“It may not be a proposal to build a gas station on top of the spring, but recreational diving is no less serious,” said Casey McKinlay, project manager of the Woodville Karst Plain Project, which has a research permit to dive the spring and its vast, more than 30-mile underwater cave system for research purposes. “I believe it needs protection and to be preserved for future generations.”
Another WKPP member told a story about how he will, for the rest of his life, be haunted by the missing whale bone at Ginny.... Basically saying all cave divers are thieves, defilers, and criminals. From this point forward, this "divers" public comments can be used to prevent access to dive locations.
I think it is a reasonable position for any diver to be against access at Wakulla (even if I disagree). What I heard from divers opposing access to Wakulla was one or two reasonable arguments about artifact protection, two comments about safety, and ten comments along the line of "Wakulla is the most awesome place I have ever dove, it's disney land, hooters, and valhalla all rolled into one, I loved diving it, but no one should ever, ever, ever, ever dive there again (unless it's wkpp).
Non divers were opposed to disturbing the pristine nature of the spring (I kept seeing the diving tower and docks and swim platforms in my mind) and the manatee population.
Scientist were concerned about artifacts, but failed to mention that the raking, dredging, Hollywood film-making, and looting of the 50's-80's had already ruined much of the archeological value of these artifacts, and that the reason they haven't been cataloged before was because they held a diminished scientific value, and because the pursuit of world record push dives took precedence over actual science.
Comments were close to 50/50 on "for" and "against". I think if there was a "winner" in votes, then divers had perhaps 5 more votes than the other side, but some arguments (obviously) carried more weight than others.
