[Coral-List] Reminder - Sign On: Science Community Letter for Florida Keys Restoration

[Steve Mussman]

Steve,

Then NOAA or whichever authority has ultimate oversight responsibilities should clearly articulate the fact that we could fix the problem, but can’t really do anything about it because there remains a general lack of resolve on the part of the American public, affected business entities and government institutions. 

Why waste time and money on projects that only serve to promote false hopes? 

The way in which these restoration and coral reef management programs are framed gives the (false) impression that we are well on our way to solving the problem when in fact we are only making things worse by participating in a charade based on the premise that we, the American public, simply can’t handle the truth. I see this all the time in the diving industry and their approach is effectively validated when government agencies follow suit. When I express thoughts and ideas like Phil has put forth, I get nothing but push back that confirms that the delusion has taken hold. 

How are we even going to have a fighting chance to save coral reef ecosystems if awareness of the basic processes that enable reefs to survive are systematically obscured?

Steve Mussman


Sent from my iPad

> On Jan 28, 2020, at 10:11 AM, Steve Gittings - NOAA Federal via Coral-List <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:
> 
> Phil, in a lot of ways I wish we lived in world where those drastic
> measures could happen. They would almost certainly work. But the American
> public, including Congress, won’t accept them, despite expert opinion and
> testimony.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> On Jan 28, 2020, at 1:08 AM, Dustan, Phillip <DustanP at cofc.edu> wrote:
> 
>  
> Steve,
> Your comments are laughable; seriously laughable. For years the same old
> problem has been expressed by NOAA- How are we supposed to do what? Isn't
> that you job as NOAA?
> Well, use  the good science to figure out what needs to be done and simply
> do it if  the mandate is to protect the reefs.
> 
> Twenty years ago, or earlier, we all said the Keys needed a good sewer
> system. I  think I testified to the Senate Subcommittee on Oceans circa
> 1999 "that everything that comes down in a pipe should go back in a pipe."
> But instead we get an expensive system that injects nutrients right into
> the path of water flow to the reefs - TOTALLY IGNORING THE SCIENCE!
> 
> We argued earlier that there should be large no-take zones and we get a
> system that still allows fishing almost everywhere except a few postage
> stamp sized areas.........even spearfishing using SCUBA which is illegal
> almost everywhere else in the world.
> 
> My colleagues and I created a monitoring system that detected a 38% loss of
> coral cover and 400% increase in coral disease spread and what happened? -
> NOAA and  Florida lowered the statistical rigor of  the project in a number
> of ways so as to preclude detecting change...........We knew by 2000 that
> the real loss of living coral cover was  around 90% instead of  38% but
> NOAA refused to acknowledge the facts.
> 
> I watched NOAA allow the release of massive amounts of water into Florida
> Bay in the mid 1990's  followed by dramatic increases in coral disease  a
> few years after. THE BEST SCIENCE OF THE DAY  told Billy Causey NOT to
> release the water but his "experts" over-ruled the data.
> 
> Development on land has proceeded virtually unbridled since the 1980's, and
> the list goes on and on and on.
> I am negative because I have observed the the fallacious/incompetent
> "management" of the Florida Keys  by Federal and State Agencies,
> principally NOAA since 1975!
> 
> I have  watched the destruction of an ecosystem I dearly love and much of
> it has been orchestrated by "managers" who refuse to recognize the facts
> time after time: ecological principles cannot be bent as though they are
> political constructs.
> But the managing agencies refused to recognize that the very adaptations
> that  allow corals to flourish and reefs to grow made them vulnerable to
> human impacts over many scales. And you want us to believe that 98 million
> dollars can be used to to simply put Humpty Dumpty back together again by
> planting frags when the system has lost its ecological integrity  and being
> overwhelmed by bioerosion.
> 
>  Please give me a break Steve.
> 
> If NOAA is serious about  coral reef restoration then begin with a few of
> the basics to restore the habitat:
> Fix the water quality- stop pumping nutrient-laden water into the
> environment.
> Remove land-based sourced of pollution.
> Stop taking all live organisms from the system - as in fishing and other
> forms of harvest to let stocks reach natural levels once again.
> Begin high level reduction of atmospheric CO2.
> Regrow stock of *Diadema antillarum* to increase levels of herbivory.
> 
> Phil