Artificial reefs are a cheap and easy substitute for the costly process
of preserving natural reefs.

They do indeed concentrate prey and predators to the delight of fishing
interests, but the increase in overall biomass is negligable and the
bio-diversity, even of artificial reefs that have been in place for
decades, is a tiny fraction of that of natural reefs.

The iron-based compounds that leach from them, for hundreds of years,
promote growth of algae and cyano-bacteria which are in turn major
stressors of down-stream natural reefs.

Here in SoFla, home to one of the world's largest, most bio-diverse, and
most beautiful reef systems in the world, there is very little interest
in preserving the reef: we dump 500 million gallons of minimally treated
sewage on the reefs every day, and the dumpers claim they cannot afford
to treat and recycle this waste. The federal Clean Water Act, if
enforced, would end this dumping but there is not a single penny of
federal or state money for enforcement. But every abandoned tramp
coaster and obsolete military hulk attracts millions to prepare it as an
artificial reef while the natural reefs die a slow but almost certain death.

Reef Rescue, with a budget that would last the EPA less than one second
per year, has done more to preserve the natural reefs than any
government agency. To see what we are doing and how you can help, go to
reef-rescue.org

m

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