who try to brush them off inevitably peel away some wood. Quaggas also can create clouds of carbon dioxide, as well as feces that corrode iron and steel, accelerating metal shipwrecks’ decay.
Quaggas have yet to establish a foothold in Lake Superior. Biologists believe the water there contains less calcium, which quaggas need to make their shells, said Dr. Harvey Bootsma, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s School of Freshwater Sciences.
That means the remains of the Edmund Fitzgerald, a freighter that went down in that lake during a storm in 1975 and was immortalized in the Gordon Lightfoot song, “The Ballad of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” are safe, at least for now.
Lusardi, Michigan’s state maritime archaeologist, ticked off a long list of shipwreck sites in the lower Great Lakes consumed by quaggas.
His list included the Daniel J. Morrel, a freighter that sank during a storm on Lake Huron in 1966, killing all but one of the 29 crew members, and the Cedarville, a freighter that sank in the Straits of Mackinac in 1965, killing eight crew members. He also listed the Carl D. Bradley, another freighter that went down during a storm in northern Lake Michigan in 1958, killing 33 sailors.
The plane Lusardi is trying to recover is a Bell P-39 that went down in Lake Huron during a training exercise in 1944, killing Frank H. Moody, a Tuskegee airman. The Tuskegee Airmen were a group of Black military pilots who received training at Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama during World War II.
Brendon Baillod, a Great Lakes historian based in Madison, has spent the last five years searching for the Trinidad, a grain schooner that went down in Lake Michigan in 1881. He and fellow historian Bob Jaeck finally found the wreck in July off Algoma, Wisconsin.
The first photos of the site, taken by a robot vehicle, showed the ship was in unusually good shape, with intact rigging and dishes still in cabins. But the site was “fully carpeted” with quagga mussels, Baillod said.
“It has been completely colonized,” he said. “Twenty years ago, even 15 years ago, that site would have been clean. Now you can’t even recognize the bell. You can’t see the nameboard. If you brush those mussels off, it tears the wood off with it.”
Quagga management options could include treating them with toxic chemicals; covering them with tarps that restrict water flow and starve them of oxygen and food; introducing predator species; or suffocating them by adding carbon dioxide to the water.
So far nothing looks promising on a large scale, UW-Milwaukee’s Bootsma said.
“The only way they will disappear from a lake as large as Lake Michigan is through some disease or possibly an introduced predator,” he said.
That leaves archaeologists and historians like Baillod scrambling to locate as many wrecks as possible to map and document before they disintegrate under the quaggas’ assaults.
At stake are the physical remnants of a maritime industry that helped settle the Great Lakes region and establish port cities such as Milwaukee, Detroit, Chicago and Toledo, Ohio.
“When we lose those tangible, preserved time capsules of our history, we lose our tangible connection to the past,” Baillod said. “Once they’re gone, it’s all just a memory. It’s all just stuff in books.”
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Bernadette Anderson helped raise many notable artists in the basement of her northside home.
MINNEAPOLIS — Live music rightfully set the tone as the community met Friday afternoon at a north Minneapolis intersection.
On that street, there is a home with history.
The Mother of Minneapolis Sound lived there, at 1244 Russell Ave N, and to this day that honorary title still belongs to the late Bernadette Anderson.
That’s because, in addition to raising her own six kids, she helped raise one of the world’s greatest musicians, Prince Rogers Nelson.
Prince practiced and produced beats in her basement. So did her son, Andre Cymone, who performed with the Minneapolis JAM Band at Friday’s block party. So did many more notable northside artists such as Morris Day, Jellybean Johnson, Alexander O’Neal, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis.
At the block party, Mayor Jacob Frey proclaimed Sept. 13 as Bernadette Anderson Day.
“Well deserved,” Frey said. “Long overdue. A special person that lives on.”
Anderson’s family, including her great-grandchildren, witnessed the street when their historic home became Bernadette Anderson Way. The new street sign was covered for most of the event but was unveiled after the heartfelt speeches and lively performances. Nearly everyone had their phones out to live stream or record.
The new Bernadette Anderson Way stretches one block, from 12th Ave N to Plymouth Ave N, on what was previously the 1200 block of Russell Ave N.
But her reach extends even further.
“I bet you’re probably wondering why is the fire chief up here,” Chief Bryan Tyner said in his time on stage. “I was one of those kids that was raised or partially raised by Ms. Bernadette, by Ms. Sylvia and the Anderson family.”
Sylvia Amos is Anderson’s daughter.
For more than two decades, Anderson worked at the Ruth Hawkins YWCA, where she developed programming meant to empower children. She later worked at Minneapolis Urban League’s Street Academy, where she coordinated the lunch program and served as a mentor. She was a civil rights activist with a love for all children – and tough love when needed.
“She took care of all of us,” said Minnesota Senate President Bobby Joe Champion (59, DFL). “She was our community mother. There’s nothing you could do and get away with it if Bernadette was around.”
“There was a “hey” that she could say that would stop traffic, freeze people,” said Makeda Zulu, who emceed the event alongside Chaise Dennis, Anderson’s great-grandson.
On Aug. 3, 2023, a portion of Highway 5 in Chanhassen was renamed to Prince Rogers Nelson Memorial Highway.
VA health services for female veterans will go under one roof with a separate entrance.
MINNEAPOLIS — Lawmakers, veterans, and healthcare providers donned hardhats and planted shiny shovels into a mound of dirt at the VA Medical Center Friday to mark a new era of enhanced healthcare options for women veterans.
The occasion was a groundbreaking ceremony for the new Minneapolis VA’s women’s clinic, which is set to open in 2026.
“We understand the needs of female veterans are diverse, and we are prepared to meet those needs with tailored healthcare plan and wholistic support systems,” Dr. Alisa Duran, the women’s health director at the Minneapolis VA, told the crowd that gathered at the construction site.
“We want our female veterans to know they are not alone,” she said. “They are part of a network that values and supports them. We will offer programs that encourage camaraderie and mutual support, recognizing the strength that comes from shared experiences and collective resilience.”
The Minneapolis VA opened a breast cancer clinic in 1985, and established the Women Veterans Comprehensive Health Center in 1993, according to Dr. Duran. But this clinic will consolidate all the women’s healthcare services into one location with its own entrance.
“I think it’s great! I’m actually a patient of the women’s clinic,” Alex Fleming, a US Air Force veteran who works with veterans in Ramsey County, told KARE.
She said having a separate entrance and parking area is significant.
“It will be nice to have our own entrance because there are so many females that have suffered trauma, who won’t feel comfortable walking into the main VA hospital around a crowd of people, or even men in general,” Fleming said. “This will be a nice way for them to feel more safe and secure.”
US Army veteran Kristy Janigo, who works with veterans in Hennepin County, said the VA is recognizing that the armed forces have become increasingly diverse in recent decades.
“It was a very emotional day. I’m not gonna lie, there might have been something in my eye a little bit earlier,” Janigo told KARE. “But it does feel very validating to see women veterans recognized in their own right here, alongside their male counterparts who have been serving for years.”
Pat Kelly, the US Navy veteran who heads the Minneapolis VA Medical Center, cited a Pew Research study showing 17% of all veterans are female now, compared to just 4% in 1975. He said of the 105,000 veterans who received care in the Minneapolis VA system last year, 9,000 were women.
“We have been planning this building so long and many of our women veteran advocates didn’t really believe we were going to do this, so we thought we better break ground and let them see we’re going to do this, in fact!” Kelly told the crowd.
“We hope this very visible sign of supporting women veterans will inspire even more veterans to seek care through the VA,” Kelly said.
Kelly noted that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services gave the Minneapolis VA five stars out of five. The VA Medical Center was one of only nine hospitals in Minnesota to get a five-star rating from CMS.
That quality rating is one of the reasons Janet Lorenzo, a US Navy veteran who works with veterans through the American Legion state organization, recommends the VA to her fellow female vets.
“I will tell them if you want quality care, come here. If you want to see your sisters in arms, come here. If you want to see the organizations growing to support woman veterans, come here. If you want to be an advocate for women veterans, come here!”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar recalled the days when her office took calls from women who were encountering delays getting services.
“Women veterans are the fastest growing group of veterans across the United States, and for years, I think back, over a decade ago, they would tell me they’d go to a clinic whether they need a Pap smear, a mammogram, it was a huge problem,” Klobuchar remarked. “There wasn’t a waiting line when they signed up to serve, and there shouldn’t be a waiting line when they need health care in the United States of America.”
She noted that both of Minnesota’s US senators are women. And US Rep. Betty McCollum of Saint Paul, is the highest-ranking Democrat on Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, which comes in handy for getting new facilities and initiatives funded.
Rep. McCollum, in her address at the ceremony, noted that recognition of the role of women in the nation’s defense often comes very late. She gave the example of the Hello Girls, who operated phones near the front lines in 1917 during World War I. They weren’t recognized as veterans until 1977.
“Our military is nearly, as of today, 20% women and increasing,” McCollum told the audience. “There are nearly 400,000 women serving, between active duty, the Reserves and the National Guard.”
By the time the clinic opens in 2026, it will be named after a woman veteran. The VA is asking for suggestions. You may click on this link to help name the VA women’s clinic.
“I love that you are engaging the community in choosing a woman veteran to name this clinic after,” Sen. Smith told the crowd. “This is going to be an important way to help people understand the remarkable contribution of women veterans, even as we demonstrate our respect for you with this building and what will happen inside of it.”
The nomination period runs through October. A selection committee will narrow the list down to a group of finalists, with the final decision being made by VA Secretary Denis McDonough.
The winner will be someone who has a connection to the Minneapolis VA Medical Center or Community Based Outpatient Clinics. Her name will be revealed at the ribbon cutting ceremony in 2026.
At least seven customers paid thousands of dollars to a local painter and were left with unfinished work.
PLYMOUTH, Minn. — When a KARE 11 story aired featuring seven customers left with unfinished cabinet and kitchen painting jobs after hiring Patrick LeCorre of Edina and paying him thousands of dollars, Ada Berg from Plymouth was paying attention with a sense of hopelessness.
“Total hopelessness. I had spoken to an attorney and was basically told that money was gone and to take it as a lesson learned,” she said.
Berg said her family was in the same boat as the other customers featured in the report. They hired LeCorre and paid him half up front.
“He had about three total days in our house. In those three days, he taped up for two days. And on the third and final day he added a ladder and fan to the room and took our cabinet doors,” Berg said.
Then, Berg said her home sat like that for well over a month.
“My husband and I were frantically messaging the painter and asking for at least a part of our money back so that we could hopefully get something in return,” she said.
Also watching the news report was Mike Kelly, the owner of “That 1 Painter,” a new Twin Cities painting franchise.
“We’re really working on becoming a part of the community and representing contractors in a positive light. Contractors don’t always have that impression,” said regional director Olivia Snyder.
That 1 Painter offered to step in and finish the Berg family’s kitchen.
“We did it pro bono for them. So we didn’t charge anything we just came in and did it out of the kindness of our heart to really show there are good painters out there who really do quality work and are responsible,” Snyder said.
And Ada isn’t the only former customer of LeCorre’s receiving this treatment.
“That story found its way into the Gathering of Minnesota Painters, about 400 Minnesota contractors who share some deep core values,” said Nick Slavik, a New Prague-based painter who serves the south and southwest Twin Cites metro.
Slavik said when the painters in his group saw what LeCorre’s customers were going through, painters across the state wanted to step in and help.
Slavik is helping out another family that hired LeCorre. It is the side of contracting he wishes more people could see.
“If we do this over and over and over again, maybe we can dispel the stigma of the trades,” Slavik said.
Now that she has seen it, Berg feels grateful.
“It really just restored my faith in people, honestly,” she said.
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