HK: First, I would like someone to identify what is wrong with the existing plan as it relates to diving, and then we could discuss changing those elements. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that divers are impacting the Sanctuary in a way that would warrant and justify such tight regulation of access. The ideal plan is the existing one. This prohibits removing or disturbing the wreck sites, but does not regulate access whether by diving or remote sensing.

HK: I was not at those meetings, as I was unaware they were taking place at that time. Sanctuary staff does a poor job at interacting with the dive community and making divers aware of any of their activities. For example, one notice to the Bay State Council of Divers (if this is how divers were/are generally notified) is not sufficient. Divers are organized by interest, region, and experience level among others. Contacting one group does not serve to reach the entire diverse community. Nevertheless, I have read through many of the posted summaries of public comments from those meetings – which were actually scoping meetings, not necessarily commenting meetings on activities already taking place – and there was no discussion of the impact of divers on wrecks. Most of the comments related to commercial fishing and protection of marine life. Again I would like to emphasize that these were scoping meetings where the public identified problems; they were not commenting on the intentions of NOAA or the sanctuary staff. If the public had not identified problems with the existing plan as it relates to diving, comments would not be heard in such a forum at that time. And they weren’t because such problems don’t exist.

HK: Yes, but I am not against it for the reason that I believe no wreck should be afforded protection. In principle I am not opposed to protecting some wrecks – with the caveat that we would need to define protection further. I am opposed to it in this case because of the ambiguous, vague and subjective criteria that will be used to determine which wrecks should fall into that category. I am also opposed to the provisions of the "restricted status" as well – it’s too extreme.

HK: Yes I do, but such a provision would depend on what the criteria for defining "historic value" or "fragility" entailed and what resulting level of restriction meant for public access. What is proposed in the Action Plan is far too extreme – and more than 300 people signing our petition agree with us. If there is a provision as you suggest, it should not involve a process that is expensive, slow, requires a graduate level principal investigator with a scientific research plan, etc. The process should not serve as a deterrent to access and research; it should be an enabler. The purpose after all should be to make public resources available in a responsible way. How does the currently proposed category serve that purpose?

HK: The FASA does not apply to the sanctuary, as no part of it intrudes into state waters. I reference it only as a model and precedent for how other areas are managed. Why can’t the FASA work in a federal sanctuary? What is different that allows sanctuaries to deny or restrict access when states can’t?

HK: No, actually, provided there’s a shelf-life on this discovery phase. What we have an issue with is the lack of time frame on evaluating the site and subsequently making it available to the public. Just because NOAA is resource-constrained does not mean they should be permitted to spend years evaluating the site, when it ultimately is at the public’s expense. There’s nothing suggested about how sites will be evaluated, what the timeframe will be, etc. A site could be in this "limbo" phase forever! This could be used as a loophole to circumvent the system – hold sites in a discovery phase indefinitely to avoid making them accessible to the public. This is wrong.

Additionally, it should be mentioned that many of the discoveries in Stellwagen were made by private groups, not NOAA. So, should the discoverer of a wreck lose his or her access simply because s/he decided to report it?

HK: There are other ways to do this that are more reasonable for all involved. As one example, the sanctuary could very easily implement a program of "registering" divers (no fee) who plan to dive in the sanctuary (and then would personally receive updates and information about sanctuary "happenings"). Like a non-commerical lobster license, at the end of the year or upon renewal of the registration, the sanctuary could ask divers to report the number of visits to sanctuary wrecks and which ones they visited (and not what vessel they used, the dates, etc). We are totally, completely, unconditionally against the idea of reporting planned visits to a site, whether by phone, radio or email. It is just not necessary for their stated purpose. There are other information collection tools that could be utilized if this is their intent – and we question whether or not that is their sole intent (see next response).

HK: No. We fear the sanctuary or their designees will use this information to make surprise visits at these sites to "check up" on divers. This has an air of distrust. If their purpose is to collect this information for determining site usage (as you indicated, that was their position) then it shouldn’t matter that the information comes after the visit in some other format.

JS: Finally, their position on wrecks such as the Portland is that there are few divers qualified to make such deep dives.

HK: This may be true, but so what? Are there a minimum number of divers who need to be able to dive to a site that determines its accessibility? Such a statement only furthers our belief that the proposed restrictions on this wreck site are unnecessary.

HK: What about inadvertent damage due to ROVs? Remember what the "R" in ROV stands for – remote. The pilot cannot always avoid damaging the wreck, or the ROV. How could a small group of divers, with a handful of dives spread over years, possibly damage very deep wrecks like the Portland more than: 1) the sinking, 2) the time that has passed since the sinking (more than 100 years in some cases), 3) ocean environment and storms, 4) fishing nets? The rationale here just doesn’t add up. Further, while such technology may enable a wide audience to view the wreck, there is no substitute for human experience. There is no substitute and never will be a substitute for actually being there. If this is the thinking, that the virtual experience is just as good as the actual experience and it will enable preservation of the wreck (though we know it won’t), for the sake of argument, why not apply that reasoning to everything – who needs to actually visit any physical place if we can enjoy an online experience? Why visit Stonehenge, the Anne Frank museum, Gettysburg …. is our presence in these places not doing harm? People go to these places for the experience, to touch a part of history. This isn’t possible through a web cast tour. It can be a nice addition, but it is not a substitute.

Finally, I can hardly see how inadvertent damage by any cause done to a wreck decaying in a corrosive, destructive environment would diminish this "virtual experience." After all, there are already catalogued video tapes of the Portland (and others) documenting its "best" condition (and presumably such documentation would be assembled during the discovery phase for new wrecks if we assume the proposed classification system is implemented for the sake of this discussion). How many tours of the wreck are needed until the public has seen it all? Then what? Are they going to simply deny access for the reason they believe such a measure will slow its inevitable decay now that the public has lost interest and the first reason (public’s diminished experience) isn’t valid anymore? What will be the reason then?

I don’t want to fixate on just the deep wrecks, though that constitutes a good portion of sites in Stellwagen. There are other wrecks that are very much accessible and will be of interest to wreck divers, photographers, divers who enjoy marine life among others. Many divers just simply don’t know this. Many divers believe it is illegal to dive in Stellwagen now. It’s not. But the real question is, "why do people believe that?" We have asked in a separate response for the sanctuary staff to point the diving public to the location on their website where they can read about other wrecks in Stellwagen – what they are, how they can dive them, etc. We have not heard a response. Why is it that so little information is available? This is a burning question.

We are only asking the public to become involved and ask NOAA some of these hard questions – questions about intentions, whose interest these changes really serve, and why it is that so many divers know so little about an 844 square mile body of water off our coast. I think if you ask those questions, it becomes fairly obvious that the dive community’s interests and concerns have not been part of the development of the new management plan so far.

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