A start for a Underwater Cave Conservation Booklet

[Cindy]

Please excuse if I repeat myself.
Things that can be done.
1 Educational signs at dive sites. Educational kiosk at parks near or part of dive sites. More public education.
2 The agencies can put on outreach workshops. (We put a one day public outreach here in Alachua. It cost $100 for the room. We did handouts around the city. We had some great speakers who were thrilled to get to talk ie the State Geologist. Pete Butt talking about dye tracings. Annette Long talking about parking lot run off. Local activist and friend talking about the local laws. The state environmental public outreach director who wrote most of the best management practice laws. So many of those people are just excited to share their information.
We ignore those great resources so much.)
3 Increase Public awareness at state parks and our dive sites. We have been part of a joint partnership with these clean ups. Brain Williams has and is doing a great job on teaching people. All you have to do to find out who some of these people are is look at the state agency website. Each state has an EPA, Public information department. Florida has a state Springs education group. Wes and Jim Stevenson are a part of it.
4. A team or group that is knowledgeable in cave repairs and management who can be contacted when a cave is damaged and either fix it or give information on how it should be done.
5 build a bridge or cross educations to groups like Save our Suannee, the Nature Conservancy, Alachua forever, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, etc. The Sierra club people showed up with experts in Nitrates and the health affect on people when we were working to protect Alachua Sink. Too often these organizations forget we cave divers are here. We can be a great resource for each other.


Skip, on cow crap cave,
To find out who really owns land. All you have to do is get on the site for land taxes and it will tell you. If it's the state then get online and find out who is the man in charge of the sales and management of that area. Set up a meeting. If it's a developer just do the same. Your lucky if it's a developer because he has to pull several permits before he can develop the area. Each step will have notifications and meeting where the public can object and give testimony why a permit should not be allowed. Most of them buy land with the option that if one permit can't go through the sale doesn't go through. Lots of wiggle room there. Water management, county permits, city permits, DEP permits. All kinds of ways to have a go at stopping or at the very least raising the awareness that a valuable resource is about to be lost. If you get the word out and they still want the development then at least you have given people the information so they can make an informed decision.

[Arnold Mesiser]

Are pamphlets like this freely available to people in Florida and Tennessee ?

http://www.caveconservancyofvirginia...97_booklet.pdf

[Cindy]

Are pamphlets like this freely available to people in Florida and Tennessee ?

http://www.caveconservancyofvirginia...97_booklet.pdf

Actually they do. It is available here. And it's online and pretty:
http://www.floridasprings.org/
You can also go to:http://www.dep.state.fl.us/secretary/ed/
or http://www.dep.state.fl.us/geology/default.htm
I can bet that Tenn. has a page like it also. They have one or two caves up there.

We have plenty of info, it's just getting people to get into it, use it and help get the community vested in seeing caves and sinks as an opportunity instead of a hazard.

[skip]

Cindy, MTSU is the official property owner as of now. Usually how it works around here is someone offers to buy it, gets all the permit stuff out of the way, or agrees to buy it pending no problems with planned use. Sale to X developer announced, but there is no meetings about use or what is going to happen to the land, no more than if I bought a house. The land has already been designated prime housing/apartment real estate - it's where all the major stores have recently built a huge new shopping, where the future of building in the city is headed, where it's already built up around it leaving the small dairy farm like an oasis in housing and mall desert. I'm pretty sure that if and when it's sold there will be a hearing or two, but this is not some country acreage, it's already been zoned by the city and it's right in town and "they" already know exactly what will become of it. They just haven't told anyone yet.

And although Tennessee has many organizations, state and private, doing water quality work, conservation, etc., there are no brochures about springs, groundwater, aquifers, what farmers, landowners can do, etc. If it's your land, you do what you want. We are still in the dark ages here.

-skip

[Cindy]

Skip: start here. http://www.tennessee.gov/environment/
Housing developments are just like stores. They have a ruling body. Either at the county or City level. It's probably agricultural land now. They will have to change the zoneing. It takes a lot of work to find out about meeting and community legal boards but it will be worth it if you can at least protect the cave. You will not be able to stop development but you might either get the developer to donate the sink or at least stay away from it. Sometimes being a squeaky wheel get you farther than anything. Calling the local papers will help..This isn't the type of thing you can just say Oh Well..There isn't going to be one person you can contact. Get someone to help you.