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Reef Damage
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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