[PSUBS-MAILIST] Ethical obligation to inform

[Jon Wallace via Personal_Submersibles]

Alan,

I've been contemplating options.  I happen to agree with Phil's 
suggestion that being a primary contributor to MTS is in many ways 
missing the point.  Additionally, I am convinced that the MUVMTS 
leadership will not accept anything less than labeling or categorizing 
personal submarines in a pretense to provide the CG an ability to 
severely regulate their use, and so my personal belief is that our 
efforts would simply fall on deaf ears.  I believe our best course is to 
move beyond MTS and start demanding the CG and other government entities 
deal with PSUBS directly for any issues of concern regarding personal 
submarines.

I looked back in my email archive and did find an exchange with Will 
Kohnen in late February of 2014 that I had forgotten about. On 2/24/2014 
I was contacted by a PSUBS member to make me aware that Will Kohnen was 
telling folks there was talk that the USCG was looking to "regulate 
home-built subs" (direct quote).  I contacted Kohnen via email and asked 
what was going on and whom at the CG was the primary contact seeking 
such regulations.  He responded that it was the Marine Safety Division 
and in particular an official named Ken Smith that was in charge of 
seeking rules from MTS.  The plan, according to Kohnen, was to attach 
these rules/regulations to the ASME PVHO document.  Since the document 
is used for self regulation there would be no immediate impact on 
anyone, however the idea was that the CG could then adopt these rules 
because they were now ASME rules, an industry standard.

I contacted Ken Smith at the USCG on 2/25/2014 and talked to him about 
this issue.  I do not remember the details of that conversation however 
I did write another PSUBS member on 2/26/2014 via email thereby 
preserving my thoughts at the time.  My message to the psubber was:

"I called Ken Smith at the CG yesterday and talked to him about this.  
He claims the CG is has no current intention to regulate and Congress 
has not asked them to come up with any regulations.  Of course, if 
something happened they may be inclined to, but they don't see it as a 
major issue right now.  He suggested we work with ASME if we want to be 
proactive but of course they are not likely to listen to us.  So he 
suggested that I could filter things through him...he has a contact at 
ASME."

Based upon my conversation with the CG there was an obvious conflict 
between what Kohnen was asserting and what the CG was asserting in 
regards to the need for personal submarine regulations.  I engaged 
Kohnen further and learned that he believed a clear demarcation was 
necessary to separate commercial and personal submarines, rationalizing 
it as a need required by the public because they wouldn't be able to 
differentiate between the two disciplines if a personal submarine had an 
accident.  He further suggested, "The biggest concern of the USCG is 
that lack of differentiation in the submersible industry. They are aware 
that this type of cross-over linkage between the Personal and Commercial 
vehicles can put them in the spot light and they will be ill equipped to 
explain the differences. It is not to say there isn't a difference at 
the moment, but once the headlines are out there, the damage is done - 
unless something tangible can be shown."

It seemed clear to me that at least part of Kohnen's justification in 
creating these regulations was because he was worried about what the 
public thinks given a critical event involving a personal submarine, and 
a mechanism to bail out the USCG who might not be prepared to articulate 
the differences between commercial and personal submarines in such an 
event.  I believe those are illegitimate purposes for creating 
regulations.  I responded to Kohnen that labels of any kind targeting 
PSUBS was an issue for us and that there seemed to be "an element of 
contempt" for personal submersibles by some in the commercial industry.  
I also wrote at length describing why I believed it was not axiomatic 
that an accident involving a personal submarine would negatively impact 
the commercial market.  Kohnen's response was "I am afraid it doesn't 
matter so much what we both believe."  This solidified in my mind that 
no matter what PSUBS recommended, MTS already had their minds made up.

That is the history I have on the matter other than what has been 
discussed in recent days.  I don't like the back-door approach being 
taken with the ASME PVHO document and expect I will be contacting the 
USCG shortly to reopen this matter with them.  If nothing else, I want 
to know definitively whether the CG is talking out of both sides of 
their mouths or if they are just being used as a vehicle for MTS to 
initiate regulations on personal submarines for their own purposes.

Jon



On 7/15/2017 7:34 AM, Alan via Personal_Submersibles wrote:
> Jon,
> any thoughts on where we want to go with this?
>

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