Protest NOAA's bid to expand Marine Sanctuary at mid-Atlantic wrecks

[njdiver1]

As a tax paying citizens, I urge you to protest NOAA's gross mismanagement overseeing the U.S.S. Monitor Sanctuary. The site was dramatically damaged by NOAA's neglect while allowing the wreck to remain in situ, and further by their abhorrently wasteful pet excavations, where tax payers financed multi-million dollar projects that could have been financed privately with less destruction.

NOAA has unreasonably restricted public access to the site to control and prevent damage to the historic site. In fact, the evidence of the deterioration of the wreck was predicted and proven during the first photographic expedition by privately funded members of Gary Gentile's Photographic Project in July of 1990. The final decimation inflicted by NOAA's misguided leadership was the death blow to the site where tax payers financed the unwarranted removal of the foundational turret structure. The wreck immediately collapsed after the gutting and today is no longer a worthy photographic site. What once was an attractive dive site for future photographic and historical research divers has been ripped to shreds by a power hungry controlling few of NOAA's unrestricted pontificating minority. NOAA's failure to manage has wasted obscene amounts of unneccessary tax moneys with no warranted benefit.

If we don't complain to our representatives, seven years to get a permit will be the norm... to dive any wrecks. There should be unrestricted access to all these sites and NO PERMITS. NOAA is not saving anything except their jobs... They are gaining public sanction to destroy and regulate more wrecks like the Monitor.

Write your representatives and tell them how NOAA is wasting excessive tax dollars and destroying the economy of fisheries, boating, marine industry and diving industry.

Note: This will include the New Jersey coastline with no limit on the expansion area.

I strongly urge you to sign the petition against NOAA's proposal for it's Expansion Action Plan and gross waste of tax payers money.


https://www.change.org/petitions/noaa-and-the-us-senate-stop-the-abuse-of-noaa-and-the-monitor-national-marine-sanctuary-mnms?utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=share_petition &utm_term=share_button_modal


Good Wreck Diving!
Atlantic Diver

[AfterDark]

Done!

[wrybosome]

Not trying to start an argument, and I'll have a look at the petition, but I just wanted to point out that the new draft management stuff put out by NOAA only refers to the outer banks, and says they would like to run it under a set of rules similar to Thunder Bay NMS rather than the ridiculous rule set that governs the Monitor wreck. From their draft guideline:

The Monitor National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Council therefore recommends
that the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries evaluate and assess an expansion
of the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary or the designation of an entirely new
National Marine Sanctuary to protect, manage and interpret additional shipwrecks
and other potential maritime heritage resources that exist in the adjacent waters of
North Carolina in an area known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic.
Such an evaluation should be accomplished in a way that assures continued public
access and takes into consideration the potential effects of an expanded area on all users
including divers, fisherman (charter, recreational, and commercial), boaters, and the
local communities near the sanctuary. If an expansion is pursued, it should be based
on the management model adopted by the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary
in terms of open access for all and focus on the maritime heritage resources within any
proposed sanctuary boundary. The advisory council strongly encourages the Sanctuary
Program to work with all stakeholders as they evaluate this proposal.

Don't mistake me, I'm not supporting NOAA's position or endorsing the idea that this is inside the scope of what their authority should be. I just wanted to put out what my reading turned up.

Also I'm curious what divers who use Thunder Bay think of NOAA and the NMS program.

[Jared0425]

Most of us divers in Michigan are very skeptical of NOAA. The expansion is 10 fold and I guarantee that they will limit access to certain sites at their own choosing, Ex: Frank Goodyear, RG Coburn, and the H.P. Bridge. In the great lakes, we have to battle years in court and spend untold amounts of money to fight the state over ownership of wrecks (which they mostly don't own), but yet when the Feds want in they get them without so much as a wimper from the state. NOAA has set up these meetings so that no negative feedback is recorded or mentioned, and has intentially lied about how much territory the sanctuary has covered. They are finding ways around legislation to pass this expansion for the sole reason of control. They are angry because us who spend time, money, and frustration in finding these wrecks and not giving them numbers and information about the wrecks. What makes them even more angry is that us who find them in part CONTROL them. All Thunder Bay has done is bring in unwanted government interference and tourist dollars.
Jared

[wrybosome]

OK, under the heading of potentially useful information...these are the legislative subcommittees NOAA considers critical according to their office of legislative outreach. I've included the chair and ranking member for each subcommittee since writing these people is potentially more effective than writing your own congresscritter who will just follow the lead of legislators actually interested in the issues. I don't know which subcommittee members are most closely tied to the NMS program, but will try to find out.

House Side

Apprpriations committee, subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and related agendas
Chair Frank Wolf
Ranking member Chaka Fattah

Sci and Tech committee, Energy and Environment subcommittee
Chair Andy Harris
Ranking member Brad Miller

House resources committee, Fisheries, oceans, and wildlife subcommittee
Chair John Fleming
Ranking member Gregorio Sablan


Senate side

Commerce committee, subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere
Chair Mark Begich
Ranking member Olympia Snowe

Senate Apprpriations committee, subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, related agendas
Chair: Barbara Mikulski
Ranking member Key Bailey Hutchison

[Jared0425]

Carl Levin of Michigan has introduced the bills also.

[Bdsora]

The ocean is dangerous enough for divers with out letting the beauracrats loose in it... (sorry for resurrecting this thread but i noticed the petition only has ~500 signuatures)