Here's a link to the Professional Marine Explorers Society. This group is fighting for wreck diving freedom and putting a stop to NOAA's Expansion. Join for only $25.00. Money well spent to maintain your wreck diving. Also here's the link to Sanctuary Alert for anyone interested in keeping up with what the Society is doing. Sign into the group. (it's free)
http://professionalmarineexplorers.com/
Sanctuary Alert- https://www.facebook.com/groups/328736523864566/
Here is a letter of response written by Gary Gentile, that can be used as an example to sent to your local representative:
Gary Gentile
RISE OF THE FOURTH REICH
The following letter is self explanatory. NOAA plans to annex every shipwreck of the eastern seaboard. Use my letter as a template to write your own. Send copies to your State and federal congressional representatives as well. I did.
Re: Opposition to Expansion of Monitor National Marine Sanctuary May 8, 2012
Beverly Perdue, Office of the Governor
116 West Jones Street
Raleigh, North Carolina 27603
Phone: (800) 662-7952 or (919) 733-2391
I have been diving off the coast of North Carolina for more than thirty years. I continue to dive in North Carolina waters on an annual basis. I have many friends who dive and fish in North Carolina waters. We have all enjoyed the freedom of diving and fishing when and where we like without hindrance from the government.
The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) currently administers the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary (MNMS) off the Diamond Shoals, and has done so since that Sanctuary was established, in 1975. According to the Draft Revised Management Plan of April 2012, NOAA is now proposing to expand the MNMS to include every shipwreck off the coast of North Carolina (under the rubric "Graveyard of the Atlantic NMS"), and eventually every shipwreck off the entire eastern seaboard (under the rubric "Battle of the Atlantic NMS").
I strongly oppose any proposed expansion on several grounds and for a variety of reasons:
The expansion proposal is a blank check for NOAA to create a Sanctuary whose boundaries are unlimited.
The expansion proposal allows NOAA to impose any and all restrictions without regard to public input.
The denial of voter input contradicts the basic principle of a democratic government whose Constitution was ratified to guarantee freedom from oppression for its citizens.
Unfettered expansion will create an economic disaster for the State of North Carolina.
The proposal contains no language to guarantee free and uncontrolled access to all shipwreck sites. It has already taken four federal lawsuits for people to obtain permission to photograph at the Monitor. Nonetheless, NOAA has subsequently either denied access, or has imposed a permitting process so cumbersome that it effectively prevents access by recreational divers who lack the means and resources to combat NOAA's expensive obstructionist tactics.
A condition of the permitting process is that recreational divers must perform work, free of charge, that NOAA arbitrarily and capriciously considers useful. Recreational divers are not permitted to simply look at the wreck because of its significance to their national and cultural heritage: the reason for which the MNMS was established.
The proposal is replete with misleading statements and outright prevarications. Here are only a few of the most egregious examples of subterfuge: NOAA claims that "many" shipwrecks in the area are military gravesites, when in fact only six of the thousands of North Carolina shipwrecks qualify for such a designation.
The proposal claims that in previous scoping meetings, "many" commenters favored expansion. In fact, attendees state categorically that there was universal opposition to the expansion program.
The proposal claims that NOAA's Advisory Committee favors expansion. This may be true, but only because committee members were selected on the basis of their favoritism. Volunteers who opposed expansion were excluded from membership.
The proposal advertises that in 1990, NOAA issued permits for recreational divers to photograph the Monitor. It neglects to mention that it required six years and three federal lawsuits to force the issuance of those permits; and that subsequent permits were issued only after another federal lawsuit was prosecuted, followed by direct Congressional intervention. NOAA's partial truth is contrived to put NOAA in a false light of benevolence.
The proposal states, "During the 2008 scoping meetings for the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary management plan, many of the commentors [sic] expressed an interest in expanding the sanctuary to include additional shipwrecks off the coast of North Carolina." This statement is deliberately misleading because all the expressed interest opposed such expansion. The sentence is cleverly worded so that readers who are ignorant of the truth are led to believe that the "interest" favored expansion; any hint of opposition was cunningly avoided.
Any proposal that is not based on honest reporting is not a good proposal.
Present regulations deny shipwreck access without a permit. Permits often require a lawsuit to obtain. If the Sanctuary is expanded, access to every shipwreck that the Sanctuary encompasses will be automatically denied.
Present regulations in the NMMS prohibit anchoring or grappling. This prohibition makes it unsafe, difficult, or impossible to access shipwrecks. The proposal contains no language for deleting this prohibition which, by default, will still stand. Thus shipwreck access will be denied without an affirmative assertion of denial.
The proposal fails to explain how expansion will benefit the public that will be asked to fund the Sanctuary, but will not be allowed to visit its assets.
The proposal states, "These shipwrecks offer a unique opportunity to study and better understand our maritime history." This is equivalent to stating that the study of rusting cars in a junk yard can yield important information about twentieth-century traffic patterns. Even if the statement about shipwrecks were true, shipwrecks can be studied without being located within a Sanctuary. Furthermore, thousands of books and articles have already been written about this maritime history; the proposal neglects to state what expansion can add to the understanding that is readily available. Additional study is largely redundant.
The proposal neglects to describe how expansion will protect shipwrecks from natural deterioration in a corrosive environment. In fact, the proposal avoids the issue altogether. Never once does it mention how this so-called "protection" is to be provided. The word "protection" is left undefined.
The control of shipwrecks is not part of the charter of the Marine Protection Research and Sanctuaries Act, under which the MNMS was established. The MPRSA was passed by Congress solely as a measure to protect endangered marine life. Thus the MNMS was established and is operated under illegal sanction.
NOAA has misallocated much of its funding by using taxpayers' money to send their employees on all-expenses-paid shipwreck extravaganza vacations that they euphemistically call "surveys," when in fact the wrecks that they claim to have "surveyed" were surveyed years ago, and the results of those surveys are a matter of public record.
NOAA wants to increase the number of so-called "surveys" by re-examining shipwrecks under the guise of the "Wreck Oil Removal Program," the putative purpose of which is to examine tankers that were torpedoed by Nazi U-boats during World War Two, and to assess their oil-leakage potential. A thorough examination in this regard was conducted in 1967. Called the "Sunken Tanker Project," Coast Guard investigators found that World War Two tankers presented no current or future risk to the environment because their hulls had already collapsed, their tanks were open to the sea, and the cargo had long since leaked away.
The economic impact of the proposed expansion will be catastrophic for the State of North Carolina because tourism will drop dramatically. If divers are not permitted to dive on shipwrecks, and if anglers are not permitted to fish on shipwrecks, diving and fishing in North Carolina waters will practically cease to exist. Charter operations will either fold or move elsewhere; dive shops will close; bait and tackle stores will go out of business; restaurants, motels, and local vendors will see a sharp decrease in income.
The only beneficiary to NOAA's expansion proposal is NOAA. NOAA funding would be better spent on forecasting weather, maintaining neglected aids to navigation, and engaging in other functions that benefit the public.
Gary Gentile
Make an effort today to act in order to STOP NOAA's Expansion.
Good Wreck Diving!
Atlantic Diver
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