Old Subway Cars As Artificial Reef 169
Pickens writes "Hundreds of retired New York City subway cars are being sunk sixteen nautical miles off Delaware's Indian River Inlet and about 80 feet underwater, 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,' says Jeff Tinsman, artificial reef program manager for the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. Subway cars are roomy enough to invite certain fish, too heavy to shift easily in storms, and durable enough to avoid throwing off debris for decades. Tinsman particularly favors the newer subway cars with stainless steel on the outside to create reefs. 'We call these the DeLoreans of the deep,' he said. But success comes at a price because other states, seeing Delaware's successes, have started competing for the subway cars, which New York City provides free. 'The secret is out, I guess,' said Michael G. Zacchea, the MTA official in charge of getting rid of New York City's old subway cars."
Good idea! (Score:5, Funny)
Very apt (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Good idea! (Score:5, Funny)
I'd mod you up if I could but the masses probably think you are fishing for mod points...
Re:Good idea! (Score:5, Funny)
Ok, enough about this tail of roe
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Fools! (Score:5, Funny)
You fools! If the dolphins develop time travel there will be no stopping them!
Re:Fools! (Score:5, Interesting)
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Oceans need more man made stuff in them! (Score:5, Funny)
2. ???
3. LUXURY CONDOMINIUMS FOR FISH
Re:Oceans need more man made stuff in them! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oceans need more man made stuff in them! (Score:5, Interesting)
We've also been leaving large steel objects on the ocean floor for quite some time (>100 years), both accidentally [wikipedia.org] and deliberately [wikipedia.org] . These are the least of our concerns when talking about ocean pollution. If you actually want to do something about the ocean start talking about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch [wikipedia.org], because that's far more harmful to marine life then a few sunken subway cars or ships that actually provide shelter for fish and a surface for coral to grow on.
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I'm beginning to think it's more of a headline, than a reality. I don't doubt there is an unacceptable level of garbage floating around out there, but it shouldn't be asking much to have some direct evidence of it. So far, it'
Re:Oceans need more man made stuff in them! (Score:5, Informative)
re: Running out of cars.
If they find themselves running out of New York subway cars, maybe they could try using passenger cars. We've got plenty of them laying around, just waiting to become a "fish condo".
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If they find themselves running out of New York subway cars, maybe they could try using passenger cars.
They don't just sink ships or other vehicles without cleaning the contaminants off of them first. It would probably be too cost prohibitive to rip the seats out of cars, drain all the fluids and thoroughly degrease them. Besides, it's profitable to recycle cars so there's really no reason to sink them (whereas it's not always profitable to recycle larger vehicles due to the cost to disassemble, transport and process them).
even hundreds of years (Score:3, Insightful)
Oceans need more ELECTRIFIED! man made stuff (Score:2, Interesting)
When I honeymooned in Bali we went snorkeling around these structures. They seemed perfectly safe and the corals were amazing. The coral growth on the structures seemed far more prolific than that on the ocean bottom.
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I kind of feel like what goes into #2 is not real hard to figure out, but: As far as I can tell, artificial reefs do two things (and I am not in any way an expert on this, I'm mostly just remembering from an article about them doing this in Australia and a quick Google of 'artificial reef' to double check my recollections): create a sort of breakwater to prevent beach erosion, and provide a spot for things like
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I have a luxury couch and an old luxury TV the fish could use...
Typo (Score:5, Insightful)
The last thing I need when I scuba diving (Score:5, Funny)
Great idea (Score:2)
And, this article coming right after the article showing how the major oilfield in North Dakota might just be viable.
There's hope for this country yet!
I wish there were some underwater photos showing what the subway cars are like after spending several years underwater. (The CGI animation doesn't count.)
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Here are some from the reef in New Jersey: http://www.nycsubway.org/cars/redbird-scrap.html [nycsubway.org]
asbestos (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:asbestos (Score:5, Funny)
Re:asbestos (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:asbestos (Score:5, Interesting)
The asbestos is probably safer down there than anywhere else, I'd guess.
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Underwater, there is no dust. In fact, water is needed for proper removal. If you really think about it, the safest place to put asbestos is deep underwater.
Re:asbestos (Score:4, Insightful)
As far as I recall, asbestos is really only dangerous to human lungs because, when "disturbed" in an open air environment, it disperses into rather tiny particles that annoy your lungs rather severely.
I'm not sure entirely what relevance that has to a water environment, except that it seems fish's gills work significantly differently than human lungs.
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Re:asbestos (Score:5, Funny)
Re:asbestos what about other stuff (Score:2, Insightful)
you could keep an entire university of scientists busy for years
and alot of the stuff is probably, if you look hard, sourced from china, so it may not even be what it is supposed to be, eg very very toxix pbbs (poly brominated biphenyls) are banned in civilized countrys..
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Well if you had comprehended the reading asignment ;-) you would have seen:
"State and federal environmental officials approved the use of the Redbirds and other cars for artificial reefs in Delaware and elsewhere because they said the asbestos was not a risk for marine life and has to be airborne to pose a threat to humans."
Don't forget that asbestos is a naturally made substance [wikipedia.org], not a man-made one.
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Good News! We at the Slashdot Literary Action Group (SLAG) have decided you can keep you're 'Credibility Card' since, although you claim to have RTFA, you clearly didn't get anything out it. To wit:
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Like some new large winery cellars. (Score:5, Interesting)
Dig a deep trench, place old RR cars inside, then fill the trench up again with dirt. And there it is, a cave build like a Lego. A little bit of retrofitting may be necessary, especially where car doors meet, but still, you can save a ton of money in this fashion.
Surely, not only Mexican wineries are using the same technique.
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Re:Like some new large winery cellars. (Score:4, Funny)
Scrap metal value ? (Score:5, Insightful)
You get more band from copper (Score:4, Insightful)
look at the fourth column for scrap steel price. See how much it rose in the last 2-3 monthes and over last year. [steelonthenet.com]
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Nifty but not a new idea. (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.urgq.org/curtin_artif_reef.htm [urgq.org]
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"You call that making a reef? This [youtube.com] is how you make a reef."
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There is an organization in New Jersey that has been using the old NYC subways for artificial reefs for at least 5-6 years ( founded in 1993 - http://www.reefball.org/ [reefball.org] ). And from NJ.gov ( PDF Link http://nj.gov/dep/fgw/pdf/2003/reef_news03.pdf [nj.gov] ). Looks like NJ has been doing artificial reefs since 1984, using all sorts of things, not just old subway cars.
In BC we sink old ships to make habitats... (Score:5, Informative)
I can't find a great link in 10s of searching, but this is a start:
http://www.divingbc.com/ [divingbc.com]
Re:In BC we sink old ships to make habitats... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:In BC we sink old ships to make habitats... (Score:5, Informative)
Over time, decay does set in, and the 'debris' does come loose. This isn't like street litter though. It tends to stay close to the wreck, and the fragments that are too small tend to rust away rather quickly, or be abraded to a sand.
There are reasonably strict regulations on what can be dumped in as an artificial reef (oil, and all the nasty sea life killing stuff is removed first). And as far as studies go, there's a rich history of wrecks, some of which went down without any cleaning whatsoever, and they are invariably colonised quite rapidly by sea life. Empirical evidence is there aplenty. And with the newer reefs, there are many scuba divers frequenting them (and a good portion of scuba divers are very possessive of the environment, as we get to see the real damage done by running roughshod over it).
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It stands for 'Beyond Carbonear' [heritage.nf.ca] leaving civilization for the boonies.
Bioaccumulation fears (Score:5, Interesting)
I used "artificial" and "reefs" in combinations with words like "bioaccumulation", "pcb", "tyres", "pollutants", "chemicals", etc.
Surprisingly, I only found statements like "needs more research", "no measurable effect" and no-brainers like that.
Could it be that I missed those true alarmist reports I guessed would be there?! One read like:
http://www.flseagrant.org/program_areas/ecosystem_health/artificial_reefs/index.htm#21 [flseagrant.org]
"The oil ash and control reefs were constructed with the aid of divers in just one day, and monitoring of the reefs was carried out for one year. Leaching of trace metals from the blocks was extremely slow, and only limited instances of enhanced bioaccumulation of metals were observed. However, pressure from environmental groups led the electric power industry and the State of Florida to discontinue construction of artificial reefs from stabilized waste material."
I don't want to play this in the hands of waste mongers, but hope some could actually find some more conclusive results.
Don't get me wrong. Play it safe, please.
.
Re:Bioaccumulation fears (Score:4, Informative)
It's not a scholarly reference, but there are definitely clear examples of deliberately-constructed artificial reefs which were ultimately damaging to marine ecology. Read about the Osborne Reef Waste Tire Removal Pilot Project [state.fl.us] in Florida:
Emperor's clothes (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, dumping rubbish is the sea is a Good Idea(TM). The secret is out!
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Oh I hope they know what they are doing (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe it'll work out better this time...
Re:Oh I hope they know what they are doing (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh I hope they know what they are doing (Score:4, Informative)
In a previous life I worked on fishing boats out of Indian River Inlet. There was already a good selection of wrecks in the area, including an U-Boot from WWII. All the wrecks are hot spots both for fish and for divers.
Unfair swipe at Deloreans (Score:2)
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Many of the redbirds were more than 50 years old when retired and all had around 10 million miles on them. Even at the end of their lives, they traveled 30,000 miles in between maintenance stops.
Come talk to me when either a Yugo *or* a Delorean is that reliable.
Give them to another city instead! (Score:2)
A train is pretty expensive (e.g. refurbishing old trains in London is costing £1million per train, it's several times that amount for a new train). Fair enough if the subway trains in New York are too outdated to be refurbished, but if this isn't the case they should be in another city that can't afford new trains.
(For one example, the Pyongyang Metro in North Korea uses old trains from subways given to them by East Germany.)
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I can see an American city not wanting the old trains -- it's probably not too good for public image -- but other countries might.
I am familiar with that rumour, but there's also a report from a BBC journalist who slipped his 'guide' in Pyongyang. He doesn't
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While still reliable given their age, it was no longer cost effective maintaining them. At a certain point, it becomes more affordable to buy new cars than to keep maintaining the old ones. These cars would bankrupt any city that couldn't afford to buy new cars. If a city can't afford to buy new cars, then they couldn't afford to maintain these ones.
They were also just not very nice anymore b
Story underplays the most important fact (Score:3, Funny)
You can get subway cars for free!
I'll have five, thanks.
Bricked! (Score:2)
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
-dZ.
Somehow this seems TOO convenient (Score:3, Insightful)
The idea that tossing junk into offshore waters is beneficial... well, as the Church Lady used to say, "Isn't that convenient?"
In the 1970s, there was a similar project in Florida, involving discarded tires. The system used to hold the tires in place failed after a few years, tires started to come loose, the fact that it wasn't stable made it a failure as an artificial reef, mildly toxic stuff started to leech out of the tires, and the whole thing was an environmental disaster. The process of cleaning up the tires, now in progress, is expensive and labor-intensive. Read about it here [wikipedia.org]
The sea is a very corrosive environment. Before starting this project, did anyone check to see whether there are any subway cars that have already been in the ocean for a few decades to see what's happened to them?
In the case of these subway cars, I'd worry about copper. Copper is deadly poison to most marine organisms. It's the bane of people who try to set up salt-water aquaria.
I notice that the article doesn't say that the subway cars contained no electric wiring. Nor does it say that all the copper was removed from them before scuttling them.
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Here is another article: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=980CE7DA153EF93BA15757C0A9649C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all [nytimes.com] Where they actually say what they do to the cars.
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Great Idea. (Score:4, Funny)
Was tried. Is not regarded as nice by coast folk (Score:2)
Littering? (Score:2, Funny)
CSI:NY (Score:3, Informative)
Such a Shame... (Score:2)
Oil rigs and marine life (Score:3, Interesting)
Free, huh? (Score:2)
Now, getting it here... that could be tricky.
Aircraft too... (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.divemaster.ca/boeing/ [divemaster.ca]
Prior to the sinking it went through an extensive environmental cleanup until eventually all that was left was metal.
Fish - on a train? (Score:2)
Re:Memories (Score:5, Funny)
Please keep it there!
Re:2000 years from now... (Score:5, Funny)
"A new discovery by our great leader shows ancient American maps may be off by 200 miles, our great leaders scientists believe New York may have been situated at the opening of the Delaware Bay; alternative theories suggest these submerged relics may have been attributed somehow to experiments at the Black Mesa facility (formerly CERN-LHC) in 2009"
[history] (net.earth.news) 34899 points posted 3 mars hours ago by GreatLeaderHalliburton retaliates against France!
"The Great Leader has sent supporting troops to support Halliburton forces in retaliation following French aggression last week against the sovereign nation. Live holostream and kill-cam with Geraldo Rivera's clone from 7pm."
[worldnews] (net.earth.actualités) 19148 points posted 5 mars hours ago by GreatLeaderRe: (Score:3, Interesting)
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Subway cars, however, are heavy enough to not move around in the currents and should provide ample anchorage for sea life.
Re:global warming (Score:4, Interesting)
To the degree it increases marine biomass, it's just as effective as increasing any OTHER biomass for capyuring CO2. So in theory it would decrease global warming.
Much too small an effect to be measurable.
It -has- been suggested that spreading iron on the ocean in areas where lack of iron is the limiter on plant-growth would allow much more plants to grow and thus capture a lot of CO2. I think the biggest uncertanity there was for how -long- the CO2 would stay out of the atmosphere.
If a significant fraction of the dead plants sink, retention would be good, hundreds of years at the very least. If most of them decompose near the surface and the CO2 is released from the water, there wouldn't be much benefit.
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If a significant fraction of the dead plants sink, retention would be good, hundreds of years at the very least. If most of them decompose near the surface and the CO2 is released from the water, there wouldn't be much benefit.
Erm, if they decompose in the water and release tons of CO2, won't it turn into carbonic acid and decrease the water's pH? (It wouldn't be by a lot, but the whole point to this is that small changes may produce systemic effects.)
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The ocean naturally acts as a sink for carbon in general due to its nature of resisting changes in acidity with the chemical pathways that bicarbonate takes in the ocean. The bicarb acts as a buffer but its action is reduced with increased acidification (which does happen from increased CO2 absorption), which would reduce the effe
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Dammit, she's not even my kid!!!
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http://www.dep.state.fl.us/waste/categories/tires/pages/osbornepilot.htm [state.fl.us]
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Stainless Steel is very recyclable as it contains very expensive Chrome and Nickel and other alloys. Copper has never been higher too.
Me thinks under Martime Law these are abandoned "sunken ships" and are subject to full finders-keepers salvage rights (IANAL)
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You sell them to other states that want to make reefs.
Rinse repeat.
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A common automobile can be cheaply towed to a junkyard and crushed.
A subway car? Not so easy to transport.
The city went through a period of several years when it could not get rid of these subway cars. Nobody wanted them because the expense of transporting them and then tearing them down outweighed any financial gain from the scrap metal. So a decision was made to offer them for free. Still, for a whi
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They ARE easy to cut up and transport. It's simple oxy-propane torchwork to cut them into pieces sized to fit the standard trailers and rolloff containers used to carry other scrap to salvage.
I suspect that the program began a while back when stainless and mild steel were dirt cheap and it continued out of inertia. In the case of the cars with small amounts of asbestos there might not be a domestic market for them due to having to remove it before the hulls hit the s
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http://www.jaylittle.com/jaylittle/default.aspx?cmd=article&sub=display&id=30 [jaylittle.com]
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redbird_trains [wikipedia.org]
"Most Redbirds were phased out from 2001 to 2003 and replaced by the new R142 and R142A cars. 1,208 Redbirds have been sunk at sea off the coasts of Delaware, Georgia, New Jersey, South Carolina, and Virginia as artificial reefs to promote marine life, to serve as a barrier and to enhance recreational scuba diving. Delaware received 558 cars, Georgia 50, New Jersey 250, South Carolina 200, and Virginia 150
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I would correct this on Wikipedia but I'm sure some jerk would just revert it back.
The R-142's were not a direct replacement for the redbirds. (btw, "redbird" is a generic term - these cars did have contract number designations, but at least five different car types were painted red and called redbirds.) On the 7 line, R-62's actually replaced the redbirds. The R-142's then replaced the R-62's moved from the 2 and
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What do you call 10,000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?
A good start.