Reef Damage
(December 1,2002)
Timothy Blankenship
Tim,
I appreciate the changes you made regarding the tug/scow operations
with the temporary mooring since we reported the damage to the rare
pillar coral. The purpose of our meeting with you and Weeks on 7/29/02
was to avoid this damage. If you remember, at that time we offered our
help and gave you DGPS location of the reef we believed may be in
danger. We also advised Weeks of how close the temporary mooring was to
the pillar coral.
Today we began to search for environmental impact. We started at
26'15.397N 080'04.275 heading north in 45' of water. We discovered 3
new locations. The first is 520' long. Hard and soft coral and sponges
were there. There was even a 4' foot boulder that was ripped out of the
reef. It looked like someone took a weed wacker to the reef .You can
see this at 26'15.416N & 080'04.331W in 35' of water.The next 2
locations had similar damage.
One is at 26'15.525N & 080'04262N in 43' of water. And the other is
at
26'15.677N 080'04.247W in 46' of water.
The pillar damage begins at 26'15.825N 080'04292W .This area
is
smaller in comparison to the first 3 we discovered today. My guess is
we are looking at 1/4 mile of damage.
We also found one of the 3 areas that Frank spoke of at 26'15.890N
080'04292W in 39' of water.
We placed buoys in the center of the impact areas.
While I was diving, Joe Macino and Scott Craven witnessed the tug pull
the scow from the dredge. They said it had over 300 ' of cable and
stopped for 15 to 30 seconds for no apparent reason.This allowed the
cable to sink straight down along the same line where we had been
finding the damage.The next time they had a much shorter cable and
there was no problem.
Sincerely
Stephen Attis
Vone Research,Inc.