[sihaya]

Originally Posted by charlesr1958

Again, it saddens me to see how far the gossip

This not gossip Chuck... these are government documents. Now, you posting on RDO inviting people to speculate about my "motives"; THAT is gossip.

Discussion would only lead to more conjecture and accusations, all of which are being placed on the shoulders of one man, as was the intent of Sarah.

Oh, cry me a river... I had/have no such intention. As I've pointed out numerous times, this isn't just about Mr. Borneman.

Given her history of such acts, and claims made to me, by her, through email. Her motives and intent are very obvious. Thus any other claims she makes of being impartial or of having provided all of what she recieved can only be taken as highly suspect.

If you don't believe me, you can call the NOAA FOIA office and verify that I have posted all the documents sent to me to date.

Half true, the corals were being collected from a man made structure due for demolition, not a natural coral reef. The amounts of corals taken are unworthy of mention when put into perspective of the millions of fragments that were most likely lost/destroyed due to the dredging involved.

Much of the corals taken were taken from nursery baskets set aside by the Navy for restoration.

I see this as being on par when a ship or oil rig platform is cleaned of "fouling" life forms.

Not at all... much of these corals were healthy and destined for restoration elsewhere in the Keys.

What happens to all the life, including corals, that grow on such structures slated for cleaning? While the Navy did what it could to relocate said corals, such an effort was a "good moral try" at best, and is the best one can hope for. In short, this was not some pristine natural reef that was ripped out by its roots as is being assumed by such statements.

Even if this is true, how does it excuse taking them to a commercial distributor were so many of them died?

What of the thousands upon thousands of corals that start to grow as hitch hikers on aquacultured live rock and then are lost when harvested or put into our tanks? Should all such rocks then be considered a "lost reef" ?

These corals were not corals grown off of live rock.

Again, not true in the manner stated above. The intent was to establish a line of "lab rats", which would be made available to other researchers without having to obtain more wild corals. Any fees charged is normal for any lab or facility that breeds/grows specimens. Such fees are neccessary to recoup the costs of breeding / care and shipment.

Even if this plan is reasonable, the FKNMS had not (and likely would not have) approved any selling of fragments grown from these corals. Besides that, once the corals were contaminated, how could they be used as "lab rat corals?"

The corals Eric has/had at his home were hitch hikers obtained from aquacultured live rock and had nothing to do with the corals in question.

Not that I think this is an important point, but how do you know this?

All of which, by the way, were returned when requested he do so.

As is required by law. But I think you're missing just what a big deal it is to have the superintendent of the FKNMS recall all corals under a permit. It's not something they do all that often.

That also is conjecture with what has been put out by Sarah,

What is? I'm not making any claims that aren't obvious from the documents. When it comes to anything else, I'm just posing questions. (btw, it's Sara)

there are phones calls that were made as well as other documents proving that Eric and the "powers to be" had discussed this matter and was resolved.

It was resolved by Mr. Causey demanding that all the corals be returned immediately... and (as might be suggested by the timing of it) with Mr. Borneman no longer being chair of this CDHC project.

The care of the corals were reef savers responsibility.

Nope. When corals are issued to a researcher under a permit for research, the care of those corals is the ultimate responsibility of the permit holder.

While the corals were demanded for return, such a demand only came at the same time that Eric's permit was revoked.

And why was the permit revoked?

When Eric tried to gain access to the corals at reef savers through a court order, the judge denied his request because having his permit revoked also revoked Eric's "ownership" of the corals. One can not reclaim property that one does not own.

You still don't understand that Mr. Borneman NEVER owned those corals. They are, were, and always will be, the property of the American people.

The corals were kept in isolated systems with no pacific corals in the facility that I am aware of.

This is just absolutely and obviously not true. Even in the IMAC lecture and RK article, it clearly states that Indo-Pacific corals were at the same facility. This facility did not have separate rooms. And in fact, many of the tanks were "stacked" over each other (see pictures in the Borneman 2004 IMAC lecture available on DVD).

The only truth to this statement, was that after the corals had been collected from reef savers, no one could say without a doubt that they were not contaminated, so they played it safe and ASSUMED they were.

Dennis Tagrin, who was in regular communication with both Mr. Borneman and Mr. Koch during the project, informed both me and Steven Pro in an email that they all knew the corals were likely contaminated.

And for the umpteenth time, ANY AND ALL information provided by Sarah, is suspect, incomplete, and can do nothing but raise accusations based on it.

And we should trust you instead, because... ? I've provided legally obtained government documents. What do you have?