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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...
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:
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 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.