Possible southern reef closure

[DandyDon]

I don't understand what you mean. The new developments and construction ARE required to be hooked up. The sewer lines are put in before the streets and construction with big rock-grinding trenchers. You can't build new without hooking up to the sewer system.

What city in the US treats rain run-off?

The southern resorts, beach clubs, the little town down south, etc. are not, are they?

I don't know of any city that treats street run off. I just mentioned that it is added to the channel.

 

[flyboy08]

Finally someone in the know brings facts to dispel conjecture! Jeez, some of you just have it in for Coz!

 

[cvchief]

What city in the US treats rain run-off?

Actually it’s getting to be quite the big deal. http://files.dep.state.pa.us/Enviro...ation/EnvEdPortalFiles/MS4 Resource Guide.pdf

 

[El Graduado]

Cedral is not connected to San Miguel’s sewer system and is in that .03 percent that is not connected, but very few people live there. Its population swells for the week of the yearly fair, but they haul in lots of port-a-potties for that.

The hotels and beach clubs down south must present an environmental impact statement and get approval of their sewer treatment plans prior to construction. I imagine a few of the older clubs (San Francisco Beach Club, and others) were grandfathered in and their systems are less than desirable, but I don’t know that for sure. Maybe they made them upgrade them. There is a lot of talk on this board about the poor treatment the hotels and beach clubs give their sewer water, but I don’t know of any real, qualified evaluation of them.

Below is an example of one of the hotel’s environmental statements they submitted prior to construction of the treatment plant for the hotel:

 

[RTC'83]

As new disease wipes out Caribbean coral, scientists tear up reefs to stop the spread

 

[cvchief]

As new disease wipes out Caribbean coral, scientists tear up reefs to stop the spread

Wow that is interesting!

@El Graduado is there any ongoing testing requirement to show the onsite systems are functioning as designed?

 

[robint]

So does anyone think the reef closures has nothing to do with diving, but testing on the water/pollution issues instead?

 

[cvchief]

So does anyone think the reef closures has nothing to do with diving, but testing on the water/pollution issues instead?

Depending on what you mean, no maybe?

Ben from Undercurrent stated that "White syndrome starts with the coral showing well-defined areas of whitening, which then expand and, apparently spread to all other coral colonies by contact, mainly through divers touching infected coral during dives." I haven't read that anywhere as of yet and I haven't heard of anywhere else stopping dive. I see nothing to show stopping diving will affect the coral disease.

There is constant current moving whatever, site to site to site.

Why do the divers have to go to start 'testing' water?' If that's a thing, wouldn't it make more sense to test it with divers and then if you find something interesting, hypothesize what you think removing divers will do and then if that seems reasonable, stop diving and test the theory. With the current, I would think if there are diving related pollutants, they would be gone from the area REALLY quickly?

I think it is more of a 'oh crap our coral is dying and there are no answers from FL who has been looking at it for a while, but we have to do something, so lets close some of the park. Oh and lets not let this emergency go to waste. We can generate concern and maybe get more resources to help our program generally...'

 

[ggunn]

BTW, I have heard so many Quasi Scientists hide between the easy argument that Correlation does not mean Causation …I can throw up. That is all bull **** and I give up even if ya'll fall for it.

In addition, I am a widely recognized Scientist in Environmental Engineering in the US. I easily recognize ******** when I see it.

Dave Dillehay
Aldora Divers

I'm not sure what you mean by that. One may infer causation from correlation, certainly, but the one is not proven by the other. Sometimes things happen at the same time which have nothing whatsoever to with each other. Examples abound, and the weird thing would be if coincidences never happened.

I am an engineer as well; where did you go to school?

 

[ggunn]

Depending on what you mean, no maybe?

Ben from Undercurrent stated that "White syndrome starts with the coral showing well-defined areas of whitening, which then expand and, apparently spread to all other coral colonies by contact, mainly through divers touching infected coral during dives."

Wow. That kind of blows his credibility, IMO. Rampant touching of hard corals by divers may happen sometime, somewhere, but I haven't seen it at Cozumel myself.