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Reef Damage
(February 2,2003)

    On 02/02/03 Vone Research continued the monitoring of the coral restoration project. First we dove the area where there were over 1650 lb. of dredge teeth scattered over the reefs. There are between 15 and 30 teeth left. We still have not received the map datum information we requested three weeks ago. Therefore, we cannot refer to it by its site #. This area was referred to as site 3 in a previous report by CSI and has never been addressed since. Site 3 is on the second reef. The dredge teeth are on the third reef at N 26.14.930 W O8O03.973. Some still have the orange numbered tags that were placed in them on 12/15/02. The next site we dove at N 26 16.042 W 080 03.791 had a lot of soft corals not yet stabilized. There were too many for us to count. I would like to point out that the new method of stabilizing soft coral with apoxy is working extremely well. I estimate that today alone I saw well over a hundred that have been stabilized. There was only one attachment that failed, it had broken free . I am truly impressed. I regret to report that 75 percent of the stabilized sponges that we saw today have failed. In some of the areas we dove today the sponges were attached to the reef with stainless steel wire which now is cutting right through them. We plan to use stainless steel chicken wire and attach it to the reef in a similar fashion. We have not found anyone using this method. We hope it works. There's still a lot of work to be done . There are several areas that CSI claims it is not responsible for and they're probably right. If we had the the information that we have been requesting, ie. the map datum, we would gladly report our findings and then repair the reef that CSI is not responsible for, before it dies.
 

                                  

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