Growing Pains for a Deep-Sea Home Built of Subway Cars

[XemaSab]

Sixteen nautical miles from the Indian River Inlet and about 80 feet underwater, a building boom is under way at the Red Bird Reef.

One by one, a machine operator has been shoving hundreds of retired New York City subway cars off a barge, 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,” Jeff Tinsman, artificial reef program manager for the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, said as one of 48 of the 19-ton retirees from New York City sank toward the 666 already on the ocean floor.

But now, Delaware is struggling with the misfortune of its own success.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/08/us/08reef.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[phantom power]

1. I like the concept of providing more habitat...

but I have to agree that maybe there are better materials to use than dumping expensive steel and its embodied energy into the drink.

[XemaSab]

2. i wondered if quarrying rock and making concrete would be even more wasteful

:shrug:

[phantom power]

3. the intertubes sez...

that in terms of energy, concrete is far cheaper than steel. 800 thousand BTUs per ton for concrete, versus 38 million BTUs per ton, for steel. I would guess that quarried rock is even cheaper.

[XemaSab]

4. Does that include transportation?

:shrug:

[phantom power]

5. I assume not. Just manufacture.

[kristopher]

6. Project was conceived and executed before price of steel skyrocketed.

I live just inland of the reef area and as far as I know, there is no serious talk of expanding the project. Note that the cars are no longer available. However, the same benefit flows from installing wind turbines. The base is surrounded by riprap which creates the underwater structure favorable to many species. There are concrete plans in the works to place several hundred wind turbines just to the south and north of the entrance to Delaware Bay.
Interestingly, the rising cost of steel is having a significant effect on the price of wind energy.

[Viking12]

7. AFAIK The cars contained an asbestos lining making recycling cost prohibitive

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=00059C26-A3A8-1C75-9B81809EC588EF21

[phantom power]

9. Hmm. Shame.

I wonder if the decision would have been different under 2008 economics. Hard to believe how fast things have been changing in recent years.

[Kolesar]

8. And stainless steel, too!

In the meanwhile, I am meticulously crushing tin cans and sorting out bits of rusty nails and steel junk to put in the recycling bin.

:my head spins:

[kristopher]

10. New Artificial Reef

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 11:49:16 -0400
Delaware's artificial reef program coordinator says New Jersey and Maryland may join with Delaware to sink a Navy destroyer so it can become a reef. Jeff Tinsman says the 564-foot U.S.S. Radford would be positioned 26 miles from the Indian River Inlet. Delaware has already been using New York subway cars to create an artificial reef 16 miles from the inlet. Tinsman says the subway cars have created venues for diving and fishing and more places for fish to live and breed.