Slashdot Mirror
Old Subway Cars As Artificial Reef
Pickens writes "Hundreds of retired New York City subway cars are being sunk sixteen nautical miles off Delaware's Indian River Inlet and about 80 feet underwater, continuing the transformation of a barren stretch of ocean floor into a bountiful oasis, carpeted in sea grasses, walled thick with blue mussels and sponges, and teeming with black sea bass and tautog. 'They're basically luxury condominiums for fish,' says Jeff Tinsman, artificial reef program manager for the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. Subway cars are roomy enough to invite certain fish, too heavy to shift easily in storms, and durable enough to avoid throwing off debris for decades. Tinsman particularly favors the newer subway cars with stainless steel on the outside to create reefs. 'We call these the DeLoreans of the deep,' he said. But success comes at a price because other states, seeing Delaware's successes, have started competing for the subway cars, which New York City provides free. 'The secret is out, I guess,' said Michael G. Zacchea, the MTA official in charge of getting rid of New York City's old subway cars."
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
Brisbane,QLD has had an old Brisbane Transport tram as part of the Curtin Artificial Reef since 1981.
http://www.urgq.org/curtin_artif_reef.htm
Out here we've sunken many ships to make underwater habitats for fish. The boats are stripped of oils, paints, and hazardous stuff before sinking -- well, nowadays, anyway. Great for scuba divers to look at, so I've been told.
I can't find a great link in 10s of searching, but this is a start:
http://www.divingbc.com/
Maybe it'll work out better this time...
The only other cities in America with metro systems are happy with their own trains, and unfortunately due to the American lack of interest in public transporation, metro systems aren't spreading much to new places.
By the way, are you familiar with the rumour that the Pyongyang Metro isn't actually in public use? Some say that it is only run when foreigners tour it, and everybody on board are actors.
It's not a scholarly reference, but there are definitely clear examples of deliberately-constructed artificial reefs which were ultimately damaging to marine ecology. Read about the Osborne Reef Waste Tire Removal Pilot Project in Florida:
They used this in one of last season's episodes of CSI:NY. They found a dead scuba diver, and that led them to discover another one lodged in a submerged subway car.
Serving your airship needs since 1995.
Point, head, you, whoosh, etc... The subway cars clad in stainless steel are called the DeLoreans of the deep.
Slightly disreputable, albeit gregarious
That is because the tires are causing more hard then good. The subway cars allow more natural things to grow on them and hide in them. And the subway cars will go away over time leaving the natural stuff behind. Virginia has been doing this for what 5-8 years now? It does work to bring more fish to the area. The summer flounder numbers were way up (along with black sea bass, and others) until the commercial guys dragged their nets through the reef locations. These artificial reef locations are off limits to commercial fishing it is posted on all the charts. So, they just dumped a bunch of tanks off the cost as well.
They used tanks since the commercial fishing guys were dragging their nets all through the subway cars and other off limit (for commercial fishing) places. They lose more gear on the tanks and will hopefully stop 'fishing' there.
I kind of feel like what goes into #2 is not real hard to figure out, but: As far as I can tell, artificial reefs do two things (and I am not in any way an expert on this, I'm mostly just remembering from an article about them doing this in Australia and a quick Google of 'artificial reef' to double check my recollections): create a sort of breakwater to prevent beach erosion, and provide a spot for things like coral to attach on to. Once there's coral and other types of stationary sea life there, then fish and stuff start hanging around and before you know it you have luxury condos for fish. Or so I gather. If they're putting an artificial reef in, generally that means there wasn't much density of marine life in that area prior to its creation, so they would not be placing it in areas that were 'previously perfectly fine.'
There is at least one thing to note about artificial reefs in the negative, why-are-we-throwing-garbage-in-the-ocean sense, which is that sometimes their choice of materials kind of sucks. Apparently they made one out of tires in Florida a little while ago, but eventually some of the tires came loose, drifted to a natural reef and took out a bunch of sealife that was in their path (marauding tire, run!!). So I think the note about how the subway cars are very durable and crap, ideally, should not be busting off of them is an important one.
i shouldn't have been so lazy, but they are the same trains!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redbird_trains
"Most Redbirds were phased out from 2001 to 2003 and replaced by the new R142 and R142A cars. 1,208 Redbirds have been sunk at sea off the coasts of Delaware, Georgia, New Jersey, South Carolina, and Virginia as artificial reefs to promote marine life, to serve as a barrier and to enhance recreational scuba diving. Delaware received 558 cars, Georgia 50, New Jersey 250, South Carolina 200, and Virginia 150. An episode of CSI NY titled "The Deep" used these cars as part of the story line, and even featured well-repkucated underwater shots of mockups of the cars. However, the show places them in the East River of New York City."
If you had RTFA you would had read that this is not new. The site off the cost of DE has had subway cars for about 10 years now. With an increasing number of people going their every year. And the subway cars are just the shell, no seats, no plastics, no oils, no wiring just the main metal of the car.
Here is another article: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=980CE7DA153EF93BA15757C0A9649C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all Where they actually say what they do to the cars.
I've seen videos on History and Discovery Channel. It isn't one giant mass of garbage. It's a nice clear ocean, and then suddenly your ship will come-upon a ship-sized "mass" of accumulated garbage just floating in the middle of noplace. The ocean currents tend to gather trash in a few discrete locations (which should make it easy to clean-up, if any nation decided to take-on that task).
re: Running out of cars.
If they find themselves running out of New York subway cars, maybe they could try using passenger cars. We've got plenty of them laying around, just waiting to become a "fish condo".
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
Scrap Metal is BIG business: http://demolitionscrapmetalnews.com/?page_id=17
...Somebody's going to rent a crane barge with tug and recover them all (especially the stainless steel ones) for scrap a make a fortune at the salvage yards!
Stainless Steel is very recyclable as it contains very expensive Chrome and Nickel and other alloys. Copper has never been higher too.
Me thinks under Martime Law these are abandoned "sunken ships" and are subject to full finders-keepers salvage rights (IANAL)
Tires, as it turns out, are terrible reef material. They're so light that they shift around in the currents, destroying anything that tries to grow on them. I know at least one project attempted to remedy that situation by tying all of the tires together...with steel cables. Obviously the steel cables rusted away within months and it was the same problem all over again.
Subway cars, however, are heavy enough to not move around in the currents and should provide ample anchorage for sea life.
I read the internet for the articles.