Artificial Reefs from Subway Cars? Yeah, We’ve Tried That

In 2000, Chevron spent $550,000 on a giant V-shaped pile of sandbags dropped into the ocean near El Segundo, California. This was supposed to be an artificial reef meant to make up for a wave Chevron destroyed years earlier when they built a groin to protect some of their equipment. It was called Pratte’s Reef, named for Surfrider founder Tom Pratte, and if you were around back then you’ll remember Pratte’s Reef was a major curiosity when it was built.

Then it proceeded to do absolutely nothing for the surf. Less than a decade later the reef was dismantled, the sandbags dragged off the beach and the local surfers left frustrated. Pratte’s Reef wasn’t the only sandbag-based artificial reef out there either. Australia has tried a few, Europe too, and none of them work. Parts of the bags inevitably split open, some of the sand flows away, and the busted bags are eventually carted off.

I thought of Pratte’s Reef recently after I came across a study chronicling the absolutely huge amount of artificial reefs in the American waters. There is an astonishing amount of random crap dropped into the ocean to make new habitats for sea life, to mitigate reef damage elsewhere, and, at least in the case of Pratte’s Reef, to make up for surf spots purposely destroyed.

Here’s the wild part. Until recently, nobody even knew how much of America’s seafloor was covered by artificial reefs. These days there are strict rules of course governing who can sink artificial reefs, and what they have to be composed of in order to not further pollute the oceans. But people have “reefed” big bulky hard to dispose of things for decades before anybody thought to care about whether or not it might be a bad idea. And, it seems, nobody had bothered to do an actual accounting of artificial reefs until the past few years.

According to a new paper published in Nature, seven square miles of the ocean floor in the United States is covered with artificial reefs. That’s…a lot.

Some of the more recent additions are purpose-built to do little harm and to provide habitat for fish and other marine life. But the laundry list of what we’ve dumped overboard to make artificial reefs would be funny if it wasn’t so bad for the ocean.

For example, In the 1970s, Florida pitched as many as two million old tires into the Atlantic to try to increase fish habitat (we’ve since learned compounds in car tires are toxic to fish — whoops). Those tires didn’t stay put and are now drifting as garbage across the world’s oceans.

That’s not even close to the weirdest thing people have tried to use to form reefs. Just read this list from the authors of the study mentioned above:

“Our study found a vast assortment of reefed objects on the U.S. seafloor. They included decommissioned tugboats, fishing vessels, barges, ferries and military vessels. Reefs have also been created from rail boxcars, aircraft, vehicles, chicken transport cages, voting machines, missile platforms, concrete pipes, radio towers…” and of course, tires. More than 500 obsolete oil platforms too. And old NYC subway cars.

Keep in mind, that’s just in the U.S. The rest of the world’s seafloor hasn’t been inventoried yet.

Anyway, if, like me, you look at wave pools, lament that they’re chlorinated, money-making affronts to surfing in the ocean and wonder about whether we ought to consider artificial reefs when thinking of ways to make enough surf to satisfy the millions of newcomers to surfing, this study is eye-opening.

We’ve dumped enough crap in the ocean as it is. Personally, while it might be kinda funny to surf a reef made from voting machines, it feels like the ocean has absorbed enough from us as it is.

Related: Kelly Slater’s ‘Biggest Man-Made Wave’ in the World Is Opening Soon