WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:12.910 --> 00:00:15.200 Hello, my name is G.P. Schmahl. 00:00:15.200 --> 00:00:19.930 I'm with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA and I'm the superintendent 00:00:19.930 --> 00:00:23.280 of the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary. 00:00:23.280 --> 00:00:27.600 The Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary is a marine protected area, something very 00:00:27.600 --> 00:00:32.730 similar to a national park, except out in the water. 00:00:32.730 --> 00:00:37.030 Most people aren't aware that a lot of these areas even exist, but the Flower Garden Banks 00:00:37.030 --> 00:00:42.470 National Marine Sanctuary protects an incredibly healthy and incredibly important coral reef 00:00:42.470 --> 00:00:48.760 ecosystem located about 100 miles offshore of the coast of Texas and Louisiana. 00:00:48.760 --> 00:00:55.399 It's about 56 square miles in size and it protects 3 individual bank features: the East 00:00:55.399 --> 00:01:00.370 Flower Garden Bank, West Flower Garden Bank, and another feature called Stetson Bank. 00:01:00.370 --> 00:01:07.520 All of these areas were recognized early on as being very important, providing critical 00:01:07.520 --> 00:01:14.850 habitat for a variety of biological communities and fish species of recreational and commercial 00:01:14.850 --> 00:01:15.850 importance. 00:01:15.850 --> 00:01:19.090 And, in 1992, it was designated as a national marine sanctuary. 00:01:19.090 --> 00:01:24.130 It's one of a system of 14 national marine sanctuaries and marine national monuments 00:01:24.130 --> 00:01:27.729 that are in the waters of the United States. 00:01:27.729 --> 00:01:33.330 We have just recently proposed an expansion of the Flower Garden Banks National Marine 00:01:33.330 --> 00:01:39.000 Sanctuary, and we feel it's important and justified because even though these areas 00:01:39.000 --> 00:01:47.451 have been protected for quite a while now, they are only 3 of dozens of reefs, banks 00:01:47.451 --> 00:01:51.110 and other features in the northern Gulf of Mexico. 00:01:51.110 --> 00:01:59.630 Over the last 30 years or so there's been quite a bit of research, exploration, discovery 00:01:59.630 --> 00:02:06.920 and characterization of many of these features that have reinforced the importance of them 00:02:06.920 --> 00:02:12.000 and also suggested that they are in need of additional protection and management. 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:18.400 I often get the question of “What exactly is a national marine sanctuary?” 00:02:18.400 --> 00:02:25.420 Many people, because of the name sanctuary, it sort of implies that no activities at all 00:02:25.420 --> 00:02:28.660 can happen within those areas. 00:02:28.660 --> 00:02:33.780 Even thought that is maybe what the common use of the word “sanctuary” is, a national 00:02:33.780 --> 00:02:41.570 marine sanctuary actually is set up to allow for a variety of uses and activities that 00:02:41.570 --> 00:02:48.490 can occur as long as they are compatible with primary objective of protecting the resources 00:02:48.490 --> 00:02:49.490 that are out there. 00:02:49.490 --> 00:02:54.220 So, for example, at the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary one of the 00:02:54.220 --> 00:02:57.360 primary concerns was the impact of anchoring. 00:02:57.360 --> 00:03:02.560 So, anchoring is prohibited within the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary. 00:03:02.560 --> 00:03:04.830 And, that's for obvious reasons. 00:03:04.830 --> 00:03:12.580 The sensitive coral communities are very subject to injury from dropping anchors. 00:03:12.580 --> 00:03:16.430 But, what the sanctuary does, in the case of the Flower Garden Banks, is to provide 00:03:16.430 --> 00:03:17.819 for mooring buoys. 00:03:17.819 --> 00:03:22.300 We've installed a number of mooring buoys out at the coral reef at the Flower Gardens 00:03:22.300 --> 00:03:27.819 to allow people to access the area, to moor up to these buoys, so that they don't have 00:03:27.819 --> 00:03:31.840 to drop their anchor in order to access the area. 00:03:31.840 --> 00:03:34.300 They go out there commonly to scuba dive. 00:03:34.300 --> 00:03:39.341 It is becoming a very popular scuba diving destination because it's an area where you 00:03:39.341 --> 00:03:46.260 can not only see healthy corals, but you can have a good chance of seeing some large animals 00:03:46.260 --> 00:03:52.230 like manta rays, whale sharks, and several species of sea turtles. 00:03:52.230 --> 00:03:59.520 Scuba diving is fine, but taking things, again, is not, so you can take pictures, but you 00:03:59.520 --> 00:04:08.630 are prohibited from taking any kind of animals of any sort, shells, invertebrates, corals, 00:04:08.630 --> 00:04:10.380 anything like that. 00:04:10.380 --> 00:04:14.690 People are sometimes surprised to learn that we allow fishing within the national 00:04:14.690 --> 00:04:19.269 marine sanctuary, at the Flower Garden Banks, but by hook and line fishing only. 00:04:19.269 --> 00:04:26.660 Certain types of fishing gear can cause significant injury, again, to the coral reefs and sensitive 00:04:26.660 --> 00:04:33.930 biological communities: things such as trawling or putting traps or bottom long-lines. 00:04:33.930 --> 00:04:39.950 Those types of fishing activities are prohibited within the sanctuary, and spearfishing is 00:04:39.950 --> 00:04:41.510 prohibited as well. 00:04:41.510 --> 00:04:47.990 But, hook and line fishing, both commercial and recreational, is allowed in the sanctuary. 00:04:47.990 --> 00:04:53.780 We even allow for certain other types of more industrial activity. 00:04:53.780 --> 00:05:00.070 As you know, this part of the Gulf of Mexico is one of the most heavily developed areas 00:05:00.070 --> 00:05:06.770 for offshore oil and gas exploration, development and production in the world. 00:05:06.770 --> 00:05:15.870 We have set up our regulations such that even certain oil and gas activities can occur inside 00:05:15.870 --> 00:05:20.900 the national marine sanctuary, again, as long as it's set back away from the sensitive communities 00:05:20.900 --> 00:05:30.220 and as long as other types of their activities, such as discharge, are restricted or modified. 00:05:30.220 --> 00:05:37.669 So, the sanctuary provides a level of protection, but it does not prohibit all uses, 00:05:37.669 --> 00:05:43.020 and, in fact, we encourage and want people to see and enjoy the resources that are out 00:05:43.020 --> 00:05:49.650 there and why these areas were designated as national marine sanctuaries to begin with. 00:05:49.650 --> 00:05:58.360 In June of this year, 2016, NOAA put forward a proposal to expand the sanctuary, 00:05:58.360 --> 00:06:06.441 released a Draft Environmental Impact Statement, and we have suggested a range of 5 alternatives 00:06:06.441 --> 00:06:11.530 that should be considered in this expansion, and we have selected one of those alternatives 00:06:11.530 --> 00:06:14.610 as what we refer to as our Preferred Alternative. 00:06:14.610 --> 00:06:18.530 Here we have a map of the northern Gulf of Mexico. 00:06:18.530 --> 00:06:25.850 You can see here in this inset, the area of Texas, Louisiana. 00:06:25.850 --> 00:06:29.350 Houston is located here--New Orleans over here. 00:06:29.350 --> 00:06:33.710 Galveston, TX, where our offices are, is located just about here. 00:06:33.710 --> 00:06:41.790 If you travel directly south of the state line between Texas and Louisiana, 100 miles 00:06:41.790 --> 00:06:47.010 offshore, you will eventually intersect the two areas that are known as the Flower Garden 00:06:47.010 --> 00:06:49.150 Banks. 00:06:49.150 --> 00:06:56.930 They are shown here in yellow, and the smaller area, up to the left, known as Stetson Bank. 00:06:56.930 --> 00:07:04.260 In our range of alternatives for expansion we have included, essentially, a no-action 00:07:04.260 --> 00:07:06.759 alternative, which means that we would not expand. 00:07:06.759 --> 00:07:13.620 We would just contain the same areas that are already existing in the national marine 00:07:13.620 --> 00:07:14.620 sanctuary. 00:07:14.620 --> 00:07:20.850 The lighter blue color is relatively shallow as you move from the coastline of Texas and 00:07:20.850 --> 00:07:25.169 Louisiana; it drops gradually off, to an area about 100 miles offshore. 00:07:25.169 --> 00:07:30.729 Then it starts to drop very quickly into the deeper waters of the Gulf of Mexico. 00:07:30.729 --> 00:07:35.110 So that's essentially our first alternative, to keep things as they are. 00:07:35.110 --> 00:07:43.350 Our second alternative would add 9 additional reefs and banks in the vicinity of the Flower 00:07:43.350 --> 00:07:44.350 Garden Banks. 00:07:44.350 --> 00:07:51.081 Again, for orientation, these two areas here are the existing East and West Flower Garden 00:07:51.081 --> 00:07:52.190 Bank. 00:07:52.190 --> 00:08:00.669 You'll notice that the East Flower Garden Bank, here, has been enlarged quite a lot 00:08:00.669 --> 00:08:07.720 in this alternative because of a very unique reef feature that occurs to the west of this 00:08:07.720 --> 00:08:09.690 particular feature. 00:08:09.690 --> 00:08:14.710 It would also include 8 additional banks going to the east. 00:08:14.710 --> 00:08:23.210 And they vary slightly, in the way they have developed, and the types of biological communities 00:08:23.210 --> 00:08:27.110 that exist there, but in lots of ways they are very similar too. 00:08:27.110 --> 00:08:33.330 These are coral communities, but they are different than the types of shallow water 00:08:33.330 --> 00:08:41.250 coral reefs that people might be familiar with in the Florida Keys, or in shallow areas 00:08:41.250 --> 00:08:42.250 of the Caribbean. 00:08:42.250 --> 00:08:47.800 But they are no less important than these shallow areas, but they have different types 00:08:47.800 --> 00:08:50.529 of coral communities that exist there. 00:08:50.529 --> 00:08:57.560 We took that suggestion and built on it to come up with Alternative 3, which we 00:08:57.560 --> 00:09:02.939 actually have identified as our Preferred Alternative. 00:09:02.939 --> 00:09:08.640 You can see here that in addition to the 9 banks that were identified in Alternative 00:09:08.640 --> 00:09:15.309 2, there are 6 additional features that also have been added for this alternative. 00:09:15.309 --> 00:09:23.459 This, we believe, would provide a level of protection throughout this range, along the 00:09:23.459 --> 00:09:27.519 edge of the continental shelf in this part of the Gulf of Mexico, that would protect 00:09:27.519 --> 00:09:34.999 these areas for generations to come from a variety of potential impacts, mostly related 00:09:34.999 --> 00:09:39.119 to activities that may disturb the sea floor. 00:09:39.119 --> 00:09:44.579 Anchoring is one of those major impacts. 00:09:44.579 --> 00:09:49.180 As you can imagine, there is a lot of vessel traffic in this region: huge ships that are 00:09:49.180 --> 00:09:55.000 passing back and forth every day going in and out of the Port of Houston, the Port of 00:09:55.000 --> 00:10:02.180 New Orleans, and other areas in the Gulf of Mexico and throughout the gulf region. 00:10:02.180 --> 00:10:06.220 Some of those ships have been known to come into these shallower areas and drop their 00:10:06.220 --> 00:10:12.870 anchors, for whatever reason, and as you can imagine, if this is a 900- or 1000-foot freighter, 00:10:12.870 --> 00:10:20.350 dropping an anchor can have devastating impacts on a sensitive coral community that exists 00:10:20.350 --> 00:10:21.350 here. 00:10:21.350 --> 00:10:27.559 So, this is the one that NOAA has proposed as its Preferred Alternative. 00:10:27.559 --> 00:10:35.779 For the fourth alternative, we stepped back a bit and took a broader view of the 00:10:35.779 --> 00:10:41.629 geographic area of the northern Gulf of Mexico, and included not just the area off of Texas 00:10:41.629 --> 00:10:49.389 and Louisiana that we have been looking at in Alternatives 1-3, but look at an area that 00:10:49.389 --> 00:10:55.429 goes all the way over to the areas off of Mississippi and Alabama. 00:10:55.429 --> 00:11:01.480 This is because this entire region is very similar in the types of biological communities 00:11:01.480 --> 00:11:05.439 that exist there. 00:11:05.439 --> 00:11:11.360 We term them as it's in the same “bio-region” within all this area, so the communities that 00:11:11.360 --> 00:11:13.619 exist there are very similar. 00:11:13.619 --> 00:11:19.500 These areas off of Mississippi and Alabama are known as the Pinnacles, and they are quite 00:11:19.500 --> 00:11:27.230 well known to people, and especially fishermen that work off there, because they are very 00:11:27.230 --> 00:11:32.550 productive marine habitats, and very important, again, as critical habitat for a variety of 00:11:32.550 --> 00:11:33.550 fish species. 00:11:33.550 --> 00:11:42.680 We also include in this alternative some areas that are identified on what's known 00:11:42.680 --> 00:11:43.970 as the continental slope. 00:11:43.970 --> 00:11:47.620 This is the area that starts dropping off very quickly into the deep parts of the Gulf 00:11:47.620 --> 00:11:52.519 of Mexico, and these are very unique areas, as well. 00:11:52.519 --> 00:11:58.540 These are true deep coral communities, and these corals actually exist in depths where 00:11:58.540 --> 00:12:01.559 hardly any light at all penetrates. 00:12:01.559 --> 00:12:04.360 Some of these areas are in essentially totally dark. 00:12:04.360 --> 00:12:09.699 A lot of people don't realize that there are still quite thriving communities in areas 00:12:09.699 --> 00:12:16.009 of the ocean that receive no light, but these are also very important and very productive. 00:12:16.009 --> 00:12:23.369 Our fifth, and final, alternative builds on this Alternative 4, slightly, by adding 00:12:23.369 --> 00:12:31.809 some additional areas scattered throughout this entire region. 00:12:31.809 --> 00:12:37.889 There are quite a few more deepwater coral areas that have been identified for this alternative, 00:12:37.889 --> 00:12:45.301 as well as some areas in the original area looked at in Alternatives 2 and 3 that were 00:12:45.301 --> 00:12:52.189 not considered high enough quality to be included in the Preferred Alternative. 00:12:52.189 --> 00:12:58.980 And this, I might also mention, includes several underwater shipwreck sites that are historically 00:12:58.980 --> 00:13:04.399 important, such as one that occurs right off of Galveston. 00:13:04.399 --> 00:13:06.579 It's the wreck of the U.S.S. 00:13:06.579 --> 00:13:14.089 Hatteras, which was sunk during the Civil War during the Battle of Galveston in 1863. 00:13:14.089 --> 00:13:21.199 I might also mention that one reason that this area off of Mississippi, Alabama 00:13:21.199 --> 00:13:25.519 and the eastern part of Louisiana is so important is because this is the area that was directly 00:13:25.519 --> 00:13:34.839 affected by the oil spill as a result of the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill incident. 00:13:34.839 --> 00:13:40.490 Some of these areas actually were directly impacted by that oil spill, and we believe 00:13:40.490 --> 00:13:47.689 that by putting them under a protective nature will allow them to recover more quickly and 00:13:47.689 --> 00:13:53.749 provide a method that we can follow the recovery and do research on the recovery from oil spill 00:13:53.749 --> 00:13:54.749 impacts. 00:13:54.749 --> 00:14:00.230 So, that's the range of alternatives that we have put forward. 00:14:00.230 --> 00:14:09.269 We are encouraging and soliciting the public to review this proposal and to give us comments 00:14:09.269 --> 00:14:12.609 and feedback on what you think about it. 00:14:12.609 --> 00:14:18.480 The public comment period is open through August the 19th, and after that point we will 00:14:18.480 --> 00:14:23.999 take the information that we've received from the public comment period and come up with 00:14:23.999 --> 00:14:31.459 a final proposal, that we will hopefully be able to publish within the next 18-24 months.