The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USCOE) is by law the administrator and decision maker of the recovery of the Santa Margarita, a process governed by laws relating to historic preservation, the environment, fisheries and maritime safety, to name just a few. The USCOE is advised in its deliberations by a number of federal, commonwealth and local government agencies. In May 1996, IOTA Partners was issued a USCOE Permit through December 2001. In that year the Permit was extended through 2004. The Permit contained a number of Conditions relating to environmental protection, including:

"1. To the extent practicable, you must avoid live corals and benthic organisms during placement of all structures.

2. To the extent practicable, you must relocate by hand all live coral and other benthic macro-invertebrates which will be directly impacted....

3. You shall implement a monitoring program during this project to assess the impacts of the salvage work on adjacent coral colonies.

4. You must comply with all conditions and requirements of the Section 401 Water Quality Certification for the project.

5. You must temporarily suspend work in the water should turbidity levels increase substantially. In addition, you shall suspend excavations during the summer full moon coral spawning periods of both hard and soft corals."

Matt Jewett collecting water sample.

IOTA has complied with the above requirements at all times. In keeping with Condition number 3 (above), for example, IOTA takes water samples twice per day at locations both up current and down current from the excavation. The samples are analyzed daily by IOTA using an EPA approved turbidity meter, and the results are reported daily to the CNMI Division of Environmental Quality (DEQ).

Although the turbidity standard IOTA has been required by DEQ to maintain at the excavation site is the same as that for drinking water, IOTA has managed to operate within such stringent requirements, but at considerable additional cost to the project.

The continuing low turbidity at the Santa Margarita excavation, as measured both up and down current, can be largely attributed to IOTA’s development of a silt trap, which contains the plume from the dredges, and allows the silt to settle out of suspension within the trap, rather than being taken by the current and settling onto live coral elsewhere along the reef front. By comparison, turbidity from natural causes is much higher, wider spread, and have longer duration (at least nine months per year, every year for thousands of years). For example, during the several days following high surf from summer storms or distant typhoons, the turbidity (and visibility) at the site remain far higher from natural causes than from any dredging activity of IOTA Partners.

Based upon facts–the daily turbidity measures at places, times, and depths dictated by the CNMI DEQ–there is no question that IOTA has operated within the Permit requirements, and that the side effects of the operation are minuscule compared to natural events, both periodic (seasonal Trade Winds) and episodic (typhoons and earthquakes).

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