State proposes vast expansion of artificial reef program

New York State is proposing to significantly expand artificial reef sites in the waters around Long Island while creating four new ones, affecting thousands of acres of sea bottom.

The effort will add an untold tonnage of refuse steel and concrete to the hundreds of barges, ships, vehicles — including 10 Good Humor trucks — that already make up the expansive man-made reef system.

Public hearings about the plan began Thursday at the Freeport Public Library.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s administration has led a historic expansion of the reef program for several years, an effort largely cheered by environmental groups, recreational fishers and divers because the reefs attract fish through protective habitat. They also limit commercial fishing directly around the reefs, according to a DEC report, and may introduce nonnative species to the area as ocean waters warm.

The reefs also provide a cheaper alternative to disposing of construction and municipal debris such as metal from the Tappan Zee Bridge and old canal tugboats. All the debris is screened for toxins and environmental hazards.

The expansion of the program, proposed in documents filed by the state Department of Environmental Conservation, will also be the subject of public hearings Monday at 6 p.m. at the DEC’s headquarters in Setauket. The department will seek public comment through the end of February.

Among the initiatives proposed are an expansion of a 14-acre reef off Moriches to 850 acres, another off Shinnecock from a current 35 acres to 850, creation of a new 850-acre reef at a site around 12 miles out to sea south of Nassau-Suffolk border called Sixteen Fathom, the creation of another off Huntington/Oyster bay of 50 acres, a new 50-acre reef at Port Jefferson/Mount Sinai, and expansion of one at Smithtown from 3 acres to 31 acres. There will also be a new 50-acre reef off Mattituck.

Other proposed enlargements include expansion of a 413-acre reef near Rockaway to 635 acres, quadrupling one called the McAllister Grounds off Jones Beach from 115 acres to 425, expansion of a 744-acre Fire Island reef to 850 acres, and one offshore Atlantic Ocean reef expansion at Hempstead to 850 acres from a current 744.

Materials that have been used to create the reefs in years before 1993 include tens of thousands of tires; scores of steel buoys, dozens of barges, tugboats, rock, brick and concrete rubble, hundreds of “auto bodies,” dozens of barges, pontoons, pieces of snow plows, a steel lifeboat, a steel crane and boom, a concrete culvert and a 15-tire pyramid.

More recent materials have included massive sections of the Tappan Zee and City Island bridges, a steel power plant turbine, large sections of a 100-foot scow, concrete cesspool rings, surplus armored vehicles, steel bridge trusses and 100 concrete reef balls.

The DEC in a statement said the state is “actively working with numerous agencies and partners to acquire recycled materials of opportunity best suited for each artificial reef site.”

The reefs have “varying features and environmental conditions, and DEC seeks the most beneficial materials for each specific site as it becomes available,” the agency said.

Like more recent reef building efforts, the expanded sites “will continue to include vessels, bridge and construction materials, and other materials made from steel, concrete and rock.”

The DEC is even encouraging donations. “If someone is interested in adopting a site, donating material, or getting involved, visit DEC’s artificial reef webpage or email artificialreefs@dec.ny.gov,” DEC said.

Not everyone is on board with using refuse for reef building.

“This is just a backwards way to dump garbage,” Daniel Rodgers, a Southampton attorney and director of industry group New York Fish, said in an interview Thursday. “I don’t understand how even fishermen think this is a good idea. You wouldn’t put this stuff in your backyard, and they’re putting it in the ocean.”

Chris LaPorta, the DEC’s reef program coordinator, stressed at the hearing in Freeport that the initiative was “not ocean dumping,” noting that the materials were rock and other “clean materials,” all approved by the DEC.

DEC has been studying the impact of reefs, and noting environmental benefits and effects. For instance, the report notes that placement of reefs can stir up sediment, and can have an impact on creatures below the material.

“The proposed project will result in the direct burial of benthic organisms at the reef locations due to placement of reef materials,” the report notes, citing the particular impact on surf clams and ocean quahogs. “The existing benthic community would be directly impacted through burial and habitat conversion, which would result in a permanent local loss.”

The report notes that while recreational fishing opportunities will increase around reefs, commercial fishermen will be affected, although only a “minor percentage” of fishing grounds would be off limits.

“Up to 6,812 acres of open-water benthic habitat will no longer be available for commercial harvest by mobile gear fisherman,” including for dredging, trawling and gill netting, the report says.

By Mark Harrington

mark.harrington@newsday.comMHarringtonNews

Mark Harrington, a Newsday reporter since 1999, covers energy, wineries, Indian affairs and fisheries.