Attractive artificial reefs need not be shipwrecks

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The Miami Herald
By Susan Cocking
April 02, 2006



MAGGIE MARTORELL / FOR THE MIAMI HERALD
REEF WONDERS: Concrete modules located
near Hollywood are covered with coral.

A Broward County official advised sport divers to explore some lesser-known structures in South Florida waters.

An artificial reef does not have to be a shipwreck in order to provide enjoyable recreation for scuba divers. That's the contention of Ken Banks, manager of marine-resources programs for the Broward County Department of Planning and Environmental Protection.

With federal and state permits to sink ships more difficult to obtain these days, Banks would like to wean sport divers away from barges and tugboats, advising them to check out some of the lesser-known structures that have been deployed in South Florida waters in recent years.

One of the least visited and most interesting sites is a collection of limestone boulders and tetrahedrons (four-sided concrete pyramids with each side an equilateral triangle) in 40 feet of water about a mile off the Renaissance towers in north Hollywood. The GPS coordinates are: 26 degrees, 03.147 north; 80 degrees, 05.822 west.

Deployed about six years ago as part of a mitigation project for damage from the 1993 grounding of the U.S. Navy submarine Memphis off Dania Beach, the boulders and pyramids are packed with numerous kinds of marine life.

Diving on the site last Wednesday, Banks and colleagues Joe Ligas and Don Behringer spotted a fat green moray eel and large schools of goatfish, grunt, snapper and wrasse. Bulbous, bug-eyed porcupinefish cruised the structures, along with Bermuda chubs, bar jacks, vibrant-hued parrotfish, scrawled filefish and angelfish. Tucked away in the crevices between the rocks were three long-spined sea urchins, which had been all but wiped out locally in the 1980s.

''Fantastic,'' said Behringer. ``People who dive look for conspicuous fish, and it is loaded with every kind of bony fish.''

On nine previous dives, Banks said, he saw snook on the reef, but Wednesday's 70-degree water might have sent them to warmer waters.

After exploring the boulders and pyramids for a while, the group headed north to three low-rise concrete castles where parapets shielded a few small heads of star coral and clouds of small fish. Beneath one sat a large lobster. Ligas said they were interlocking modules donated by roofer Danny Warren that serve as a small coral nursery.

''We'd like to do more of these instead of ships,'' Banks said. ``If people go back to these over time, they'll see them develop.''


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