wow...its illegal to dig in the sand in florida....

[ORDagnabbit]

News Station down in florida has this report....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIWI_KVGxA4

scary times...

[neverforget]

1. Welcome to the Corporate States of America

Digging is bad for your health. You could find oil and that makes everyone look bad.

[Desertrose]

2. That's crazy! Is this new?

I can't imagine they've always been policing the beach to stop sand castles from being built.

What next...I hate to think.

[Junkdrawer]

3. If you watch the video, it's extremely clear that it's exposing the presence of oil that's illegal..

They went after the press credentials first, then they prohibited digging.

Don't miss Dahr Jamail's coverage of the ongoing disaster:

http://dahrjamailiraq.com/evidence-mounts-of-bp-spraying-toxic-dispersants

[Cetacea]

37. Thanks for the link. n/t

[cleanhippie]

49. What. The. Fuck.

We no longer control out government..at all.

[ZombieHorde]

4. Extremely disturbing. nt

[Ruby the Liberal]

5. You can't even film in a national park unless you have a press pass?

Um, since when?

I hope the national media picks up on this. Something tells me I will have a LONG wait though.

This is insane.

[reggie the dog]

30. Shit, i have a video I took in Yosemite National Park this summer

damn it I committed a federal crime and then posted it on the net, gonna delete that vid right now, are the photos i took of the national parks legal or should i delete all my photos of yellowstone, glacier, rocky mountain, yosemite etc????

[AnArmyVeteran]

46. I'm sorry to inform you but I just reported you to Homeland Security.

You are just too much of a threat to the Corporate States of America.

:sarcasm:

[truebrit71]

43. Whoops...I filmed my ass off this past summer in Yellowstone..

...

[valerief]

6. Pensacola. Frightening shit. nt

[The Backlash Cometh]

7. And you all are surprised by what?

What have some of us been telling you about Florida for years?

Government is corrupted because the chamber and private interest have taken over.

[ret5hd]

8. So grow a pair...

film being arrested after digging up some oil, get your employer to bail you out, then air it all.

[proud2BlibKansan]

9. Went camping in Florida one time. Will never do that again.

We had to sign a contract that was so long it was on 8 1/2 by 14" paper. We had to agree not to disturb "any vegetation living or dead". That means we couldn't walk on leaves. And who knows what dead vegetation lies beneath the sand on that beach?

And they meant it. A park ranger came by regularly to make sure we weren't disturbing any dead vegetation.

We stayed there one night and left. Just insane.

[obxhead]

12. Where were you staying at?

I know at the Outer Banks in NC it against the law to disturb the dunes and vegetation growing on them. It's in place to protect the beaches and I personally support the law.

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. Close to St Augustine

I didn't mean to imply we wanted to destroy the beach. We just thought the rules were ridiculous. How do you avoid disturbing dead vegetation? LOL

[obxhead]

14. Yeah they can be a little strict at times.

I find that many of these really strict laws come from decades of abuse by many that don't care about the beaches though.

Many of Florida's beaches for instance used to allow you to bring a dog onto the beach with you. That's no longer the case due to irresponsible owners.

On the OBX you were able to camp for free overnight on the beaches. That has been outlawed because of people destroying dunes and not picking up their trash.

Overall I find the laws to be annoying, but they only came to be because a few bad apples had to ruin it for the rest of us. It's a really sad thing all in all.

[reggie the dog]

32. such a law would make camping illegal in most of wisconisn

what with all the leaves and pine needles on the ground, wherever you walk you disturb something

[proud2BlibKansan]

35. Same thing here

We'd never be able to camp anywhere if we weren't allowed to disturb dead vegetation.

[Dappleganger]

19. It's difficult for tourists (and certain redneck locals) to understand this...

all they see are giant hills of sand and grass everywhere. They have no idea how easily it is destroyed and how necessary those environments are.

[obxhead]

23. How easily destroyed and how long the recovery

process can take, if it even can.

[Obamanaut]

53. After years of abuse by dune buggies, ATVs, and dirt bikes running

willy-nilly amongst the dunes, along with people plucking out great clumps of sea oats for transplanting/dying in their gardens I think these limits are a good thing.

[Dappleganger]

18. St. Augustine is serious about protecting their wildlife.

It has been long-abused and we're making up for lost time. There are still plenty of places for you to camp and drive on the beach, but if you're anywhere near turtle nests or certain critters there's going to be a strong degree of control.

BTW, camping in this state is nothing short of awesome from mid-October through early April.

[proud2BlibKansan]

34. They're also very serious about protecting their dead vegetation

:)

[intheflow]

27. I had a similar experience in a Florida park.

I was visiting my friend in Pensacola, she had to work, so I drove to a state park. I parked my car and walked around. There was no one there, just me and my dog. But this ranger showed up and started asking me all these suspicious questions, as if I were some drug runner or something, instead of a middle-aged white woman tourist with my camera. He eventually left, but when I pulled out of the parking lot a little later he was waiting for me and followed me out of the park. Creepy.

[proud2BlibKansan]

36. We will never go back

Their stupid rules and overbearing rangers ran us off. We ended up driving to another state to complete our vacation. We had intended on spending a week there on that beach. We stayed one night.

And we have not been back to Florida since.

Way to attract tourists and their dollars! Sure the beaches were beautiful. But there are beautiful beaches in lots of other states.

[Dappleganger]

41. Well that it is too bad...

there's some awesome places to camp here in FL with plenty of places to run around for kids. The state parks here are very natural and well protected but we get to fish while looking for manatees...can't beat that in any other state!

Two of our favorite places:

De Leon Springs State Park: http://www.floridastateparks.org/deleonsprings/default.cfm

Homosassa Springs State Park: http://floridastateparks.org/homosassasprings/default.cfm

[Obamanaut]

54. OK. nt

[obxhead]

10. They paid good money to bury all that oil. I wouldn't expect anything

less.

[LWolf]

11. Big brother is watching to make sure no sand castles are built.

Definitely no sand-sculpting allowed.

[AnArmyVeteran]

47. Wow, that looks real.

[dixiegrrrrl]

15. Wanna send e-mail to Pensacola chamber of Commerce President? Here:

Pensacola Area Chamber of Commerce

Contact: MS. Evon Emerson, President
117 W. Garden Street
Pensacola, FL 32501
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
www.pensacolachamber.com
Email: [e-mail]

I am going to email them telling them why I do not want to risk my guests being hassled like that.


Scary how they got all the branches of the Gestapo on the same page.

the (BP?) guy first acting belligerent then the cop shows up and he was pretty rigid in .
Will all the crime in Pensacola, they can afford to park police cars along the beach?

Guess we will be telling our visiting friends to avoid any of the beaches, esp. Pensacola.
glad to know the State of Fla. can afford to lose the tourist dollars. ( didja notice how empty the beach was??)

[-..__...]

16. Lot of fail in this thread.

Why so many poster coming down on FL authorities when the no digging deeper than 6" is a federal ruling (Dept of the Interior).

[Dappleganger]

20. +10000

I'm just surprised there are so few who even try to understand the environmental impact of this behavior on the beaches.

BTW, I grew up in VA Beach/Norfolk and while they had a ton of tourists the locals treated their beaches like a fucking ashtray. FL beaches were a complete surprise to me when we moved down here.

[-..__...]

25. Some of the national sea shores in MA/New England...

it's illegal to even walk on the dunes (nesting plovers and other shore birds, trampling/disturbing vegetation, etc).

I have no knowledge of how deep and/or where sea turtles lay/bury their eggs... but it wouldn't be cool to unearth their nest, even if accidentally.

It wouldn't surprise me if FL beaches are more troublesome than other state or national beaches because of 'diggers' with metal detectors searching for trinkets and treasure.

And even if that's true or not, all it takes is a few assholes not filling in the holes they create for others to step in.

Would kind'a suck and ruin a perfectly nice beach vacation by inadvertently stepping in a hole and spraining your ankle.

[Ikonoklast]

22. Why can't I dig at, say, Gettysburg?

Same reason.

Unless granted specific permission to do so by the Dept. of the Interior, as those workers for BP had, you will get yourself arrested trying to dig in a National Park.

[Cetacea]

39. Was their a huge oil disaster there?

You may recall that reporters weren't allowed to videotape dying animals in the gulf and many areas were off limits to media and scientists. The question, "are you digging for oil products" was a bit odd, no?

[deaniac21]

52. On July 4, 1863, they were looking for all the diggers they could find.

[Fla_Democrat]

24. Simple, really

:smoke:

[ManiacJoe]

26. Now we are getting somewhere!

Anyone have a link to the actual rule/law?

[Cetacea]

38. Considering the situation, the fail isn't in the thread.

It's in your head. (j/k)

Seriously. The man asks the reporter, "Are you digging for oil products?" Why would he even ask that question?

[-..__...]

45. Because digging for oil products is allowed.

When asked the question, the reporter was being evasive and was warned.

The problem is that presently even BP/clean-up crews are allowed to dig, but only to a depth of 6".

In order to dig any deeper, they need a waiver from the Department of the Interior/National Park Service.

And digging deeper than 6 inches to clean BP's oil out of the sand on Escambia County beaches won't happened until BP gets a federal waiver from the Department of Interior, Melick said.

"It's an archaeological issue," Melick said.

The cleanup might disturb cultural sites protected by the national historic preservation act, he said.


Along the way, he was pointed to the Department of Environmental Protection and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Both agencies denied it was them. And Lee was told nesting sea turtles were the reason the beach could not be cleaned deeper.


But the discovery of who and why is stopping the deeper cleaning does not get the Island Authority any closer to getting oil buried 6 inches and deeper cleaned up on the 8.1 miles of beach it manages. Lee said oil has been found as deep as 2 feet in some places.

"Once Buck figured out it's a cultural resource issue, it all starts to make some sense," said Al Browder of Jacksonville-based Olsen Associates, the coastal engineer firm for the beach. "At least now we know which direction to go."

That direction is to prove to BP that the beach has been engineered, or renourished. This exempts the beach from the federal act, Lee said.

On Friday afternoon, Browder sent documents with archaeological surveys to a firm hired by BP to evaluate cultural resources.

The documents prove there are no shipwrecks of historical significance on Pensacola Beach or Perdido Key, he said.

http://www.pnj.com/article/20100904/NEWS01/9040316/Fed-rules-limit-dig-for-oil-on-beach


No... the fail isn't in my head, it's with those posters that hastily blamed FL authorities/regulations for the 'no digging holes on the beach restriction'.

[Riftaxe]

17. Can't cut down in the trees

in the National Parks either, fascist bastards! :sarcasm:

Very misleading title.

[Dappleganger]

21. +10000

And welcome to DU!

:hi:

[SoCalDem]

31. or chip off a piece of petrified wood for your very own either

:)

rules are for everyone.. and extrapolated , they can seem weird, but every rule probably had its beginning in some tourist doing something stupid or selfish

[babydollhead]

28. kick

[reggie the dog]

29. yet another crime i have let my 2 year old committ

are the going to have my kid taken away from me because i let my 2 year old build a sand castle near Punta Gorda, FL?????? so we need rulers to measure the 6 inches we can dig in national parks and we cant dig at all on florida beaches, then why in the hell do so many stores by the beach sell the little pail and shovel combos for the kids???? are they trying to get us all busted???

[Mariana]

40. Contributing the the deliquency of a minor

is a pretty serious crime. All those sellers of pail and shovel combos for the kids could be in some deep doo-doo, I guess, for distributing digging paraphernalia to children. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, you know.

I hope you don't let your kid pick up pretty bird feathers off the ground, and take them home as souvenirs. Look it up.

[mfcorey1]

33. Florida is always at the center of crazy things. n/t

[CoffeeCat]

42. I challenge anyone to find ONE instance...

...where any authority in Florida, told a tourist or anyone else that it
was illegal to dig six inches in the sand to build a sand castle.

It's amazing how people rationalize this corporate, Fascist monster that is
our government.

We're supposed to believe that it's about protecting the environment, when that
same government looked the other way when BP was allowed to dump as much Corexit
into the Gulf as it wanted--despite the EPA telling them to stop?

Poisoning the Gulf is just fine--but building a sand castle will get you threatened
with arrest?

It's not about the environment or protecting people. It's about protecting BP and
helping them cover up the extent of the damage.

[cheneyschernobyl]

44. This kind of nonsense

is exactly why I moved from Pensacola last year. There was one part of the dialogue in that clip that bothered me (paraphrasing below):

Park Ranger: yes, this is a public beach...but you can't dig
Reporter: why not?
Park Ranger: this is a national park

How, within 10 seconds, can any location change from a public beach to a national park? I'm confused!

On a different note, I think the beach/beaches in question are located not in Pensacola, but somewhere between Pensacola Beach/Gulf Breeze and Navarre...it's not Pensacola. Although only a local (past or present) would immediately catch that.

[cdsilv]

50. Gulf Islands National Seashore.....n/t

[newtothegame]

48. Loving the change 2 years later. nt

[onenote]

51. I'm glad that they stopped these yahoos from digging

Unrestricted digging on the beaches of Flordia and other coastal areas poses a host of environmental concerns, not the least of which is potential damage to the nesting sites of endangered sea turtles.

From some of the comments on this thread, it would appear that there are a number of folks that are philosophically in line with rush limbaugh, who famously bitched about government rules that limit his ability to shine lights on his beachfront property because of its potentially adverse impact on the migration of newly hatched turtles.