Not surprisingly, corals and other benthic organisms don’t respond well to boats and ships smashing into them. Several relatively large vessels have grounded on Guam’s reefs, causing significant damage. Needless to say, the corals, coralline algae, and sometimes the non-living structure of the reef are broken apart, even pulverized. Currently, Guam does not have a coral mitigation policy or legislation, meaning there is no local law requiring those responsible for the vessel groundings to compensate the people of Guam for the reef area damaged by what is often a result of negligence.
The Guam Department of Agriculture’s Division of Aquatic and Wildlife Resources, sometimes with the assistance of other natural resource agencies, usually conducts impact assessments after vessel groundings, but because of the lack of a local mitigation policy/legislation these impact assessments, and the strict requirements of situations in which federal laws apply, the impact assessments don’t often result in compensation of any kind. Mitigation policies are used in other jurisdictions, such as Hawai’i and Florida, where responsible parties are fined significant sums of money and the money is then used to restore the affected area and to contribute to other reef conservation activities.