Where does rec stop and commercial start?

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Father

Contributor
Scuba Instructor
Messages
355
Reaction score
65
Location
Kwajalein Atoll, Marshall Islands
# of dives
500 - 999
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.
 
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(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 commerical diving. I would imagine you would need training to be able to do any and all of the stuff I've brought up.

The committee said that our local safety directorate gave the ok on this, which I find difficult to believe. They have a tendency to conveniently leave out any information that could make someone question whether they should or shouldn't do something.

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.

Dropping concrete mooring blocks is a commercial job. It's really easy to sink the boat and/or kill the divers and crew if anything goes wrong.

Drilling into the reef is also a bad idea, since you have no idea what you're drilling into or killing and have no assurance that it will be strong enough to hold the boat(s).

The scuba club I'm a member of has an "environmental officer" that is in charge a buoy committee.

I would be extremely surprised if any member of your dive club can authorize drilling into the reef and although I know nothing about your legal system, beleive that it could cause a lot of trouble if an actual government representative received a complaint about it.

You should contact whoever is in charge of environmental conservation in the ocean in your area (the person/office you would contact if there were an oil spill or a ship grounding, for example), and discuss it with them.

flots.
 
Dropping concrete mooring blocks is a commercial job. It's really easy to sink the boat and/or kill the divers and crew if anything goes wrong.

Drilling into the reef is also a bad idea, since you have no idea what you're drilling into or killing and have no assurance that it will be strong enough to hold the boat(s).

Thanks for the quick response flots.
Would you say handling powered tools underwater is also a commercial job? If so, is there something in writing somewhere that states that? I'd like to be able to go to them with as much as possible to dispute this... otherwise they have a tendency to talk around anything and everything to get their way.

Bringing it to the government environmental thing could be a slippery slope. The host nation sees anything as an opportunity to milk the Americans for money. If they aren't already aware of the intent here, I'd say it could go a variety of ways:
(1) They say no
(2) They say no, and also use it as a way to shoehorn in fees for the club to dive in the area
(3) They could say yes, but charge some sort of annual fees for use of the sites where the mooring points are installed
(4) They could shut down ALL diving in the area on a basis of environmental impact or because the club doesn't give them money.

The governing authorities on the U.S. side more than likely hasn't been give all of the information to make an informed decision.

We have commercial divers at our location, but in all likelihood they were not consulted in any way on this project. I'm speculating but I feel pretty confident in that assumption.
 
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Drilling holes in rock to install boat moorings is definitely commercial diving, but I have no idea where to point you to look for information in your area.
 
Drilling holes in rock to install boat moorings is definitely commercial diving, but I have no idea where to point you to look for information in your area.
......Not in Grenada----------from what I heard.........
 
Check with Wookie here - owner of the MV Spree - IIRC he places moorings and works with/for some US government entity so may have some insight.
 
Is anyone getting paid or compensated in any way? If so, it's commercial diving. If not, it isn't. A dive club at Kwaj is protected a number of ways. First off, it's a club. OSHA will never look at it. Second, you're in the FSM. Although OSHA has responsibilities to and by the contractor there (I worked at JA many moons ago), the moorings will not be placed in US waters, but in FSM waters.

Now, about drilling into corals. You have to know what you are looking for. I offered to come out and help, but no one took me up on the offer. When you drill, it must be in a dead head (live coral is too soft) that isn't bio-eroded. There are many considerations. I will be drilling in Dry Tortugas in October sometime. If a crew is in the US, I would be happy to show them how it's done.
 
Frank,

Actually the gentleman who is heading this effort is from Tampa and will be in the Keys in October. I will pass along your info to him.

Michael
 
$15k seems a little steep to me. I am happy to meet with him and show him exactly what he will need. Don't buy a bunch of stuff until I get the chance to chat with him. I do understand that part of the price includes shipping, but it still seems a little steep.
 
Is anyone getting paid or compensated in any way? If so, it's commercial diving. If not, it isn't. A dive club at Kwaj is protected a number of ways. First off, it's a club. OSHA will never look at it. Second, you're in the FSM. Although OSHA has responsibilities to and by the contractor there (I worked at JA many moons ago), the moorings will not be placed in US waters, but in FSM waters.

Now, about drilling into corals. You have to know what you are looking for. I offered to come out and help, but no one took me up on the offer. When you drill, it must be in a dead head (live coral is too soft) that isn't bio-eroded. There are many considerations. I will be drilling in Dry Tortugas in October sometime. If a crew is in the US, I would be happy to show them how it's done.

I don't know about getting paid. I'd have to reference the bylaws to see if that's a paid position. I don't believe it is.

As I understand it, and I'm not 100% in the know, the RMI environmental folks gave the ok on this. However, I would think because it's a club on a military installation that is governed by the Army and its local water safety and environmental policies, anything they do can fall back on the government... which, I imagine, would eventually fall back on the club.

I don't know the exact sites they're drilling or the how they've selected the coral they're drilling into.

As far as I know, none of the sites need to be drilled. They've opted to go this route as opposed to using mooring blocks because blocks are apparently the "old way of doing it". Would you say that's accurate? If there's a sandy patch that a mooring block could be lowered down to, wouldn't you say that would be the most environmentally-friendly approach?

I assume mooring blocks can be "made"? Again, not my area of expertise, but I envision building a mold, pouring the concrete with a couple pieces of curved rebar in the middle. I assume there's some chart somewhere that says how heavy a block has to be for the type of boat that's tying off to it. Assuming the boat could tow a block attached to lift bags out to the sight, couldn't it just be lowered down to the location?

There's also the question of liability.
As I understand it, the club's insurance will not cover any accidents or injuries that occur while doing this sort of thing and I've been told DAN insurance won't either.
Also, the majority of the boats being tied off to these moorings are government property. If the drilling isn't done "to code" (for lack of a better term) and one breaks loose from the coral... see ya later boat and whatever happens to the divers that tied off to it.
 
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