Unless something fortuitous and unexpected happens in the next week or so, there will be no Niku VIII this year. The TIGHAR membership has responded heroically to our 1937 Fund but our appeals for the major funding we must have in order to make a commitment to the University of Hawaii by June 30 have fallen on deaf ears. We've had to postpone expeditions before and Niku VIII will happen, whether it's this year or next year. Our original intent, in fact was to shoot for 2015 but when NOAA pulled the funding for the Pisces subs it created a crisis. With the subs slated for deactivation, it was "Use the subs this year or not at all." At the moment, it's looking like it will be not at all. That would be a real shame, not just because the Pisces submersibles are the only way to do a thorough search of the reef slope for airplane wreckage, but because the subs are the only effective way to do ocean science research on the steep carbonate seamounts of the Central Pacific.
The following quote from Stanford University professor Rob Dunbar, a leading authority on Pacific seamounts, says it all:
“At the moment, manned submersibles remain the only credible tool for use in a variety of different subsea environments, some of which are not only unique to the Pacific, but also ubiquitous. My greatest knowledge of the deep sea in the Pacific involves the pedestals of islands and seamounts. Because of the interaction of low pH seawater in the Pacific O2 minimum zone with the carbonate caps present on many if not most seamounts and island flanks, the most common bathymetric features just below 150 meters are vertical walls that extend for many 100’s of meters. These walls contain very unusual communities of deep sea corals and sponges that in turn support great invertebrate and vertebrate biodiversity and biomass. They are, simply put, keystone communities of the deep ocean. Because these vertical walls are located very close to the modern reefs, ROV’s cannot be deployed. We know this from a number of attempts to do so, including some in the last year. Entanglement hazards also abound. This is one example of an unacceptable environment for ROV operations; others include just about any steep slope setting, complex submarine volcanic terrain, and the vicinity of ship wrecks (that are entanglement hazards). Conversely, we know from years of experience that all of these environments are well suited for HOV [Human Operated Vehicles] work."
We certainly found that to be true at Niku in 2012. The sad thing is that the paucity of funding for the manned submersibles in the scientific community appears to be driven by politics rather than science.
TIGHAR will continue to search for a sponsor who will donate the $1.2 million needed to cover the charter of the ship and subs. Perhaps a benefactor will step forward before the University of Hawaii pulls the plug - which they must do soon. They desperately want to save the subs but the program is out of money. The TIGHAR charter is the only hope for keeping the subs in service.
If Niku VIII has to be postponed we'll regroup, rethink, and continue the search as we always have.
