I'm still so pissed I could spit.
I was up early on Wednesday, and saw the early broadcast. Channel 2 posted that broadcast on their site here:
http://cbs2.com/local/discarded.toil...2.1715784.html in the right nav bar.
The late broadcast (11:00 AM News) soon replaced the original broadcast - as now they had footage of the UC Davis chick that's running this program, interviews with fisherman, divers, etc.
Curiously edited out of the later broadcast (as well as the link above) but still in the story I posted on Dive Matrix is the Fiber Optic cable connection, as well as the "consideration for MLPA status" angle.
This thing was a $30,000 state-funded media stunt for this organization. Its removing harmless, inert porcelain, causing much unnecessary damage to the reef - a reef nobody dives on (so its hardly "an eyesore") for the sole purpose of getting attention to a problem completely unrelated to the toilets.
Toilets get you in the news. If it were cinder blocks down there, nobody would say boo.
With absolutely no agenda apart from I don't feel like cross posting a bunch of stuff I wrote elsewhere, I would encourage you, if you're interested, to click over to Dive Matrix (
http://www.divematrix.com/showthread...etting-removed) and read more about this. We have PhD Marine Biologists, divers, fisherman and the founder of the local S2R organization carrying on a very civil (although I'm a bit warm) conversation about this very issue.
I have transposed and posted most of the audio from the original 6:00 AM broadcast, as well as posted links to the organization responsible for this, a news story about the event, etc.
As you look through this, their motives do not become transparent (I still have no idea why they're doing this) but their intent is easy to spot. They want coverage.
They are planning something else, folks - and I'm putting a nickle on the table its anti-Fisherman.
This group does fine work. Their mission of removing derelict fishing gear saves marine lives and reduces danger for divers in many places. I'm all for it. They're very good at this and they have been.
Why they're branching out to SoCal (first time) and why they're branching out to non-abandoned fishing gear (also first time) to grab harmless Toilets off Malibu (no marine mammals are getting hurt by growth-encrusted toilets on a reef nobody will ever dive) using funding established to mitigate impacts to the sea floor from a recent fiber-optic cable installation project off the Southern California coast are the questions we need to be asking of this organization.
-Ken