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Tire reef off Florida proves a disaster

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Tire reef off Florida proves a disaster
Updated 2/17/2007 3:57 AM ET
By Brian Skoloff, Associated Press
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...tiresocean.jpg
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FORT LAUDERDALE — A mile offshore from this city's high-rise condos and spring-break bars lie as many as 2 million old tires, strewn across the ocean floor — a white-walled, steel-belted monument to good intentions gone awry.
The tires were unloaded there in 1972 to create an artificial reef that could attract a rich variety of marine life, and to free up space in clogged landfills. But decades later, the idea has proved a huge ecological blunder.

Little sea life has formed on the tires. Some of the tires that were bundled together with nylon and steel have broken loose and are scouring the ocean floor across a swath the size of 31 football fields. Tires are washing up on beaches. Thousands have wedged up against a nearby natural reef, blocking coral growth and devastating marine life.

"The really good idea was to provide habitat for marine critters so we could double or triple marine life in the area. It just didn't work that way," said Ray McAllister, a professor of ocean engineering at Florida Atlantic University who was instrumental in organizing the project. "I look back now and see it was a bad idea."

In fact, similar problems have been reported at tire reefs worldwide.

"They're a constantly killing coral-destruction machine," said William Nuckols, coordinator for Coastal America, a federal group involved in organizing a cleanup effort that includes Broward County biologists, state scientists and Army and Navy salvage divers.

Gov. Charlie Crist's proposed budget includes $2 million to help gather up and remove the tires. The military divers would do their share of the work at no cost to the state by making it part of their training.

A month-long pilot project is set for June. The full-scale salvage operation is expected to run through 2010 at a cost to the state of about $3.4 million.

McAllister helped put together the ill-fated reef project with the approval of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He helped raise several thousand dollars (the county also chipped in), organized hundreds of volunteers with boats and barges, and got tires from Goodyear.

Goodyear also donated equipment to bind and compress the tires, and the Goodyear blimp even dropped a gold-painted tire into the ocean in a ceremonial start to the project.

The tire company issued a press release at the time that proclaimed the reef would "provide a haven for fish and other aquatic species," and noted the "excellent properties of scrap tires as reef material."

It was a disappointment, just like other tire reefs created off coastal states and around the world in recent decades.

"We've literally dumped millions of tires in our oceans," said Jack Sobel, an Ocean Conservancy scientist. "I believe that people who were behind the artificial tire reef promotions actually were well-intentioned and thought they were doing the right thing. In hindsight, we now realize that we made a mistake."

No one can say with certainty why the idea doesn't work, but one problem is that, unlike large ships that have been sunk for reefs, tires are too light. They can be swept away by the tides and powerful storms before marine life has a chance to attach. Some scientists also believe the rubber leaches toxins.

Virginia tried it several decades ago. But Hurricane Bonnie in 1998 ripped the tires loose, and they washed up in North Carolina.

New Jersey scientists thought they had a solution to the weight problem. In 1986, the state began a small reef project with about 1,000 tires split in half, bound together and weighted with concrete. It didn't work. Pieces of rubber broke loose and floated free.

"We had to go up and down the coast of New Jersey and collect 50 to 100 of those pieces that were all along the beaches," said Hugh Carberry of New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection.

The state then tried stacking tires 10-high and filling the cylindrical center with concrete. Each stack weighed about a ton. While the tires stayed in place, scientists soon learned they did not have enough surface area for marine life to attach, so they switched to using concrete balls.

Indonesia and Malaysia mounted enormous tire reef programs back in the 1980s and are just now seeing the consequences in littered beaches and reef damage, Sobel said.

Most states have stopped using tires to create reefs, but they continue to wash up worldwide. In 2005, volunteers for the Ocean Conservancy's annual international coastal cleanup removed more than 11,000 tires.

The tires retrieved from the waters off Fort Lauderdale will be ground up for use in road projects and burned for fuel, among other uses.

"It's going to be a huge job bringing them all up," said Michael Sole, chief of the state Department of Environmental Protection. "It's vigorous work. You have to dig the tires out of the sand."

This screams to me that we really don't know what the fuck we are doing underlined by "No good deed goes unpunished."

Maybe we need to just leave things alone as they are and as they have been for thousands of years before we decide to "know better."

I think we should just let those oceanfront condos get swept out to sea instead of doing all this reef and sand pumping bullshit.

This isn't new, we've known the tire reef was a disaster for almost a decade. The difference between tire reefs and successful artificial reefs are how they are affected by the tides. The tires are picked up and tumble in heavy waves, while ships and other massive projects like them stay stable. The tires when they tumble kill the sensitive coral, and can not provide a stable environment for them.

Research, then implementation. Not the other way around. Yeesh.

Sounds a lot like a good *sarcasm* business plan...

Step 1 - Steal Underpants
Step 2 - ???
Step 3 - Profit!

I read that story earlier and thought it was interesting… what started out as a potentially really positive and good idea, as well as killing two birds with one stone in a sense, completely backfired in their face.

Dumping thousands of tires into the ocean is bad for the environment?

Who knew?

Oh well... the size of 31 football fields?

Blow it out of proportion a little more Mr. Media guys. That's what? like .0001% of the ocean floor? I don't really see a problem. It's like saying landfills suck because they take up one bajillionth of the crustacious earth.

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Originally Posted by Menoman

Uhhh, and what if people started dumping garbage in your back yard? It shouldn't matter because after all, it's only one bajillionth on the Earth's surface.

The tires matter because they are fucking up the shoreline of Florida. Less reef = less fish = barren oceans.

Exactly right Carno... it's not just that it's a small part of the ocean, it's that it's large part of prime ocean front.

Ok so again, it takes up a area = 31 football fields. So we can at least assume it's a circular or at leave oval area this is taking up. I'm sure it's not a straight line right up the coast.

If Florida is going to lose even 1$ in it's fish industry I would be astounded.

Barren Oceans? Come on... that's taking overly dramatic to new heights.
Large part of prime oceanfront? Again, that is simply an amazing over exaggeration.

Think about it, the absurd amount of fishing area, scuba area, around florida, Do you, in all honestly believe this will effect a single thing? Besides a fishing boat might have to move about 10 minutes away once in awhile?

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Originally Posted by Menoman

Maybe you don't care because you don't live in Broward County where there is a major impact of this.

In case you don't know, Broward County consists of 31 cities, many of them oceanfront, including Fort Lauderdale. They all depend on tourism dollars to some degree. People who come for the beaches spend money, people who don't come to beaches don't bring tourist dollars. Simple, no loss of fishing has to be the reason of economic loss.

People who thought like you must have been on the original council. Because the reality:

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Virginia tried it several decades ago. But Hurricane Bonnie in 1998 ripped the tires loose, and they washed up in North Carolina.

Virginia doesn't owe anything to North Carolina and their beaches. They didn't wash up on Virginia Beaches.

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New Jersey scientists thought they had a solution to the weight problem. In 1986, the state began a small reef project with about 1,000 tires split in half, bound together and weighted with concrete. It didn't work. Pieces of rubber broke loose and floated free.

"We had to go up and down the coast of New Jersey and collect 50 to 100 of those pieces that were all along the beaches," said Hugh Carberry of New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection.

New Jersey Coastline 130 miles

From the EPA.gov website (note date of abstract is 2003):

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Beginning in 1967, Broward County initiated a project to build an artificial reef with waste tires. The tires were bundled and bound with non-corrosive non-oxydizing strapping. By 1973, over a million tires had been dumped within a permitted area. Storm events and ocean currents have subsequently caused the break-up of the tire "reef" releasing them and making them easily subject to movement. Over the years, many of the tires have washed ashore following tropical storms or hurricanes, and the remaining tires continue to move with wave action and currents. Many of the tires have been forced up against the eastern edge of the middle coral reef off Broward County, with numbers at individual sites estimated in the hundreds of thousands. Tires that occasionally wash up on the beaches after severe storms are likely to have impacted both the middle and inshore reefs. Photographs and diver surveys of one site indicate severe damage of live coral that make up the hard substrate. In addition, the repeated impact of the tires has damaged critical reef fish habitat. The NOAA Restoration Center entered into a partnership with Nova Southeastern University to implement a community-based effort to remove a portion of the tires piled up against the eastern edge of the middle reef. The primary objectives of this project are the removal and recycling of loose waste tires from a section of natural coral reef off Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Volunteer divers will first examine the tires for the presence of hard coral colonies. They will remove and package the hard corals for transport to a coral nursery established by the National Coral Reef Institute-Nova Southeastern University Oceanographic Center. The tires will be tied in bundles of ten, anchored in place, and marked with a surface buoy. Geographic Positioning System coordinates will be noted for each bundle. A commercial dive company will raise the tire bundles, return them to shore, and store them for proper disposal. A licensed tire recycling company will dispose of the tires. Monitoring of the site will take place quarterly for one year following removal of the tires. This project will develop a community-based network of volunteers who are committed to marine resource stewardship. The cooperative effort will be a highly visible project with numerous opportunities for public outreach and participation to promote coral reef conservation and fishery habitat restoration in Florida. Partners include the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the Broward County Dept. of Planning and Environmental Protection. Current Status as of April 30, 2002: The primary objectives of removing and recycling the loose waste tires were completed during the period of April 2001-September 2001. Follow-up activities, including monitoring the cleared area for tire re-incursion and monitoring transplanted coral for survivorship over time, have occurred during the period of October 2001-March 2002.

The project has been submitted to this inventory by USEPA with the permission of NOAA. For more information about NOAA or their projects, you can visit either the NOAA homepage at www.noaa.gov or the NOAA Restoration Center at www.nmfs.noaa.gov/habitat/restoration.

Gimme a break, I've been to a TON of the florida beaches, if all you see wash onto shore is part of a tire, You're fucking lucky. I've seen much worse.

The reality is, they are trying to do something to improve the oceans, and I'll put money 99.9999% of the people whining about this, have never done a damn thing to try to improve anything for their community, let alone something as large scale as an ocean shoreline.

It would be naive to the "T" if anyone believed they did this and didn't know about any other incident that occured because of this, they thought they had a solution to the failures that occured before.

So basically you're right, I do not care, but not because I don't live there, but because it's better to try and fail than to not even try.

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Originally Posted by Menoman

... it's better to try and fail than to not even try.

While I agree with that statement, I also disagree within the context of the subject.

When dealing with matters of this nature I feel it's best to adopt a "First do no harm" philosophy. You want to try to make things better - that's all good and well - but you also have to weigh in the fact that you could make things worse; especially if history points to that outcome.

They messed up. The good thing is that they know they messed up and are looking to fix it. However, if they had tested/researched the whole thing better maybe they wouldn't now be spending the extra money.

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Originally Posted by Menoman

Gimme a break, I've been to a TON of the florida beaches, if all you see wash onto shore is part of a tire, You're fucking lucky. I've seen much worse.

Just because there isn't a shitload of tires strewn on the beach doesn't mean there isn't a problem. Nobody wants a problem to get out of control before it gets reacted to.

Ocean engineering? Somebody was unclear on the concept of oceans, I guess.

i don't have the time right now to look up the scientific information / refs on this, but in spirit i have to essentially side with menoman in this case. on the specifics here - my first thought is to wonder if these tire reefs aren't the research phase of these artificial reefs. i would think that if they had been successful, they would have been much more widely deployed. they failed, and now this idea will be scrapped. to me, that really depends on the scale of the current deployment, and the variation in the conditions in which they were deployed.

as to the general spirit behind "Maybe we need to just leave things alone as they are and as they have been for thousands of years before we decide to "know better."" - well, i think i understand the frustration that you feel when things like this happen, cyn. unfortunately, unless you think we can pull a mass thundar the barbarian, everyone give up their cars and central ac and internet and tv and airline travel and grocery stores and so forth - its a moot point. our very way of living is, at its core, not "leaving things alone as they have been for thousands of years." we're doing an awful lot, in very different ways from the way the earth existed for thousands of years. therefore, i personally feel we have an obligation to understand our actions and try to be proactive. we're going to make mistakes, but i don't see how we have much of a choice.

I wonder if they can start a new type of eco-cleanup tourism for the people who would be willing to dive and help out with the cleanup? (Sarcastic, simply becuase Im unimpressed with the obvious lack of testing on their part).

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Originally Posted by pigglet

No not interested in the Thundarr lifestyle, what I am referring to is that creating an artificial reef where none existed changes the area definitively. While yes, it may seem great the "Look at all the life we brought!!!" mentality, but honestly the area didn't support life for thousands of years for a reason.

Now if you're interested in creating a breakwater or jetty, to protect the oceanfront condos and homes via giant boulders placed to calm waves. It also has it's caveats but last time I saw rocks on a beach they were a.) natural and organic b.) eroded normally via surf.

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Originally Posted by Ch'i

Morons...

No doubt..