The Reef Ball Foundation Coral Team has developed rapid response teams using trained volunteers often with the assistance of  local experts to be able to provide an very fast response to ship groundings on coral reefs.  The idea is for those responsible for a grounding incident to respond quickly so that broken corals can be rescued and recovered while they are in relatively good heath.  Waiting for the courts to require mitigation often allows the damaged corals to die leaving the responsible party with even higher mitigation costs.  By being proactive rather than reactive to ship groundings, companies will enjoy a greener image too.   We can work alongside of regulatory agencies to help insure the latest techniques are being employed such as a rapid establishment of a genetic coral bank of the injured corals.  Often, responsible parties cannot be identified and the cost of restoration activities will be borne by the community...in this case, it is much better to do a rapid assessment and recovery which is far less expensive than delayed  restoration which may lack imperiled coral sources.  

WARNING: LAWS VARY FROM COUNTRY TO COUNTRY AND RESPONSIBLE PARTIES TO SHIP GROUNDINGS HAVE A VARIETY OF REPORTING OBLIGATIONS.  BEFORE YOU CONTACT OUR RAPID RESPONSE TEAM, PLEASE FIRST CONTACT ALL REQUIRED REGULATORY AGENCIES TO REPORT THE GROUNDING.  IT IS BEST TO INFORM THE AUTHORITIES THAT YOU ARE WILLING TO BE PROACTIVE AND WOULD LIKE TO SPONSOR A RESPONSE FROM THE REEF BALL FOUNDATION'S IMMEDIATE ASSESSMENT AND RECOVERY TEAM SO THAT AUTHORITIES CAN APPROVE IMMEDIATE ACTIONS AND WORK WITH PROTECTED HARD CORALS DUE TO THE EMERGENCY NATURE OF THE EVENT. (Click here if you are in Florida and find damage to a reef)

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1. Initial Assessment.  Dive teams travel as rapidly as possible to the site and begin the process of photo documenting the damages from a biological perspective.  Team experts develop impacted species inventories and volume estimates and prepare recommended actions report. 
   

2. Genetic Preservation:  Depending on species hardiness, 2-10+ Propagatable fragments are removed from all accessible impacted coral colonies and taken to a protective nearby nursery area to preserve each "coral family." (not just each species).   Larger fragments that are unstable are also stabilized in a nursery for latter re-attachment. 
   
   (Dislodged Brain corals in a temporary protective nursery awaiting re-attachment with hydrostatic cement)
   

3. Adult Coral Colony Re-attachment Phase: Traditional hydrostatic cement techniques (Movie showing how the Hydrostatic/Microsilica  attachment method works) are used to reattached adult colonies that can be rescued in situ.
   

4. Complexity Assessment:  Loss of complexity is assessed and using Coral Reef Restoration methodology a determination is made if complexity needs to be introduced via prefabricated designed artificial reef modules.
   
   (Complexity can be added using custom designed prefabricated reef units such as the ones pictures above.  These units are 4 months old, all attached corals survived well)
   
   

5.  Propagation and Replanting Phase: Fragments from nursery are restored to the original site either planted on modules or grounding exposed rock surfaces. Additional fragments are created as needed to balance species diversity  from any imperiled corals on the site and replanted.

   
   (Coral Propagation Stations are set up in shallow water or in shallow salt water tanks designed for the system)
   
   
   
   (There are many different fragmenting techniques for each type of coral, Experts are used to determine which is used for each coral type).
   
   
   
   (Reef Ball Foundation uses a special 30 second setting pH neutralized cement formulation that allows the fragments to only be out of the water for a very short period of time and is key to proper basing and survival of the fragments.)
   
   
   (Acropora species are very fast growing for hard corals, but they are most susceptible to being injured in the fragmentation process. Many special precautions are taken when working with these delicate corals such as use of sterile gloves, dipping in anti-bacterial solutions, and a 24 hour recovery period before planting. )
   
   
   
   (Special two part epoxies are used to attach propagated fragments with minimal diving time involved.  A trained diver can plant 100 fragments in a single hour)
   
   
   
   (Properly based corals grow out over the plugs and epoxy putty and attached directly to the designed artificial reef module)
   

    

   6.On going Monitoring Program: 

An on-going monitoring program is put into place to determine additional "local tuning" that may be required to insure the site returns to a species and population diversity equilibrium.

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