[Coral-List] Political arguments on coral list

Pedro H. Rodríguez phernanrod at yahoo.com
Wed May 28 13:23:33 EDT 2014


Bill,

Well-made points. At his stage, I don't see how your agency is responsible for any harm caused to the coral reefs of the Florida Keys by mosquito spraying. If anyone disagrees with you, they should come forward now and debate your points. But I wouldn't be surprised if, instead, they copy and paste their initial message in a couple months' time- maybe tweak it a bit so it looks original and irreverent- and make you have to confront them... again. It's not an envidiable task to have to deal with this sort of tactics, and I understand the frustration of those who recently decided to leave the list. 

Pedro


On 5/28/2014 Billy D. Causey wrote:




....NOAA does not manage mosquito spraying but the Florida Keys Mosquito
Control District does, along with local and state health departments.
The officials from the Mosquito Control District are members of our
EPA/ State/NOAA water quality steering committee and they routinely
meet with us.  EPA and the USFWS have funded a considerable amount of
research over the years and the results have helped in the management
of types of sprays and their targets and the methods by which the
sprays are deployed.  Mosquito spraying is managed by multiple
agencies with health factors being first and foremost.  Like the
Everglades National Park, some areas in the Keys are off limits,
including over the waters of the Florida Keys National Marine
Sanctuary.  The sanctuaries jurisdiction is only below the high tide
mark and does not include land.  Over the years, we have worked with
the Mosquito Control District to tighten up the paths of the ultra-low
volume spray so it overlaps the water as little as possible.

But the tourism industry has never pressured sanctuary officials for
more spraying.

Gene , what you throw out in a sentence takes paragraphs and pages for
a response.  I just don  't have the time, but I don't want our
international colleagues to think our decisions are about the almighty
US dollar.

Again, welcome back Gene!!
Billy

Billy D. Causey, Ph.D.
Southeast Regional Director
NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries 


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