September 21, 2006

Unintended consequences - An artificial reef

From the Miami Herald comes this story of an environmental idea gone wrong:
Artificial reef made of tires becomes ecological disaster
What began 30 years ago as an idealistic plan to shape an artificial coral reef has become an underwater wasteland

A plan in the early 1970s to create a massive artificial reef off Fort Lauderdale has turned into an environmental mess with the U.S. Navy, Broward County and others trying to figure out how to remove about two million tires covering 36 acres of ocean floor.

What was intended to lure game fish now is damaging sensitive coral reefs and littering Broward's tourist-populated shoreline.

"They thought it would be a good fish habitat. It turned out to be a bad idea," said William Nuckols, project coordinator and military liaison for Coastal America, a federal group involved in the cleanup. "It's a coastal coral destruction machine."

The tires dot the ocean bottom a mile and a half from the end of Sunrise Boulevard. Environmentalists say strong tides -- especially during hurricanes and tropical storms -- cause the loose tires to knock against coral reefs, disrupting the ecosystem. In some cases, tires have washed ashore.

Now, the U.S. Navy, Broward County and a few other groups are looking at a three-year plan to remove the tires. The organizers surveyed the waters last month.

"We're trying to work out all the specific details," Nuckols said.

Touted as the largest of its kind nationwide, the tire reef was created with the best of intentions.

In the spring of 1972, a nonprofit group called Broward Artificial Reef, or BARINC, hatched an idea to build a three-mile reef while at the same time disposing of old tires. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers endorsed the project; similar ones had been created in the Northeast and Gulf of Mexico.

Broward County pitched in with the funds. BARINC even raised $8,000 from bingo games.

And so, the tires came from Goodyear and junkyards, bundled on barges to be dumped at sea. The idea was that an artificial reef -- called Osborne Reef -- would form from the stacked tires.

TIRES CAME LOOSE
But it didn't work.

Metal clips holding the tires together corroded, and the tires spilled across the ocean floor. Unlike sunken barges also used to build artificial reefs, the tires moved with the tide, and marine life never formed. Fishermen grumbled that game fish never came because the water there was too shallow.

"I do know we made a mistake in doing it," said Ray McAllister, one of BARINC's founders and now professor emeritus of ocean engineering at Florida Atlantic University. "They weren't the great attractions we thought they would be."

Today, the loose tires are damaging the environment because the tide tosses them about, causing them to bang against delicate marine life.
Granted, this was 30 years ago but geeezzz!!! They should have figured that the tire would be buoyant enough in water to move around and snap their moorings. The photo that accompanies the article is perfect -- 30 year old tires without a shred of visible marine growth -- not even any major seaweed. Probably lots of small stuff but nothing like what they were thinking they would get:
miami_artificial_reef_tires.jpg
William Nuckols, (C)2006, all rights retained by photographer
Photograph used by permission.
Posted by DaveH at September 21, 2006 9:41 PM | TrackBack
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