(1) A person may recover abandoned property outside a Great Lakes bottomlands preserve without a permit if the abandoned property is not attached to, nor located on, in, or located in the immediate vicinity of and associated with a sunken aircraft or watercraft and if the abandoned property is recoverable by hand without mechanical or other assistance.
  (2) A person who recovers abandoned property valued at more than $10.00 without a permit pursuant to subsection (1) shall file a written report within 30 days after removal of the property with the department or the department of history, arts, and libraries if the property has been abandoned for more than 30 years. The written report shall list all recovered property that has been abandoned for more than 30 years and the location of the property at the time of recovery. For a period of 90 days after the report is filed, the person shall make the recovered property available to the department and the department of history, arts, and libraries for inspection at a location in this state. If the department of history, arts, and libraries determines that the recovered property does not have historical value, the department of history, arts, and libraries shall release the property to the person by means of a written instrument.

Terms Used In Michigan Laws 324.76108

  • Abandoned property: means an aircraft; a watercraft, including a ship, boat, canoe, skiff, raft, or barge; the rigging, gear, fittings, trappings, and equipment of an aircraft or watercraft; the personal property of the officers, crew, and passengers of an aircraft or watercraft; and the cargo of an aircraft or watercraft, which have been deserted, relinquished, cast away, or left behind and for which attempts at reclamation have been abandoned by owners and insurers. See Michigan Laws 324.76101
  • Bottomlands: means the unpatented lake bottomlands of the Great Lakes. See Michigan Laws 324.76101
  • Department: means the director of the department of natural resources or his or her designee to whom the director delegates a power or duty by written instrument. See Michigan Laws 324.301
  • Great Lakes: means lakes Erie, Huron, Michigan, St. See Michigan Laws 324.76101
  • Historical value: means value relating to, or illustrative of, Michigan history, including the statehood, territorial, colonial, and historic, and prehistoric native American periods. See Michigan Laws 324.76101
  • Mechanical or other assistance: means all humanmade devices, including pry bars, wrenches and other hand or power tools, cutting torches, explosives, winches, flotation bags, lines to surface, extra divers buoyancy devices, and other buoyance devices, used to raise or remove artifacts. See Michigan Laws 324.76101
  • Person: means an individual, partnership, corporation, association, governmental entity, or other legal entity. See Michigan Laws 324.301
  • state: when applied to the different parts of the United States, shall be construed to extend to and include the District of Columbia and the several territories belonging to the United States; and the words "United States" shall be construed to include the district and territories. See Michigan Laws 8.3o
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