Carib Sea busted

[MandM]

From Eric Borneman's forum on Marin Depot:

Ruh roh

:hammer:

 

[pepe.king.prawn]

Wow. That'll hurt business.

 

[Reefugee]

What a shame. I really like Carib Sea sand.

 

[racrumrine]

Later in the thread the company says that they were not taking rock out of the ocean, it was a permit issue and they now have the proper permits.

Best of luck,

Roy

 

[Declevis]

Yep, here's that original...

October 9th, 2006 - CaribSea Inc. is an enthusiastic supporter of coral reef conservation and has, over the years, contributed substantial monetary and material support to living coral research and captive propagation programs in the public, academic and private sectors. CaribSea Inc. imports coral rock as an ecologically minded alternative to ornamental corals and live rock from the ocean. Coral rock is gathered on dry land or mined from pits and does not harm living corals or coral reefs. However, coral rock does fall under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and requires proper permitting for importation. CaribSea Inc., and Richard Greenfield individually have each pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge in association with a shipment of coral rock in March of this year that was not permitted properly. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has since assisted CaribSea Inc.in obtaining the proper import and export permits.

Tony Wagner
Sales Manager
CaribSea, Inc.

 

[Justin74]

I think it's crap what happend
CaribSea has my full support!!

-Justin

 

[captbunzo]

(In the voice of Paul Harvey)

And now, the rest of the story..... Quotes from Anthony Calfo over in MD (he actually called the company).

To all - the the above story/issue re: Carib Sea did not make sense to me at face value - the company is so big, so industry friendly... and so smart, etc

So I talked to the company directly for the skinny on it... turns out the matter is as suspected (administrative oversight... non-nefarious, and rather minor IMO):

The gist of it from ems:

------------------------------

The product was our reef bones. It is dead live rock, and a common construction material in Haiti and many other tropical islands. It was a nice looking product when we released it several years back... as I am sure you are aware, all of the laws, and permits for these various resources can be very confusing. We simply did not have the proper permit in place for one container of product of the several we had brought in over the last few years. We now have the correct permit. It’s funny a simple $100 permit cost us upwards of a quarter of a million dollars in fines, legal fees, storage fees, and the product they kept.

Fortunately we learned a lot from this experience. We will continue on our path, helping and donating time, money, and product to research groups and conservation efforts such as our program with the Blue Iguana Recovery Program (www.blueiguana.ky) to help save the Blue Iguana.

People tend to overlook anything good, and focus on the size of the fine and company name.

And a second post:

so the summary is... much like the unclear (and often unknown by officers themselves) Fish and Wildlife regs that badly jamb up LFS owners importing (and kill animals for the vague paper recs) - Caribsea's oversight was a documentation issue on one among several legal shipments. And their precedent was all legal shipments too.

This reminds me of the thousands (I'm not kidding) of clams that F&W has killed by delaying shipments of AQUACULTURED clams because the import docs did not list the gravel(!) that was stuck under the clamshell (farmers use local aggregate to sometimes grow baby clams).

This is beurocracy folks... not poaching. Caribsea is a good company... please give them a break.

(and for my name/personality... let me state that I have never taken so much as a free sample at a tradeshow or otherwise from this company. My opinion here is unbiased)

 

[Reefugee]

Declevis and captbunzo - Thanks for the clarification. It good to see that they are still a honest company that made a small unintentional mistake.

Minh

 

[captbunzo]

Yep, please spread "the rest of the story" around. I have NO affiliation with Caribsea. I just hate to see a good company get unfairly thrashed...

 

[dots]

I think instances like this will be far more common place in the future as a balance between the world markets and enviromental conservation is found and constantly redefined.

 

[MandM]

Sorry for the false alarm, after reading Anthony's posts on the issue, it's clear that Carib Sea just didn't have the paperwork in order for this one legal shipment.
:hmm2:

 

[Stixbaraca]

I have always used CaribSea products and figure it must have been something simple...but...if the paperwork wasn't in order...how was it a legal shipment?

 

[Justin74]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8526901#post8526901 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Stixbaraca
...but...if the paperwork wasn't in order...how was it a legal shipment?

It wasnt, hence the 35,000+ dollars in fines
A simple mistake was made, but an expensive one.


-Justin

 

[Stixbaraca]

I was mainly asking MandM who stated...

"it's clear that Carib Sea just didn't have the paperwork in order for this one legal shipment. "

 

[Justin74]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8527008#post8527008 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Justin74
It wasnt, hence the 35,000+ dollars in fines
A simple mistake was made, but an expensive one.


-Justin

EDIT: A GROSS understatement, forgot the specifics but this reiderates the above post,

We simply did not have the proper permit in place for one container of product of the several we had brought in over the last few years. We now have the correct permit. It’s funny a simple $100 permit cost us upwards of a quarter of a million dollars in fines, legal fees, storage fees, and the product they kept.

-Justin

 

[Justin74]

I see what your sayin, the shipment was legal but technically not for one of the containers which defunked the whole deal and what otherwise would have been legal shipment.

Or was I interupting a zinger?

-Justin

 

[MandM]

There were further posts in the link I first referenced. Anthony Calfo was saying that he had spoken with the Carib Sea folks. I started this thread before Anthony posted. Carib Sea also posted there and clarified the issue.