Osborne Reef

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Osborne Reef is an artificial reef^[1] off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, Florida constructed of concrete jacks in a 50-foot diameter circle.^[2] In the 1970s, the reef was the subject of an ambitious expansion project utilizing old and discarded tires. The project ultimately failed, and the "reef" has come to be considered an environmental disaster^[3]^[4]—ultimately doing more harm than good in the coastal Florida waters. In 2007, after several false starts, cleanup efforts began when the United States military took on the project. This cleanup exercise provides the military with a real-world training environment for their diving and recovery personnel, coupled with the benefit of helping the Florida coast without incurring significant costs to the state.

1 History
2 Failure
3 Cleanup
4 References

[edit] History

In 1972, Broward Artificial Reef Inc. (BARINC) proposed the construction of an enlarged artificial reef to Broward County as a way to both dispose of old tires as well as lure more game fish to the area. Similarly-designed reefs had already been constructed in the Northeastern United States, the neighboring Gulf of Mexico, Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia, and Africa.^[4] Gregory McIntosh, an employee of BARINC, would laud the project to the attendees of a 1974 conference on artificial reefs: "Tires, which were an esthetic pollutant ashore, could be recycled, so to speak, to build a fishing reef at sea."^[3]

With endorsement of the project by the US Army Corps of Engineers,^[5] the Broward County government approved the project: that spring more than 100 privately-owned boats enthusiastically volunteered to assist with the project; accompanied by the USS Thrush thousands of tire bundles were simultaneously dropped onto the reef. The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company provided equipment for the auspicious undertaking; even supporting the project so far as to drop a gold-painted tire from a Goodyear Blimp to christen the site.^[6] The culmination of the project was the deposit of over two million tires bound with steel clips over 36 acres of the ocean floor, approximately 7000 feet offshore and at a depth of 65 feet.^[2]

[edit] Failure

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. I look back now and see it was a bad idea."

– Ray McAllister, founder of BARINC in a 2007 interview^[4]

Ultimately, little marine life has been successful in latching onto the man-made reef and the majority never even had the opportunity to do so. When deposited, while a few tires were individual loose entities, the majority were bound together with nylon^[4] or steel clips (or bands). As there were no exceptional efforts made to ensure the non-corrosivity of the steel restraints, they summarily failed^[7]—resulting in the loosing of over two million individual, lightweight tires. This newfound mobility destroyed any marine life that had thus far grown on the tires, and effectively prevented the growth of any new organisms. Furthermore, the tires were now easily subject to the tropical winds and storms that frequent the east coast of Florida and continue to collide (at times with tremendous force) with other natural coral reefs only 70 feet away: compounding their uselessness with environmentally damaging side-effects.^[4]^[5]

Of some concern to environmentalists is a "minortoxin" being emitted by the tires. Todd Barber, chairman of the Reef Ball Foundation downplayed this aspect of the tire reef in comparison to the damage they cause other reefs: "I don't think anybody's worried about [the toxin] [...] The primary hazard [is] they're moving around."^[5]

Lastly, the concern of adjacent coastal areas is that the tires are not remaining within the boundaries of Osborne Reef. In 1995, Hurricane Opal managed to spread over 1,000 tires onto the Florida Panhandle, west of Pensacola; and in 1998, Hurricane Bonnie deposited thousands of the tires onto North Carolina beaches.^[3]

This project is not the only one of its nature to fail; Indonesia and Malaysia mounted enormous tire-reef programs in the 1980s and are now seeing the ramifications of the failure of tire reefs, from littered beaches to reef destruction.^[4] Jack Sobel, The Ocean Conservancy's director of strategic conservation said in a 2002 interview that "I don't know of any cases where there's been a success with tire reefs." That year, The Ocean Conservancy's International Coastal Cleanup removed 11,956 tires from beaches all over the world.^[3]

[edit] Cleanup

In 2001, Dr. Robin Sherman of Nova Southeastern University was awarded a $30,000 grant by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to begin a tire removal program. She was able to coordinate the removal of only 1,600 tires from the reef, and at a cost estimated at $17 a tire.^[8]

In 2002, Florida and Broward County environmental officials began the long and arduous process of setting into motion a plan to remove the tires. An original estimate of between $40 and $100 million led the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to plan to arrange a deal with those companies whose construction damages the seabed and reefs.^[3] Where they would previously mitigate their destructive construction with replacement constructs for reefs, the state would require them to make their amends by removing tires from the Osborne Reef. This plan faced criticism by environmental groups who felt that this would only hasten the destruction of more marine habitats.^[3] Whether these criticisms were a catalyst or not, Florida did not follow through on these plans.

A U.S. Navy Diver attached to Mobile Diving Salvage Unit (MDSU) 2 Det. 6 prepares a lift bag to salvage tires off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

In 2007, Broward County contacted the United States Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs about their Innovative Readiness Training (IRT) program, which looks for Civil-Military projects that improve military readiness and address the needs of the American public. CWO Donovan Motley said that the cleanup of Osborne Reef easily met those requirements: "This project allows these military divers and Army LCU crew members' real-world training in 'wartime' salvage ops. And perhaps, more importantly, it exercises interoperability with federal, state and county agencies and these skill sets could have the most significance in the aftermath of a Katrina-type natural disaster."^[9] Beginning in June 2007, the United States military and Coast Guard began “DiveExEast 07" to ascertain the best and most efficient processes for the cleanup effort. Barring unforeseen operational commitments and engagements, military divers hope to use this project as a training platform for several years and "recover the maximum number of tires possible from day one."^[9]