Cow Springs

[DogDiver]

Defination of Major vs Minor Restriction: Minor Restriction is when your buddy is stuck.....
Major Restriction is when your stuck....

[Gdiver]

[diveconjeff]

Defination of Major vs Minor Restriction: Minor Restriction is when your buddy is stuck.....
Major Restriction is when your stuck....

Unless your buddy is stuck such that they are blocking your exit....


Jeff
Diveconjeff@yahoo.com

[TONY CHANEY]

Since the CDS is all about protecting the caves, I can't imagine they would ever consider removing the 100-dive rule from Cow.

Unless everyone quit paying for membership.

[fno]

Hello all, as the CDS director responsible for the properties and commitee chair of the Combined Property Management Plan Commitee I have looked into the 100 dive requirement for diving at Cow Springs. To clarify things, the 100 dive requirement was suggested by the CPMPC and incorporated into the management plan by the commitee and approved by the CDS board of directors. At the time, there was a lot of sentiment for increased conservation due to vandalism and evidence of negilgent technique by some divers at Cow and other sites. The commitee, for lack of a better metric, chose the Abe Davis or equivalent as the requirement. It was also mentioned as being consistent with other sites requirements. The Board originally approved the plan as submitted by me and in fact has voted on it since then with other unrelated wording changes, so there is no doubt that it may have been a misunderstanding. The biggest error in all of this is that I failed to publicize the changes and did not make a formal request to the Property Manager (Cathy Lesh) It was my responsibility as the Director responsible for the properties and the fault is mine for this. For the time being, I am not going to ask Cathy to do anything differently until this issue is addressed by the CDS board including time for CDS membership to comment.

As with all the policies adopted by the NSS-CDS Board, change is both possible and expected in order to best fulfill the mission of the NSS-CDS constitution and the wishes of the membership. While researching this issue, I have been also talking with others concerned about all the aspects (conservation, safety, accessibility) of a sensible plan for Cow Springs. I am also available to discusss this with anyone during normal hours via my cell phone (508-740-7663) or by email (see the CDS website) In addition to this, I am going to start a separate thread that will include a poll with several options for changing the access policy (or leave it be) I would especially like to hear from current NSS-CDS members as their interests are the ones that we (I) ultmately have to respond to. Others can and should comment as well, but know beforehand that only civil discussion and comments will be regarded. In other words, I would prefer to hear the A$$Hats!!! and similar comments firsthand on the phone.....

Best Regards and Safe Diving, Frank Ohidy, NSS-CDS Director.