Gordon Colvin, DEC's Director of Marine Resources, introduced the Department staff involved in the Artificial Reef Program for the Bureau of Marine Resources:   Steve Heins, head of the Artificial Reef and Marine Fishing Access Section; and Chris LaPorta, Artificial Reef Program Manager.   Mr. Heins briefed the Council on the Artificial Reef Program.

The Environmental Conservation Law (ECL) defines "artificial reef" as, " ... a hard structure deliberately placed in a marine or coastal water body for the purpose of imitating environmental conditions found on underwater rock outcroppings, shellfish reefs, or coral reefs."   Artificial reefs provide the following ecological functions:   point of attachment for sessile invertebrates (barnacles, anemones, hydroids, etc.); shelter from predators for lobsters and finfish; create upwelling eddies that resuspend nutrients and concentrate plankton; provide spawning areas for certain structure-associated fishes.   DEC builds artificial reefs so that fishermen can have access to reef fisheries.

The benefits attributable to artificial reefs include recreational angling & scuba diving; certain limited commercial fishing activity; economic benefits; and habitat diversification and enhancement.   DEC has exclusive authority over artificial reefs in state waters and the US Army Corps of Engineers will not issue a permit to construct an artificial reef in New York waters to any other agency, group, or organization.

DEC produced an artificial reef development plan (including a Generic Environmental Impact Statement) in 1993.   It called for the creation of 15 new reef sites around Long Island.    Wallop-Breaux funds provide $10-15 K per year to support the entire artificial reef and fishing access program at DEC, including outreach activities.   Some capital construction funds are also made available.   The program relies heavily on partner organizations to conduct their program, such as Division of Law Enforcement, US Coast Guard, Suffolk County Department of Public Works, etc.   However, the agreements with these entities are usually tentative and conditional.   Funding is also made available by fishing clubs and organizations.

Program staff spend most of their time in discussions with partner and contributing organizations planning the enhancement or enlargement of existing reefs.   Construction materials used to date on artificial reefs includes rock, scrap concrete, steel vessels, wooden vessels (no longer), reef balls, and surplus armored vehicles (no longer).  

Rock used in reef work now comes mostly from new dredging activity in New York Harbor.   Since 1999, nearly a million lbs. of rock has been used in the program.   However, the Corps of Engineers has only been willing to transport the rock a certain distance from the confines of New York Harbor and, thus, the rock is not available for use at most state fishing reefs.   Also used since the late 1990's are fishing vessels retired from the New England fishing fleet.   Additional materials may be available from the US Maritime Administration (MARAD) in the form of mothballed military vessels.   Removing contaminants from these vessels is an issue.   Artificial reef staff are following the future availability ships from this fleet closely.

The program has been able to do a limited amount of evaluation and monitoring.    Surveys of boats using the artificial reefs have been assisted with aircraft overflights provided by the State Police.   A total of 1180 boats were observed fishing on 11 reefs over the course of the last year.   Side-scan and multibeam sonar surveys have also been employed to produce detailed sonographic images of the reef, which will assist in the evaluation of the durability of the materials used on the reefs, accuracy of reef placement, etc.   More recently, program staff have been able to begin to use in-water SCUBA inspections of reefs.

Artificial fishing reefs qualify under state law as "special management areas," in which DEC can regulate the taking and manner of taking (of fish) in these areas.   Such regulations will be proposed during 2004.

  Mr. Heins noted that many angling groups have requested the creation of new artificial reefs, but limits on the reef program resources currently prohibit the development of new reef sites.   The current permits on the existing reefs expire this year.   He identified three options as framing the future of the DEC artificial reef program:   1) discontinue the program and redirect its resources to other marine program priorities; 2) evaluate and monitor the reefs for three years after their 10-year permits expire in June 2004; 3) get permits now for several sites in the ocean at which construction can continue with rock from New York Harbor and add two new reef sites in the ocean.

Existing permits require reports to be written for each of the current reefs.   Financial resources are needed to allow the New York Harbor rock to be transported further afield and to do a more coherent effort to monitor and evaluate artificial reefs.

Councilor Freierman suggested that artificial reef sites should be examined for their potential to also accommodate offshore wind energy farms, as opposed to areas with trawlable bottom, where they are now proposed south of Long Island.   She asked what criteria DEC used to locate new artificial reefs.   Mr. Heins responded that most of the program activity involved established reef sites, not new ones.    New sites are identified through a consultation process involving recreational anglers and commercial fishermen to identify sites that would be potentially attractive to the former where the latter did not work.   Councilor Freierman also asked about the fate of the subway cars that were being considered last year as artificial reef substrate in New Jersey waters.   Mr. Heins responded that 250 cars went into the ocean off New Jersey; 600 cars went into Delaware Bay.    Mr. Colvin noted that environmental groups raised two issues about the use of these cars for reefs:   1) the primary reason the MTA made the cars available for use on reefs was to avoid the necessity of cleaning the cars of asbestos under established protocols, an expensive operation and what would be impact of this material on the marine environment and 2) the steel of the cars was of questionable durability when placed in the marine environment.   The ensuing controversy led New Jersey to withdraw its acceptance of the cars and New York to not accept the cars.   Delaware did accept the cars and deployed them in 2001 in Delaware Bay.   The MTA, the USEPA, and Delaware undertook monitoring of some of the cars placed in Delaware Bay and a number placed a decade or so earlier in New Jersey waters of the Atlantic Ocean.   No monitoring report has been issued to date by any of these agencies, although some informal results have been shared with DEC.   The State of New York decided not to take some of the cars without the official results of the promised monitoring activity.   The cars that were eventually taken and used by New Jersey are to be the subject of a 10-year monitoring program and New Jersey will not take any more cars during that period of time.   Mr. Colvin stated that this issue may resurface if MTA in the future again offers surplused subway cars as material for artificial reefs.

Councilor McBride stated that, if New York's marine angling community is interested in artificial reefs, and if the use of subway cars is acceptable from an environmental perspective, he thought the subway cars should be used.

In response to a question from Councilor Dearborn, Mr. Heins clarified that, once the current DEC and Corps permits for the existing reefs expire on 20 June 2004, no further work on existing reefs or construction of new reefs can proceed in New York waters until and unless new permits are issued to DEC.

Councilor Davi asked about the potential for reef materials to release contaminants into the marine environment.   Mr. Heins replied that the permits for the existing reefs require that all materials being placed on a reef be contaminant-free.   He also noted that studies to assess organisms inhabiting sunken vessels torpedoed during WWII typically revealed very little uptake of contaminants from those vessels.

Mr. John German of the Long Island Sound Lobstermen's Association stated a concern that artificial reefs simply congregated fish and made them more susceptible to capture.

Mr. Colvin observed that, should a state construct an artificial reef in the Exclusive Economic Zone, state laws and regulations would not apply to that structure.   However, it is possible that, at the state's suggestion, NMFS might implement similar measures regulating fishing activity on that structure under it regulatory authority as part of a fishery management plan, e.g., for black sea bass.

 

Page last modified Monday, March 29, 2004 by George E. Carroll