The scuba club I'm a member of has an "environmental officer" that is in charge a buoy committee. They maintain/replace the surface and subsurface buoy systems on the sites in our area.
The club recently voted on spending $15,000 for a drill and compressor. Their plan is to drill into the coral/reef in order to set mooring points for more buoy systems to tie off on with boats.
Some people are questioning a few things about this
(1) Environmental impact: Would it be less of an impact to make concrete blocks with rebar loops and lower them from lift bags onto a clear sandy spot in the same area of drill into the reef?
(2) Stability: Don't you usually have to do some sort of core sample and load test to determine if the reef is even strong enough to keep a boat in place?
(3) Safety: This is the biggest question: Are recreational divers even authorized to do this sort of thing? I imagine once you start putting power tools into a diver's hands it crosses from recreational diving to commercial diving. I would imagine you would need training to be able to do any and all of the stuff I've brought up.
I've been told said that our local safety directorate gave the ok on this, which I'm finding a little difficult to believe given the history of projects that have been rejected.
So... if what they're doing should actually be done by a commercial diver, is there something in writing somewhere that states this? Either in some recreational or commercial diving guidelines?
Any and all input would be greatly appreciated.
The club recently voted on spending $15,000 for a drill and compressor. Their plan is to drill into the coral/reef in order to set mooring points for more buoy systems to tie off on with boats.
Some people are questioning a few things about this
(1) Environmental impact: Would it be less of an impact to make concrete blocks with rebar loops and lower them from lift bags onto a clear sandy spot in the same area of drill into the reef?
(2) Stability: Don't you usually have to do some sort of core sample and load test to determine if the reef is even strong enough to keep a boat in place?
(3) Safety: This is the biggest question: Are recreational divers even authorized to do this sort of thing? I imagine once you start putting power tools into a diver's hands it crosses from recreational diving to commercial diving. I would imagine you would need training to be able to do any and all of the stuff I've brought up.
I've been told said that our local safety directorate gave the ok on this, which I'm finding a little difficult to believe given the history of projects that have been rejected.
So... if what they're doing should actually be done by a commercial diver, is there something in writing somewhere that states this? Either in some recreational or commercial diving guidelines?
Any and all input would be greatly appreciated.
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