New artificial reef is sunk off Florida's Pompano Beach

[Judi Lynn]

New artificial reef is sunk off Florida's Pompano Beach

Nicole Ashley, Associated Press

Updated 7:50 pm, Saturday, July 23, 2016



POMPANO BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Cheering and whistle blowing filled the coast of Pompano Beach on Saturday as approximately 300 boats watched Lady Luck sink on Saturday afternoon.

"I think it went down just the way that we wanted," said Dennis MacDonald, the artist of the underwater casino. "It was incredibly beautiful."

The underwater attraction sank about two hours later than expected. South Florida Divers sent a team of 12 divers into the water immediately after the sinking to verify the former tanker's location.

Tom DiGiorgio, the chairman of the Economic Development Council of Pompano Beach, said that the divers plan to signal Broward County officials and coast guards that will allow more than 250 divers to go down and see Lady Luck.

More:
http://www.chron.com/news/us/article/New-artificial-reef-to-be-sunk-off-Florida-s-8405039.php

[rjsquirrel]

1. This always seems to me

like an excuse for dumping big trash at sea.

[Vogon_Glory]

2. The Fish Seem To React Differently

The fish seem to react differently. Wrecks, real and artificial, attract a lot of reef fish and over time sprout sponges and soft corals. The reef fish in time attract sharks and pelagic fish.

Sinking old ships as artificial reefs is not simply dumping "big trash." Most of these wrecks are cleaned up; the fuel tanks emptied, the electronics and most other toxic hazards removed, and only then is the ship sunk.

I'd say you'd have a case if reef fish let such things alone (They're also attracted to abandoned off-shore drilling platforms too). But reef fish do seem to think they make good habitat.

The people who seem to make the loudest objections to artificial reefs seem to be people who have never dived near them (I have done so on a number of occasions) or trawl-type fishermen who want to see to it that their strip-mining of the ocean bottom is not inconvenienced by large objects that would tear their nets.

[rjsquirrel]

3. I'm a biologist

(albeit not a marine biologist, I do work on coastal ecosystems) so I know most of this.

I still think it's overhyped. We are losing massive reef mass in places where it can't be replaced by old ships and train cars. I'd frankly like to see a coat benefit analysis with respect to recycling the scrap metal.

[Vogon_Glory]

4. And I'm A Diver

And I'm a diver, and I do other things besides monitor my pressure gauges and remaining air supply, like look around me, so I think my observations count for something.

As for the economics of dumping "big trash": I think if we were to operate on "fibber-tarian" Randian principles, most of those artificial reefs would have been towed to the breakers, turned to scrap metal, and the divers and fishermen who agitated for them to be turned into artificial reefs would have been vigorously denounced as "big government moochers" by the shills working for the servile corporate media.

[rjsquirrel]

5. I dive too

or used to when I was younger.

As I added to my comments above, the option of recycling the metal in a ship is not unreasonable and deserves to be analyzed dispassionately vs. the benefits of artificial reef creation.

Mostly I don't like greenwashing ideology which celebrates stories like this as if they represented a solution to the sick condition of our oceans, and massive living reef mass declines in recent years.

Not accusing you of that, but most of what I ever see on this subject looks all too celebratory to me.

Oceans are full of wrecks and marine trash.