Ban On Photographing Near Gulf Oil Booms

boombaard writes "The day before yesterday CNN's Anderson Cooper reported that, from now on, there is a new rule in effect, which de facto bars photographers from coming within 65 feet of any deployed boom or response vessel around Deepwater Horizon (official announcement). The rule, announced by the US Coast Guard, forbids 'photographers and reporters and anyone else from coming within 65 feet of any response vessel or booms out on the water or on beaches. In order to get closer, you have to get direct permission from the Coast Guard captain of the Port of New Orleans,' while 'violators could face a fine of $40,000 and Class D felony charges. What's even more extraordinary is that the Coast Guard tried to make the exclusion zone 300 feet, before scaling it back to 65 feet.'" Read below for the Coast Guard's statement on the new rule. "The Coast Guard Captain of the Port of New Orleans has delegated authority to the Coast Guard Incident Commander in Houma to allow access to the safety zones placed around all Deepwater Horizon booming operations in Southeast Louisiana. The Coast Guard Incident Commander will ensure the safety of the members and equipment of the response before access is granted. The safety zone has been put in place to prevent vandalism to boom and to protect the members and equipment of the response effort by limiting access to, and through, deployed protective boom."

Comments

Re:So?

[xmundt]

Greetings and Salutations.
          Well, the questions and thoughts that spring to my mind are: Have there been any problems with photographers damaging the booms or causing breaches? While 65 feet may not seem like much, it can easily make it very hard to get clear pictures of the booms as they bob up and down in the ocean waters. THAT makes it harder to keep track of how well they are working to block the oil, or, adsorb the crude and keep it from moving on. Is this the REAL reason for the limit? Also, why would the limit be 300 feet first...then get cut down to 65 feet? That sounds more like spin control than security to me.
            Regards
            dave mundt

Re:So?

[Kreigaffe]

65 feet is not a very large distance. At all. It's less than half the usual 'safe recommended following distance' for highway traffic.

Moving things around on the sea is difficult, and they've already once had a worry about a gas buildup blowing out and had to quickly move a ship (which yanked a pipe etc etc). Having a small buffer zone to allow things to move around in an emergency is only sensible, and any journalist who thinks endangering other people so they can sit on top of the story can just blow it out their ass.

This story is just sensationalism feeding off public displeasure with anyone involved with this mess.. which is disappointing. While there are people who deserve to be hated for what has happened, if you're just automatically going to shit on ANYONE involved with trying to fix the problem, why the hell would anyone want to get involved with that? blaaaah.

Re:So?

[Runaway1956]

Uhhhh - I really don't see a problem. No photographers within 65 feet. Let's think a moment. You want a shot of a boat or a boom, that is, what, 50 feet long? Since any professional photographer has zoom lenses (whether optical or digital zoom, it hardly matters) he can be anywhere within 1/2 mile to get spectacular shots. I can show you a great shot of the ship I served on, shot from ~ 5 miles out - you can see that both the mount 52 deck gun and the missile launcher is tracking the helicopter that took the shot. (It was in a war zone, we tracked EVERYTHING, didn't matter if it claimed to be friendly)

The coast guard doesn't want any one climbing on the booms, or sabotaging them, they don't want to be rescuing some fool who hurts himself. Stay 65 feet away, take all the pics you want. Seems reasonable to me. The original 300 feet wasn't unreasonable, either. 300 feet is terribly close to any working vessel at sea. The rules of the road, observed around the world, dictate that you stay clear of working vessels and/or ships underway.