Last stop: Artificial reef
By RICHARD DEGENER
Published: Friday, April 25, 2008
ATLANTIC CITY - Even as the state works to turn a U.S. Navy destroyer into an offshore artificial reef, it is already adding stainless steel subway cars to fish havens along the coast.The state dumped 44 New York City subway cars on the Atlantic City Reef, 8.8 nautical miles off Absecon Inlet, on April 3 and may get as many as 600 cars this summer."The next load is in May at the Cape May Reef, 9.1 nautical miles off Cape May Inlet. It's about 50 cars," said Jennifer Resciniti, of the state Department of Environmental Protection.Plans also call for subway cars to be sunk at the Garden State South, Deepwater and Shark River reefs."As they become available, we'll deploy them at various sites," Resciniti said.
This could change, depending on New York. It is giving away the subway cars now only because New York's permits to sink them at its own reef sites lapsed about five years ago."They are about to get their sites reinstituted. If that happens, the New York (Metropolitan) Transit Authority said New York will get all the cars," said Bill Figley, an advocate of reefs in New Jersey.Delaware and Maryland are also awaiting subway cars and will get the next couple of loads before New Jersey gets its cars for the Cape May Reef.New Jersey has been able to get large rocks from dredging projects, vessels and other debris from New York and hopes to land 600 subway cars this summer. The cars were offered to New Jersey last year, but the program was delayed when environmentalists and commercial fishermen raised questions about risks they could pose if they move around or from asbestos fibers they contain. Subway cars were not an acceptable material under the state's reef management plan at that time, but that has been changed.Resciniti said some fish are probably already in the cars at the Atlantic City Reef, and the cars should be fully colonized by marine life within two years."The whole food web isn't established for about two years," Resciniti said.To e-mail Richard Degener at The Press:RDegener@pressofac.com
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