Jul.25.2009
Subway Car artificial reef project collapse
Subway car reef project disintegrates in New Jersey.
An ambitious project to create a marine habitat out of retired subway cars is canceled after most of the cars fall apart.
MNN quote:
I can understand the appeal of programs like this — we get to dump waste while portraying it as an environmental initiative. What politician in her right mind wouldn’t want to sign on to something that’s going to save money and look green?Dumping our crap into the sea to give fish a place to live is just dumb. We continue to prove amazingly adept at screwing up our oceans.
We agree - however the story is not totally as is seems. The reason Delaware Subway car reefs worked well enough was the steel construction, Rust and iron (Fe) is better for numerous reasons, it is why old ships of steel work nicely as artificial habitats. Stainless Steel doesn’t, and the structures for new lightweight designs are prone to collapse and failure.
NJ.com:
Only two of the 48 cars that were submerged are still upright and intact. The Press of Atlantic City spoke to Darlene Yuhas, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Environmental Protection. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had estimated they would serve as good reef habitat for 25 to 30 years.
“All the evidence suggested they would be long-lasting. In fact, the EPA data was these cars should last 25 years,” Yuhas said. Other East Coast states that took the subway cars have reported similar problems.
The state DEP has done more surveys since February and has decided to end the program after cars were only deployed at the Atlantic City Reef and the Cape May Reef, which is about 9.1 nautical miles off Cold Spring Inlet. Cars had been earmarked for three other reefs, including the Shark River, Garden State South and Deepwater reefs, before the termination.
“We did in fact notify the New York Transit Authority that we would no longer be accepting their cars,” Yuhas said
So … bottom line - Monitoring such reef projects carefully actually prevented more failure — Lesson learned when divers checked it out.
Filed in EcoLogic |
