Artificial Reefing: Environmental Pros and Cons

[mikemill]

Backpacker/mountaineer/cross-country skier types (the take only photographs, and leave only footprints guys) are about as diverse as they come. No self respecting mountaineer would allow himself to be merely confused as a backpacker. XC types don't need no freaking chair lifts.

But they all share one thing: they depend on the mountains for the enjoyment of their sport.

The ocean really is no different. And while a diver/wrecker/caver are about as diverse as they come (no self respecting wreck diver would allow himself to be merely confused as a "diver") - they do all share one thing: they depend on the water for the enjoyment of their sport.

The thing is: the mountains are prettier when there are trees. When there are squirrels scampering about, when there are meadows and deer and birds. Nobody hikes in a desert. No sane person, at least.

Same with the ocean. The ocean is a lot prettier when there are fish, and kelp, and metridiums and nudi's scampering about. And the thing is this: An artificial reef can do that.

Like a spring busting up in a desert, creating a beautiful oasis, an artificial reef, dropped in the right place can turn acres and acres of barren sand (something we have an awful lot of here in SoCal) into an oasis for thousands of people to enjoy every year.

Turning acres of unsightly, unused, unseen, uncharted, undisturbed, uninhabited into an oasis where fish can hang out, where algae can grow, where people can dive and enjoy, where other people can learn and profit from - I'm really finding a hard time locating the down side.

You made both sides of the wreck / reef argument yourself. Sure, its not a 'wreck' - like a reservoir isn't a lake. But you know, we fish from them, and the trout taste great from either one.

I'm not a wreck diver - I'll never warm to the "its not a real wreck" side of things, and glance askew at something like the Yukon. Its a big boat in the water - and like any big anything in the middle of the sand (be it desert of ocean) its going to attract a crowd.

Here's to people that actually dive these things and don't sit in municipal offices pushing their personal aesthetic clothed in the pop environmental science of the moment.

I'm a SoCal, and I support carefully considered, thoughtfully created Artificial Wrecks sunk for the pleasure of divers and for the abundance of sealife life they support.


-Ken

So aesthetics are all that matters? If that is the case lets just raze all of LA

[Mo2vation]

So aesthetics are all that matters? If that is the case lets just raze all of LA

Someone from Excramento is gonna step to me with that?

Listen buddy, you got 10 Wal*Mart's within 15 miles of Excramento.

In Los Angeles, we sadly have 8.

We win.

(barely.)




-K

[drbill]

Thanks, Ken, for yours. Although I am a kelp forest ecologist, I love diving sandy bottoms (even around Hen Rock where I find plenty to film, especially the orangethroat pikeblennies). There is quite a bit of life on them.

My primary interest in this thread is for the environmental pros and cons as opposed to diver benefits. I am not a wreck diver (although I've done a number of them... most to look at the marine life they attract). As for the comment about CSTR being "too focused" on the economic benefits to local communities, I think that is a significant fact in getting community-based (rather than just diver-based) support for such projects.

[Mo2vation]

Thanks, Ken, for yours. Although I am a kelp forest ecologist, I love diving sandy bottoms (even around Hen Rock where I find plenty to film, especially the orangethroat pikeblennies). There is quite a bit of life on them.

My primary interest in this thread is for the environmental pros and cons as opposed to diver benefits. I am not a wreck diver (although I've done a number of them... most to look at the marine life they attract). As for the comment about CSTR being "too focused" on the economic benefits to local communities, I think that is a significant fact in getting community-based (rather than just diver-based) support for such projects.

Here's a couple 5-second takes on the environmental pros and cons:

#1 - People will care more if there is something to do on the site.

Divers will care more and display better stewardship to protect a dive site than they will a patch of sand, no matter how much micro life is on said patch of sand. If we're not diving it, we really care less about it. Sure we care, but we care less. Put a playground on a vacant lot, we pull the weeds from the sidewalk surrounding and leading to the playground. Leave it a vacant lot, the weeds just grow.


#2 - Get fisherman involved

Fishing is the largest recreational sport in the US. Its larger than golf and tennis combined. Its a multi billion dollar industry. Their lobby is stronger, more influential and just better at this than divers are. Fisherman are better organized, better represented, more experienced and more effective. Divers are a pimple on the flea on the elephant. Get the fisherman to care and you'll get someplace. Your reef will be protected and curiously well funded if people are allowed to fish on it.


Environmentalism is about use, albeit sensible use. We will protect the things we love, and to love something we need to see it, use it, be a part of it. There are no environmental pros or cons if there is no interest, and there is no interest if there is no access, if there is no story.

You can't sell me to care about sand. Sand is sand. Is has GPS coordinates. It's not a destination, it doesn't have a name, it doesn't have a handle, it doesn't hold my interest.

Drop an artificial reef there and now there is interest. You can sell me to care about a dive site that is loaded with fish and kelp and interesting stuff. It will have a name, it will have a purpose, it will receive my interest, my backing, my protection.

There is no perfect way to do this. There is no zero footprint effect, because if you do nothing, it remains sand, and we don't care - it will fall into disrepair because we don't care. There will be loss by putting an artificial reef down. There was loss when we mowed down the vacant lot and put up the park. Weeds were displaced. Red ants were displaced. Gnat catchers we displaced. But a couple of generations of kids got to play there. I learned to throw a baseball there. I kissed a girl there. I grew up there. It was well worth the impact.

People who think environmental protection means putting a lock on it and building a fence around it have it backwards, and couldn't have less to do with environmentalism.


-Ken

[ptyx]

My primary interest in this thread is for the environmental pros and cons as opposed to diver benefits.

I'm not too worried about the shrimps or whatever lives in the sand. There is a lot more sand around, and an artificial reef occupies a ridiculously small surface. Replacing the only patch of sand in a bay by an artificial reef would be another matter - but we're talking about dropping a ship on an otherwise empty plain, right?

My only concern would be medium range effect. For example that the new reef, combined with existing ones, allows long range predators such as sea lions to access other places they wouldn't go normally. Or sheepheads decide life is better on the new wreck than in the kelp bed they were, migrate massively and transform the kelp in an urchin barrens. But I don't even know if that's possible - although I'd be really interested in your perspective.

[JS1scuba]

My only concern would be medium range effect. For example that the new reef, combined with existing ones, allows long range predators such as sea lions to access other places they wouldn't go normally. Or sheepheads decide life is better on the new wreck than in the kelp bed they were, migrate massively and transform the kelp in an urchin barrens. But I don't even know if that's possible - although I'd be really interested in your perspective.

Fish have had the opportunity to move to new neighborhoods for years. Every now and then some disaster happens be it an earthquake, a war that pummels ships to the depths, cities dumping bridges and uses structures in the ocean (yes they do that) the Navy sinking ships for target practice or "testing" new methods of destruction, and even oil rigs collapsing, or being closed down and left there as "reefs".

Fish are smart, they are always in school (had to toss that in) they can figure out where to live when new structures appear. I've watched sunken ships and boats become complete new cities for all kinds of species over the years. Consider that a nice new shipwreck will provide structure for new things to grow. Those havens will become nice little condos for little boy and girl fish to go make new baby fish. Maybe the protection of the new structure will allow more of those eggs to survive than they would have in a more open environment. The result ...... more fish to grow up and go to school. Granted the new food chain will start in a new neighborhood and the mob will show up and set up a protection ring to protect the weak and exploit the weaker.

I'm not a biologist, I'm clueless to the life cycle of some of these things, but I know what I have seen and what I have seen is every time there is a new structure in a barren area of the sea new life forms. That seems to be a good thing.

(geeze I'm starting to sound touchy feely)

Cheers
JDS

[HBDiveGirl]

(geeze I'm starting to sound touchy feely)

Don't worry... it's not as if you like puppies and kids..... oh, wait......

Increased habitat complexity is good... as long as the cleaning protocols are followed.
There are enough accidental artificial reefs that aren't cleaned and exude pollutants for decades.

As long as the purposeful artificial reefs are "clean", it adds teeny tiny patches of higher complexity habitats.

FHC and Touchy/Feely.

~~~~~
Dette

[dsteding]

What is interesting to me is that people always evaluate the ships to reef thing through the "more critters are better" lens. I've always thought the best arguments to successfully get ships reefed are not those centered on creating "habitat," because there are much better ways to do so. Creation of intertidal wetlands, for instance, probably ultimately contributes much more biomass on a per-area basis. I think that, from a political standpoint, the reefing of ships is much more palatable when sold in terms of economic impacts to the surrounding communities, and where environmental impacts are minimized (hence all the prep work).

[Mo2vation]

What is interesting to me is that people always evaluate the ships to reef thing through the "more critters are better" lens. I've always thought the best arguments to successfully get ships reefed are not those centered on creating "habitat," because there are much better ways to do so. Creation of intertidal wetlands, for instance, probably ultimately contributes much more biomass on a per-area basis. I think that, from a political standpoint, the reefing of ships is much more palatable when sold in terms of economic impacts to the surrounding communities, and where environmental impacts are minimized (hence all the prep work).

I think the reason most of these organizations lean on the more habitat thing is because this battle is always won and loss on an environmental level and never an economic level.

Think about it - there is simply no question Northern FL and San Diego have seen measurable to significant economic impact from these ships being sunk. Its easy to trace, it can't be argued and nobody is against mo' money. There is no enemy, no bad guy. There is only one side - the upside.

From an environmental impact, there are two sides. DrB recognized this when he asked for pros and cons from an environmental view. From that side there is now a guy in a black hat (lemmie guess, the business people...) and a guy in a white green hat.

Forget the science - even if there was iron clad, replicable, irrefutable science behind any of this. I don't need science to tell me a guy in a black hat is bad, and everything he says is a lie... "you can't strip the toxins out of a military ship", "it'll never be like they tell you it will be", "they're greedy and their motives are suspect", "that ship has to fall onto SOMETHING..."

I'm confident these guys lead with habitat because you can't fight flipper with a bazooka of Benjamins and ride off as the good guy.


-Ken

[HBDiveGirl]

What is interesting to me is that people always evaluate the ships to reef thing through the "more critters are better" lens. I've always thought the best arguments to successfully get ships reefed are not those centered on creating "habitat," because there are much better ways to do so. Creation of intertidal wetlands, for instance, probably ultimately contributes much more biomass on a per-area basis. I think that, from a political standpoint, the reefing of ships is much more palatable when sold in terms of economic impacts to the surrounding communities, and where environmental impacts are minimized (hence all the prep work).

True.

With Ships2Reef, the point is really habitat we can play with... more creatures that we can visit and enjoy.

Also, it's creating a different kind of new habitat, whereas wetlands restoration is trying to undo damage of habitat that used to exist... or at least habitat that there used to be more of.

Restoring an acre of wetlands increases the health and sustainability of an existing habitat.

Sinking a prepped wreck creates substrate for a new habitat to grow upon.

Its a matter of scale. Intentionally sunk ships are physically tiny in terms of the marine environment.
But they are very big compared to a diver, and can be economically significant for diving related businesses while being emotionally significant to the divers who choose to visit them.

Environmentally, they are drops in a very big bucket as long as they are cleaned.

~~~~
Dette

[GRA]

Backpacker/mountaineer/cross-country skier types (the take only photographs, and leave only footprints guys) are about as diverse as they come. No self respecting mountaineer would allow himself to be confused as merely a backpacker. XC types don't need no freaking chair lifts.

I'm all three, and I don't mind being identified in any of the categories. The important thing that all share is that they're providing the motive force themselves.

But they all share one thing: they depend on the mountains for the enjoyment of their sport.

Only true for mountaineers (and not necessarily so for pure rock/ice climbers). Backpackers can enjoy hiking along a windswept coast (like the Lost Coast in far NorCal), or a flattish island (Isle Royale, say). X-C skiers can enjoy skiing anywhere there's snow, as ones who live in Michigan/Wisconsin etc. could tell you.

The ocean really is no different. And while an OW diver/wreck diver/cave diver are about as diverse as they come (no self respecting wreck diver would allow himself to be confused as merely an "OW diver") - they do all share one thing: they depend on the water for the enjoyment of their sport.

The thing is: the mountains are prettier when there are trees. When there are squirrels scampering about, when there are meadows and deer and birds. Nobody hikes in a desert. Miles of sand in every direction. No sane person, at least. So Backpackers/mountaineers and XC skiers don't go to the desert. They go where things are lovely.

Now this is flat out wrong. I know lots of backpackers who love to do so in the desert. Of course, if you only define desert as miles and miles of nothing but sand, then I'd be more inclined to agree with you, but that isn't what most desert is. And as to mountaineers and skiers, some of us prefer to spend our time in the mountains above timberline, where it's just rock, snow and sky. Any little evidence of life you come across in what appears to be so barren, say a small patch of polemonium (sky pilot) on top of a peak, or the pika or marmot that sneaks out from under some rocks to inspect your pack before heading back under cover, or the ravens that are hunting for insects at 13,000 feet on a glacier, is special because of its rarity.

Same with the ocean. The ocean is a lot prettier when there are fish, and kelp, and metridiums and nudi's scampering about. And nearly all of the offshore SoCal ocean floor that is within diveable depths is barren sand. No sane person would dive that (and we don't.) And the thing is this: An artificial reef can transform that underwater desert. Want to take pressure off of many of the other dive sites around SoCal? This is how you do it.

For your area, that may well be true. But Dr. Bill was asking about the general environmental Pros and Cons, and as I've mentioned what may be true in your area isn't so in mine.

Like a spring busting up in a desert, creating a beautiful oasis, an artificial reef, dropped in the right place can turn acres and acres of barren sand (something we have an awful lot of here in SoCal) into an oasis for thousands of people to enjoy every year.

Turning acres of unsightly, unused, unseen, uncharted, undisturbed, unremarkable, uninhabited sand unto an unforgettable oasis where fish can hang out, where algae can grow, where people can dive and enjoy, where other people can learn and profit from - man! I'm really finding a hard time locating the down side.

As MikeMill has pointed out, just because it's unused/unseen/uninhabited etc. by humans doesn't mean that other species have the same attitude, and this thread is about the environmental Pros and Cons, not what's best for human entertainment.

You made both sides of the wreck / reef argument yourself. Sure, its not a 'wreck' wreck - just about as much as a reservoir isn't a 'lake' lake. But you know, we fish from both of them and the trout taste great from either one.

Reduce, recycle, reuse? Are you kidding me. This is the very best thing about an artificial wreck. A ship, long past its useful life begins a second life recycled as an artificial reef. We get to reuse the thing as we reduce the eye sore of this leaky, rusty POS sitting forgotten in some backwater dock someplace. And slowly, over the decades, the sea will reclaim it until before long you won't even know there was once anything "artificial" about it. It just becomes a reef.

No, of course I'm not kidding. Scrap that ship, and you don't have to dig up more ore, process and transport it. Scrapping is what is now being done at an accelerated pace with the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet, thanks to the current administration as well as the local congressman. They will be cleaned locally, providing jobs, but unfortunately at the moment they are being towed to Texas for scrapping, owing to the lack of anywhere local to do that. There is a company that wishes to re-open one of the drydocks at the former Mare Island Naval Shipyard for that purpose, with the support of that same local congressman, providing more local jobs. But there are environmental concerns as the channel would have to be dredged, stirring up a lot of toxic sediments that have been deposited there during the over 100 years that the shipyard was in operation, most of that time with no environmental considerations whatever. Personally, ISTM that the channel was regularly dredged when the yard was in use, so the problem is likely to be no worse than it was routinely before, but I'm not a marine biologist and maybe the stuff is so nasty (and we know it now) that it's better to let it lie. There's also the usual NIMBY opposition (this is the Bay Area, after all).

I'm not a wreck diver - I'll never warm to the "its not a real wreck" side of things, and glance askew at something like the Yukon. Its a big boat in the water - and like any big anything in the middle of the sand (be it desert of ocean) its going to attract a crowd.

Here's to people that actually dive these things and don't sit in municipal offices pushing their personal aesthetic clothed in the pop environmental science of the moment.

I'm a SoCal, and I support carefully considered, thoughtfully created Artificial reefs sunk for the pleasure of divers and for the abundance of sealife life they attract and support.


-Ken

There's the issue; the main reason to sink artificial reefs (in my area), at least as CSTR presents it, is for the benefit of humans, not the benefit of the environment. Now, if they want to be honest and say so, that's fine, but instead what I get from their presentations is nothing but greenwashing. Boiled down to its essence, their main reason for artificially reefing ships is "wouldn't it be totally kewl to have a big ship locally we could dive?" Every other argument they make comes across as nothing more than a justification for that - in short, it's boys wanting new toys. If that's the kind of diving that turns someone on, then I'd suggest that Florida is already available, either offshore or at Disney World, as is the PNW and So Cal. Personally, I'm against it for my local area. If a ship happens to sink accidentally in my local area and is too deep to salvage economically, then sure I'll dive it. Or show me that artificial reefs will make a significant improvement to the local ocean environment, and I'm on board. But I'm not willing to deliberately litter the seabed with any more human detritus, primarily for my own amusement.

Guy

[PeteJ]

My primary interest in this thread is for the environmental pros and cons as opposed to diver benefits. I am not a wreck diver (although I've done a number of them... most to look at the marine life they attract). As for the comment about CSTR being "too focused" on the economic benefits to local communities, I think that is a significant fact in getting community-based (rather than just diver-based) support for such projects.

To Dr Bill’s question, I don’t think it can be answered in the definitive as anytime you put a wreck down you change the natural ecology form whatever it was to something else based on the firm substrate. The tree huggers and all others can debate that all day long if this is good or bad and some will say that any change made by man is bad. I know some huggers who would not be happy till we are all squatting naked around a very small fire made from only renewable dead fall wood or our own dried dung.

As for the economy of doing an artificial reef, well let’s just say it has got all out of proportion. The cleaning aspect is way overdone as some substances just don’t deserve to be worried about in the water, I’m thinking about asbestos in ships mainly. In the water asbestos just is not all that bad.

When you go to places like Truk where a great number of ships were sunk with no cleaning you can argue that the environment has been improved by a measure of bio-diversity. These ships were sunk under very violent circumstances and were carrying a lot of hazardous materials like mercury, oils, chemicals, other heavy metals, etc. the long term damage appears to be minor at best. This by no way means that most haz waste or materials should not be removed, just that the standard of cleanliness can be reviewed.

[GRA]

<snip>
Fish are smart, they are always in school (had to toss that in) they can figure out where to live when new structures appear. I've watched sunken ships and boats become complete new cities for all kinds of species over the years. Consider that a nice new shipwreck will provide structure for new things to grow. Those havens will become nice little condos for little boy and girl fish to go make new baby fish. Maybe the protection of the new structure will allow more of those eggs to survive than they would have in a more open environment. The result ...... more fish to grow up and go to school. Granted the new food chain will start in a new neighborhood and the mob will show up and set up a protection ring to protect the weak and exploit the weaker.

I'm not a biologist, I'm clueless to the life cycle of some of these things, but I know what I have seen and what I have seen is every time there is a new structure in a barren area of the sea new life forms. That seems to be a good thing.

(geeze I'm starting to sound touchy feely)

Cheers
JDS

One of the things that CSTR hopes to do in my area, assuming they ever get the go-ahead to reef a ship, is to do before and after surveys that will help to determine whether or not that new reef is actually providing habitat for new fish, or just concentrating them from other habitat. That's a worthwhile goal, and the science so far is apparently ambiguous (at least it was as of a couple of years ago, according to CSTR). Even if it were shown to be positive, in Monterey/Carmel any effect would be minimal, given the enormous area of natural reef habitat available. The effect of the MPAs is going to be far more significant.

Guy

[drbill]

Ken, from my perspective as an ecologist I want to look at environmental impacts on the ecosystems without even considering the human perspective. If it is bad for the ecosystem but good for the diver, it loses from that perspective. I was asked to get involved in this issue to assess these non-human elements of the process.

Of course I am in favor of creating habitat where divers can enjoy new vistas... explore the wreck, conduct tech training, watch and image the marine life develop on them, etc. Another aspect of my interest is in creating new habitat for normally reef-based fish so anglers will have new fishing grounds that (1) help make up for the loss of other areas due to the establishment of new marine reserves and (2) keep some pressure off the natural reef systems.

We are looking to develop (or adopt existing) deeper water monitoring protocols that can be used at the depths these sinks occur and involve divers with greater training than is required for REEF or REEF Check surveys at shallower depths.

[Mo2vation]

Ken, from my perspective as an ecologist I want to look at environmental impacts on the ecosystems without even considering the human perspective.

Impact. Nice. What is impact? Seriously. If you drop a coke bottle off the side of the Express, something going to grow on it, and something is going to live in it, and something is gonna hang out by it, and something is gonna cruise over to eat whatever is growing on it, living in it and hanging out by it.

Is this "impact" good? Can more stuff be good? I dunno. I don't think like this - measuring and assessing "impact." I'm so glad we have people like you. Seriously. I'm not wired to just "report" - I'm wired to "conclude", you know? Is "impact" something that is a measurable change from the status quo? I've never thought about looking at "impact" and considering the job finished. This is pretty cool for me to drift into as its completely new. That's completely over-simplified, and I'm doing a terrible job of articulating my position - but I'm sure you know what I mean.

If it is bad for the ecosystem but good for the diver, it loses from that perspective. I was asked to get involved in this issue to assess these non-human elements of the process.

Of course I am in favor of creating habitat where divers can enjoy new vistas... explore the wreck, conduct tech training, watch and image the marine life develop on them, etc. Another aspect of my interest is in creating new habitat for normally reef-based fish so anglers will have new fishing grounds that (1) help make up for the loss of other areas due to the establishment of new marine reserves and (2) keep some pressure off the natural reef systems.

This is also way cool. Hadn't considered this either - this is a very worthy two-pronged whatever. MLPA (Means Less Public Access) are surely cutting down on the inshore fishable waters. Moving some of these concentrations off shore to make them, well, less concentrated is an excellent use of the resource.

We are looking to develop (or adopt existing) deeper water monitoring protocols that can be used at the depths these sinks occur and involve divers with greater training than is required for REEF or REEF Check surveys at shallower depths.

Who are you working with on this project? If its still in development I totally respect that. But if there is something we can do as divers or as a media outlet, please let me know.

Thanks

-Ken