Comments upon the findings of PAMBs extensive study and investigation into coral damage in the waters fronting the Coal Fired Power Station in Kamanga! 1) PAMBs, The 1.7 hectare area in question is not an actual thriving coral reef but a BARREN area composed or sand, rubble and rocks. COMMENT. This extensive study and investigation was actually conducted by 4 divers doing 2 dives each in one morning! For 4 divers to cover an area of 1.7 hectares underwater in only 2 dives each and come up with scientific findingscovering the area is basically impossible as the reef slopes off down the wall to several hundred feet! To classify the area as Sand, Rubble and Rocks is totally wrong as to most people, a BARREN area is something like the Sahara Desert where any living things are few and far between! One of the divers involved in the study has actually undertaken similar studies in the same area and has come up with totally different conclusions which were in fact very positive about the coral reef cover, unlike Paragraph 1 where the divers classified the area as BARREN! See attached pictures of BARREN REEF! 2) PAMBs. There were a few samples of dead coral in the area but upon examination, we found out that most of these had been dead long before the construction of the Jetty had started in Frbruary 2014. Recently dead coral samples comprising only 0.1% of the coral components of the area (please define dead - less than a year? A month? ) COMMENT. They found only 0.1% dead corals in the area! That is actually a minute amount of dead corals within 1.7 hectares! Maybe they were moving so quickly during their dive that they failed to notice the recently dead and overturned corals within the small area where the construction is taking place at present! 3) PAMBs Our investigation shows that marine disturbances to the area is minimal, between 0.1 - 3.8%. This didturbance may be attributed to natural causes as the area is frequently subjected to different strong wave Dymamics, the disturbances may also have been caused by past human activity such as dymamite fishing! COMMENT. The Wave Dynamics mentioned above are now just starting for the year so any damage cannot be blamed on such natural causes. There has been no dynamite fishing for many years in the area as this used to be a thriving fishing village on the shore and many fishing boats were at anchor just off shore! The whole fishing village has been removed and destroyed in order to make way for sections of the Power Plant Facilities! 4) PAMBs We found the steel cable of the anchor that allegedly plowed and damaged coral was traversing mostly rocks and rubble. We found some samples of coral domes that were tipped over but the coral was still alive. COMMENT. There are in fact more than one anchor cable securing each barge into its required position, some are dropped over the wall to 30 meters or so where the attach to the verticle wall, there are no divers who can set out the anchors in environmentally better areas where minimum damage can be caused! Most anchor sets are simply pulled out by Tug Boats and are dropped into the water with no thought for the corals below! Over 40 Artificial reef domes have been overturned by cables but have since been re set in a correct position, not by PAMBs I must state! 5) PAMBs. While the area is composed mostly of sand, rubble and rocks it also remains nutrient rich with an abundance of sea life! COMMENT. Now, in Paragraph 1 the area was described as BARREN, now in Parragraph 5 its nutrient rich with an abundance of sea life! I know that from my diving experience in the area, Paragraph 5 is a rar more correct description of the area! The above statement from PAMBs was shown on TV and the contents defended by two senior people involved in the construction of thr power plant, neither of these gentlemen dive so have not seen the reef in question except by pictures! They came out with a statement saying that the will do everything possible in order to protect the environment. From Day one they have said this but their record shows that this is not true by any means! There is A Thechnical Team which consists of the following organisations, MSU - Mindanao sUniversity, LGUs, Coast Guard BFAR, ECPC, BFAR, CENRO Gen San, and DENR. all of these units are supposed to protect the marine environment but for some reason they seem to be on the side of the construction company! Should these organizations not be defending the environment, is that not what their purpose in life is and not what they get paid to do or is it a case where the people in financial power decide on what findings they want on a project and then the direct seams of specialists to come up with the required results weather they are true or false! In this day and age, environmental conscionsness is a major issue all around the world so it grieves me that organisations which are tasked to protect the environment appear to be going the other way and are activily supporting financially prominent companies by looking the other way and allowing destructive practices to take place where it would be a much better business practice to really protect the environment and do only minimum damage which has been proven possible on some of their driven piles. They have no divers to check what is below the piles before they are driven into the seabed! A Jetty can be a great asset to the environment as many really are really good dive sites and the legs are easily colonised by marine life! Good environmental practices can really be an asset on a company portfolio; Environmental destruction certainly does them nothing good for the future! The only corals that are savable are the ones on the shore side of the Jetty as the plan on the off shore side is to dredge out some 2,000 cu m of seabed and dump it over the wall. This dredging will cause environmental damage in the adjacent Marine Protected Area as silt will be washed over the area with the tides and currents! Its very unfortunate that the companies constructing the power plant have very little if any knowledge of the marine environment and do not seem to care about it; financial gain seems to be their only interest! We know that the Jetty and Power Plant will be constructed and we have tried to give advice to the people in charge about the marine environment but our advice and ideas have fallen on deaf ears! Now, the company are building artificial reef domes in order to make up for the damage they are doing to the natural corals ( Which do not exist according to paragraph 1 above) If they were to protect the natural living corals that would be a better and more accepable proposition!
Posted on: Mon, 07 Jul 2014 07:53:17 +0000
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