[Coral-List] Majuro video

Dennis Hubbard dennis.hubbard at oberlin.edu
Mon Jan 7 17:51:07 EST 2013


Will:

Thanks for the information. I submitted a comment to the National Oceans
Council through a link from your URL. SO, we'll see where that goes.

Thanks again,

Dennis

On Mon, Jan 7, 2013 at 2:37 PM, Will Nuckols <wnuckols at erols.com> wrote:

> To my knowledge the CRTF has no permit review (can't approve or deny)
> authority, but instead conducts a more broad coordination (i.e. gets
> multiple agencies in the same room) function. Therefore the answer to "has
> the CRTF officially sanctioned" a particular project, the answer is no, but
> the same answer would apply to whether or not they acted to stop the
> project.
>
> I have followed some, but not all, of the CRTF meetings for the past few
> years - does anyone on the list know if this issue was raised, even at an
> information sharing level, at any of the CRTF business meetings in DC or at
> the alternating field sites? If it has it would be worth examining who
> attended the meetings (participation has ranged widely over the years in
> terms of the level of the decision makers who attend) and what, if any,
> discussion occurred.
>
> All that said, if are looking for a body beyond the individual agencies
> involved, you might also look to the Administration's overarching
> coordinating body that implements the National Ocean Policy (the National
> Ocean Council) or one of the subcommittees under it.
>
> The staff director for it is Deerin Babb-Brott.  He is housed at (but does
> not officially work for) the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) in the
> Exec. Office of the President.
>
> How exactly former coordination bodies such as the CRTF work under the new
> structure is somewhat described already, but I don't know if it has been
> determined how decisions are initially made, or can be elevated, within the
> current NOC structure.
>
> I don't believe anyone has pushed a specific issue forward to see how an
> older exec order such as 13089, which establishes the CRTF, is changed, if
> at all, by the EO that established the National Ocean Policy in terms of a
> specific project being approved or stopped.  Typically it takes a specific
> hands-on issue to work through the weeds of that type of question if a
> particular real-world project is raised.
>
> But perhaps more relevant from a practical policy perspective is that there
> is the EO authored by this Administration where folks might want to look
> first. While it is true that Administrations honor prior EO's (unless
> specifically rescinded) it is likely more important to note that
> Administrations logically put more energy and emphasis on EO's that they
> themselves write. Thus far the major emphasis has been on Coastal and
> Marine
> Spatial Planning and on setting up a few of the regional planning bodies,
> but that doesn't mean the National Ocean Policy isn't more broad than those
> activities - it just may be that's what has been getting the attention.
>
> So rather than the CRTF you might want to look to the National Ocean Policy
> and see what portion(s) might be relevant to your particular issue.
>
> http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/oceans
>
> Will
>
>
>
> William H. Nuckols III
> Principal
> W. H. Nuckols Consulting
> Government Relations l Strategic Communications l Policy Analysis l
> Technology Solutions
> Capitol Hill, Washington, DC
> will at whnuckolsconsulting.com
> www.WHNuckolsconsulting.com
> 443-994-1493 cell
> Reached on http://www.skype.com at WillNuckols
> Follow Will on Twitter at @enviroxpert and on Pinterest at
> http://pinterest.com/willnuckols/
> Mr. Nuckols is also the author of the blog "A tide of information on
> politics, environment, and ocean issues in general"
> http://willnuckols.wordpress.com/
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> [mailto:coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov] On Behalf Of Szmant, Alina
> Sent: Monday, January 07, 2013 1:37 PM
> To: Dennis Hubbard; Dean Jacobson
> Cc: coral list
> Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Majuro video
>
> Hi Dennis:
>
> President Clinton signed back in 1998 a Presidential Executive order
> protecting coral reefs.  This Exec Order requires every federal agency to
> self-examine and reduce any damage to corals for everything they do that
> could potentially affect coral reef condition. A committee named the US
> Coral Reef Task Force was established and consisted of the heads of all of
> the Executive Branch departments (or their designates)and other Federal
> Agency heads. This includes the FAA. It was initially chaired I believe by
> Sec. of Interior Bruce Babbitt, a committed environmentalist. I attended
> several of the early Coral Reef Task Force meetings, and it really seemed
> that there was some serious dialogue going on.    I recall discussions with
> high up US Navy and other military folks about their impacts on coral reefs
> (e.g. practice bombing in Vieques), and lots of fisheries regulation
> discussions.  I have not been to these meetings for a while now, but see
> postings that they are still happening!
> .   Unless Presidential Orders expire, that Task Force should still be in
> force and in fact, has the responsibility to decide whether the FAA is
> authorized to cause major coral destruction for a greater (national
> security) good.  Does anyone know if the US Coral Reef Task Force
> officially
> sanctioned this dredging?  Is there circumvention of an official US policy
> going on?
>
> Alina
>
>
>  *************************************************************************
> Dr. Alina M. Szmant
> Professor of Marine Biology
> Center for Marine Science and Dept of Biology and Marine Biology University
> of North Carolina Wilmington
> 5600 Marvin Moss Ln
> Wilmington NC 28409 USA
> tel:  910-962-2362  fax: 910-962-2410  cell: 910-200-3913
> http://people.uncw.edu/szmanta
> *******************************************************
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> [mailto:coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov] On Behalf Of Dennis
> Hubbard
> Sent: Monday, January 07, 2013 11:07 AM
> To: Dean Jacobson
> Cc: coral list
> Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Majuro video
>
> I just had a chance to look at Dean's Majuro video, which is both
> encouraging and sickening.
>
> It is indeed heartening to see that these kinds of stands exist given the
> convincing "top down" papers that suggest warming and acidification will
> affect even remote sites...... and that our site-specific efforts might be
> naive.
>
> At the same time, I find it discouraging that we can spend so much time as
> "experts" wondering why the public doesn't get all the things we are so
> "smart" in "knowing". How effective can we hope to be when we spend as much
> time as we have on whether or not listing specific corals is appropriate
> while remaining largely voiceless about agencies that can apparently let
> this kind of resource be sacrificed for an airport that will probably be
> underwater by century's end? While our "free association" with the Marshall
> Islands is a flakey relationship, the last time I checked the FAA was still
> run by the US. Is thee a way as a collective body of concerned
> international
> citizens we can take this somewhere? Yes, I signed Dean's petition.
>
> Dennis
>
> On Fri, Jan 4, 2013 at 3:01 AM, Dean Jacobson <atolldino at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > I have posted a new GoPro video of the coral dredging at:
> > http://youtu.be/obyOO6Vj-wo
> >
> > Its only 16 min, but if you want to jump ahead to the borrow pit, go
> > to 12:00.  You can hear me coughing on SCUBA (I recently had a cold,
> > so much for my "stealth" approach to the dredge site!).  Hope you like
> > it!  (My lousy MS editing program would not do HD, the original is
> > very sharp) Suggested responses and instructions offered with the video.
> > So, yes the dredging continues, and now PII is applying for a permit
> > to continue mining this entire 500m reef for profit, after they have
> > all the fill they are contracted to provide for the FAA RSA project
> > (which they almost have already, without mining much of the site).
> > The camel's nose got under the tent, and there may be no stopping it.
> >
> > I think the video speaks for itself.  Where is the USCRTF when you need
> it?
> > Cheers,
> > Dean
> > _______________________________________________
> > Coral-List mailing list
> > Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> > http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Dennis Hubbard
> Dept of Geology-Oberlin College Oberlin OH 44074
> (440) 775-8346
>
> * "When you get on the wrong train.... every stop is the wrong stop"*
> Benjamin Stein: "*Ludes, A Ballad of the Drug and the Dream*"
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>
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>


-- 
Dennis Hubbard
Dept of Geology-Oberlin College Oberlin OH 44074
(440) 775-8346

* "When you get on the wrong train.... every stop is the wrong stop"*
 Benjamin Stein: "*Ludes, A Ballad of the Drug and the Dream*"


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