By NEWS 6 Newsroom Staff | Filed 6:45 PM, July 3, 2003

FILE PHOTO — MDG CHECKPOINT, PERIMETER ACCESS ROAD

Meridian Defense Group broke six days of silence Thursday, issuing its first public comments since erecting a roughly five-kilometer perimeter around the site of last week's coastal incident. The cordon, manned around the clock by MDG personnel, has kept residents, press, and county officials alike well back from the shoreline nearest the sinking.

NEWS 6's Sarah Kessler sat down with Daniel Ashcroft, MDG's Director of Regional Communications, in the company's first sit-down interview with a Blackmoor Cove outlet. Ashcroft characterized the perimeter as a routine safety precaution while the company conducts an independent geological assessment of the seafloor near where the vessel went down, citing the seismic activity reported the same night as the reason for the added caution.

Ashcroft did not say who commissioned the assessment or why a private military contractor best known for its overseas security work was the company conducting it. At one point in the interview, describing the survey area, he referred to it as "the formation" before immediately correcting himself to "the situation." He did not elaborate, and Kessler's follow-up question went unanswered on camera. The moment has drawn attention from viewers, given MDG has disclosed no prior geological interest in the area.

Asked how long the perimeter would remain in place, Ashcroft said only that it would stay "as long as the assessment requires." County officials referred all further questions to the company.

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