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Category: artificial reefs

New Man-Made Reefs Heading To Gulf Floor

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Man-made reefs similar to this will be deployed off Escambia County between now and June, 2019.
CREDIT ESCAMBIA COUNTY MARINE RESOURCES

More than 700 new artificial reefs are going into the waters off Pensacola in the next few months, in phase two of a program funded by the BP settlement of the 2010 oil spill.

According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, for every dollar spent on artificial reefs in the Florida Panhandle, the conservative overall economic benefit is roughly $138.

“We’ve been trying to do this the whole time I’ve been on the [Commission]; actually, even before I got on the Board Escambia County had taken a fairly aggressive position on reefing,” said Escambia County Commissioner Grover Robinson, who chairs the Gulf Consortium, 23 Florida counties affected by the Deepwater Horizon explosion and resulting oil spill.

The money’s coming from the Natural Resource Damage Assessment, NRDA, which is aimed at compensating for environmental damages in those counties.

“When NRDA came about, Escambia County residents lost the whole spring and summer of fishing [in 2010] due to the oil spill,” Robinson said. “That we knew there was something that we needed to do to compensate those individuals.”Not just the people that commercially fish; but also our recreational fishers.”

Dropping artificial reefs off the coastline is going beyond Escambia; Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, Walton and Bay Counties also have programs. Robinson calls it a “common thread” across northwest Florida to build habitat that can translate into more tourist revenues.

Escambia Co. Commissioner Grover Robinson, Chairman of the Gulf Consortium.
CREDIT DAVE DUNWOODY, WUWF PUBLIC MEDIA

“Not only do you have the tourist dollars that come from the actual charter on your boat going out with people and doing the fishing, you have the supplies they buy; the tackle, the line, the rods, the reels,” said Robinson. “But more than that, you also get the hotel stays; they eat, they usually stay here.”

Two local firms will share $2.2 million in NRDA money to build the reefs. Walter Marine of Orange Beach will get $1.7 million to provide 77 large tetrahedron, or triangular pyramid, reefs, and about 300 smaller reefs. Coastal Reef Builders of Pensacola will use $531,000 to build 350 large dome reefs.

“We’re ready to go,” Robinson says. “We’re ready to get them working and hopefully there will be great opportunities for us to expand our fishing and for people to get out on the Gulf.”

Robert Turpin, Director of Marine Resources for Escambia County.
CREDIT ESCAMBIA COUNTY

“The end of the contract is June of 2019; however, it’s very likely that the construction will be completed well before that cutoff date,” said Robert Turpin, Escambia County’s Marine Resources Director. He says the structures will help increase fish populations using 21st century materials and deployment techniques.

“Cured concrete that is stable and durable,” said Turpin. “Some of this has limestone that is actually embedded into the concrete, which provides for a more natural sub-strait for attaching and boring organisms.”

As part of the project, there also will be an upgraded interactive map of area reef sites showing both reef modules and shipwreck sites through Google Earth; and a new app for GPS units.

“We also have the coordinates in a GPX format that is available for most of the newer GPS units,” said Turpin. “Where you can simply upload the coordinates in your GPS unit, instead of the old-fashioned way where you had to literally punch in the numbers one at a time.”

Meanwhile, construction is underway at the new Three Mile Bridge site, including plans for lead contractor Skanska USA to take down the old span. Turpin is hoping that those materials can be used to improve the reefs made from the remnants of the I-10 Bridge that was replaced after being destroyed by Hurricane Ivan.

“Skanska was one of the contractors that replaced the I-10 Bridge,” Turpin said. “So they know reefing of those materials is fast. And we’ve made it even faster, more efficient, therefore cheaper for them to do the same thing with the Three Mile Bridge rubble.”

As mentioned, Santa Rosa County is also building its reef program. According to the Pensacola News Journal, the county has about $1.2 million in the bank for additional modules at a snorkel reef off Navarre.

 This story originally aired on February 21, 2018. For more habitat articles go to Fishiding.com

Artificial reefs to boost fish supply

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ARTIFICIAL reefs are to be built in local waters to boost fish supplies which have been depleted by over-fishing, pollution, dredging and dumping.

The Agriculture and Fisheries Department yesterday announced it was investigating sites for the reefs and had received $1.6 million from the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club to start the project.
Reefs provide nursing and feeding grounds for all sorts of marine life including larger fish sold in local markets.
Fisheries officer David Cook said it was hoped local stocks would be boosted and the diversity of marine life in Hong Kong would increase with the reefs.
”We see that there’s a need to provide some level of redress for the perceived damage that’s occurring to the marine environment,” he said.
Fishermen and environmentalists have stepped up campaigns in the past year to call attention to the destruction caused by dredging and dumping for the airport projects. Silt is stirred up that can smother corals and drive away fish.
But overfishing is also a concern and Mr Cook said fishing around the reefs would be restricted.
He said fishermen in Malaysia and Thailand had abided by fishing restrictions around artificial reefs in their waters because they increased fish production by up to 400 times in some cases.
It was impossible to say how much impact the scheme would have on Hong Kong fisheries as this would be proportional to the scale of the project, he said.
But fish stocks are expected to increase when the first reefs are set up in soon-to-be-established marine parks where legislation already restricts fishing, he said. The first park is expected to be declared later this year, probably in the eastern waters.
But the declaration of the parks is likely to be slow and cover only a limited area, and any large-scale setting up of artificial reefs will require about $65 million.
The Jockey Club’s $1.6 million contribution will be used towards setting set up the first few reefs and determine the best reef sites.
The programme is separate from trials being carried out on an artificial reef made from coal ash in Hoi Ha Wan, which is still underway. Until results are available on its safety, the reefs will be made from more expensive reinforced concrete.
It is also hoped to use sunken ships, possibly some of the hundreds of vessels destroyed by the Marine Department each year, as these can provide the solid surface and nooks and crannies needed for a successful reef.
Hong Kong’s natural coral reefs are in the eastern waters and many have been damaged by dredging and pollution and by a mysterious water current last month that killed everything in a 40-square-kilometre area.
Most of the rest of the sea bottom is flat and soft, and the reefs will provide a place for marine organisms to grow, providing food for larger animals.By KATHY GRIFFIN
Mr Cook said. Dozens of unique habitat models at fishiding.com

Biorock giving new life to coral reefs

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Johnny Langenheim explains how an innovative method is sustaining corals and why on World Oceans Day we need to pledge for more such projects

Coral reef restoration Biorock project at Ibu Karang, Pemuteran, Bali, Indonesia

Biorock project at Ibu Karang, Pemuteran, Bali, Indonesia. Photograph: T.Goreau/Biorock

Coral reefs are the rainforests of the world’s oceans. Like their terrestrial counterparts, they occur in tropical and sub tropical environments, support a bewildering variety of species and are diminishing at an alarming rate. See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the leader in proven science based, fish protection.

Marine biologists across the world are desperately trying to protect our remaining reefs from the impacts of global warming and destructive fishing. Others are building repositories of the known coral species – so that our grandchildren at least get to see them in aquariums or laboratories – and still others are constructing artificial reefs in areas of significant damage.

Humans have been creating reefs for thousands of years to improve their fisheries – you can pretty much sink anything solid in the right marine environment and calcium carbonate, the key ingredient in coral, will accrete to it. It’s a hit and miss affair, though, often bringing just a fraction of the biodiversity seen in a natural reef. But in the 1970s, some simple science created dramatic changes.

The biorock method was developed by architect and marine scientist Wolf Hilbertz and marine biologist Tom Goreau. They found that by running a small electrical current through seawater, a hard shell of calcium carbonate would form on the cathode. You could then attach small pieces of natural coral to the structure. The corals seemed to love these substrates, achieving growth rates often five times faster than normal. Today there are more than 20 Biorock projects around the globe, but by far the biggest – and arguably the most innovative – are in Indonesia.

“Right now we have 62 biorock structures around this island,” says Delphine Robbe, as she pulls on a wetsuit. “By 2012 we should have one hundred.”. Since coming to Gili Trawangan in 2005 with a vague plan to get her dive master certification, the Frenchwoman has become the driving force behind the island’s many eco programmes.

Trawangan is one of three tiny coral atolls off the coast of Lombok, Indonesia and increasingly a compulsory side trip to any Bali holiday, thanks to its bone white beaches, diving and snorkelling sites and absence of both dogs and motor vehicles. Pristine reef, however, is harder to find. “Probably 70 to 80% of our shallow reefs were destroyed by dynamite fishing,” Robbe tells me. “It was actually the local fishermen who kick started the eco movement here, when they set up patrols to try and stop the bombing.”

Goreau’s attention is on the Gili cluster, which has impressed him with its biodiversity and water quality. He and Hilbertz had chosen the tiny village of Pemuteran in north Bali as the site of what is today the largest biorock project in the world and are now looking for new areas to colonise with their artificial reef structures. Robbe met Goreau at the first Biorock conference and workshop in Trawangan in November 2005 and by the end of it, she’d been enlisted. “The next year, I led the workshop and brought in the major dive operators as sponsors,” she explains. “In return, they got their very own biorock installations in front of their dive shops.”

Besides stimulating biodiversity, the biorock structures also combat beach erosion, which became a serious problem with the destruction of the natural reefs. Increasingly, they are an attraction for tourists too – especially since English artist and environmentalist Celia Gregory joined the project.

Gregory, who besides being a mosaic artist and sculptor is also a dive master, contacted Tom Goreau after seeing the biorock project in Pemuteran. “I was really inspired by what they’d done and it gave me this idea of merging art with coral conservation,” she explains. “Plus I’d experienced dynamite fishing first hand when a device went off during a dive. We saw the shattered coral and the dead fish.”

Divers and snorkellers can now see underwater scultpures of a manta ray, dolphin, turtle, octopus, snake, moon, miniature phinisi schooner and even a komodo dragon. Gregory is now working with award winning industrial designer Tom Dixon who wants to create an underwater three-piece suite, while Bali based US photographer and vintage motorbike enthusiast Dustin Humphrey is thinking of sinking some old bikes and doing an underwater shoot complete with models.

Meanwhile, Robbe is building on the eco credentials of the project by exploring alternative sources of energy with which to power the biorock installations. “Running cable out to see and powering it with diesel generators is not exactly sustainable,” she says. “So we’re planning to build our first tidal energy turbines this year and then unroll much bigger ones by November 2012, the date of our next workshop.” She’s also landed some major commercial sponsors – oil company Total is looking to help fund the turbines, while Malaysian Airlines wants to put in an airplane sculpture.

But all of this comes with a caveat. The increasing popularity of the Gilis has prompted an unprecedented surge in development that threatens to scupper conservation efforts in the long term. Rising population and a rash of new construction is putting pressure on an island whose circumference is just 12km and which imports nearly everything, including fresh water.

Behind the quaint beach facing facades of the hotels, lies an open dump where most of the island’s rubbish goes, though Robbe recently set up a recycling system with the help of a Bali based company. The hotels often have rudimentary wastewater treatment systems, so biological waste goes straight into the sea, where it may create algae blooms that are toxic to coral.

There are a few exceptions. I stayed at the largely wind- and solar-powered Gili Eco Villas on the quiet north side of the island. They even have their own biorock sculpture of a whale.

“I have this vision of Gili Trawangan being a model of sustainability – it’s like a microcosm of the rest of the world, experiencing both threats and opportunities” Gregory says. “It has these amazing currents, endless sunlight and it’s small and contained enough to manage – if we were just smart about it.”

Gulf rigs, structures on track to become Essential Fish Habitat

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Gulf Council begins process to properly recognize value of artificial reefs

CORPUS CHRISTI, TX – A request to have the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council begin the process of classifying rigs and other vital artificial reefs as Essential Fish Habitat (EFH) was unanimously approved by the Council at its April meeting in Corpus Christi, Texas. Dr. Bob Shipp, Council member from Alabama and chairman of the Department of Marine Sciences at the University of South Alabama, made the motion as part of an effort to protect those structures from a 2010 federal directive to summarily remove all non-producing energy structures within five years of the issuance of that directive.

“This action sets in motion an amendment process that could be huge in the battle to save these structures, many of which are covered in tons of living coral and form the basis of thriving ecosystems,” said Pat Murray, CCA president. “We greatly appreciate Dr. Shipp for bringing this important issue to the Gulf Council to emphasize how important these structures are to the marine environment, and to anglers and divers.” See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the leader in proven science based, fish protection.

If artificial reefs are eventually designated as EFH, all federal agencies would then have to consult with NOAA Fisheries on federal actions that may adversely affect them. The number of required consultations could be considerable given the current rate of platform removals and installations and, despite these consultations, NOAA Fisheries could only make non-binding recommendations as to how to conserve the affected habitat.

“This is a significant part of the effort to elevate the importance of artificial reefs and save them from an ill-conceived federal order, but we have to continue to work this issue in Congress and with the Administration,” said Murray. “With the offshore season upon us, the realization of the impact of rig removal is only going to become more acute as anglers go offshore and discover that rigs they have fished for years are gone.”

In a misdirected response to the Gulf oil spill, the U.S. Department of Interior issued a directive in October of 2010 ordering that all non-producing rigs be plugged and any remaining structure removed. There are approximately 3,500 offshore structures in the Gulf of Mexico and the directive, known as the Idle Iron Policy, would immediately impact roughly 650 structures that have not produced oil or gas within five years of the directive issue date of Oct. 15, 2010.

Sen. David Vitter (R-La) and Rep. Steve Palazzo (R-Ms) have filed legislation that would prevent rigs and other structures from being summarily removed from the Gulf of Mexico, but both bills face a difficult road through the current Congress. NOAA Fisheries declaring artificial structures and rigs as Essential Fish Habitat is a significant addition to those legislative efforts.

Trading Nutrients for Fish « Floating Island International

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The concept of including fisheries management in strategies for water quality improvement is not new, but floating islands give the notion a boost. The simple concept is, add lots and lots of substrate and the fish will come! Catch plenty of fish and you will sequester the unwanted nutrients in a more appropriate part of the eco-system – lunch!

See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the leader in proven science based, fish protection.

In a recent article published in Pond Boss (www.pondboss.com) Bruce explores the concept of turning Phosphorus into fish to improve water quality. Here’s a quick link to the article:http://www.floatingislandinternational.com/wp-content/plugins/fii/news/37.pdf

Artifical Products grow fish

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First Coast may need to help bolster key industry – fishing

 First Coast anglers see fishing spots disappearing so quickly they say it’s time to create new fishing grounds to bolster an industry that the state says brings half a billion dollars into the local economy every year.
Scott Shine, a member of the Jacksonville Waterways Commission, said he is looking into ways to add more access to fishing in North Florida before the economic impact does permanent damage to the recreational fishing industry.
A Waterways Commission subcommittee has been formed to examine adding artificial reefs just offshore and in the St. Johns River.
See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the leader in proven science based, fish protection.
The federal government has closed several offshore fishing spots in recent years because of depleted fish stocks. There are also large tracts of water that have been placed off limits to vessels around military installations for security reasons.
“While we grow and while we’re seeking opportunities for tourism, we’re not growing our access to waterways on the same level that we’re experiencing in the growth in population,” Shine said.
RestrictionsThe recent restrictions cover hundreds of miles of ocean off the Southeast coast of the United States. Along the First Coast, those restrictions are hampering an industry that generates about $556 million a year for Northeast Florida, according to a report Shine drafted in January based on a 2010 Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation analysis.
Shine based his figures on the North Florida share of fishing licenses sold in the state along with other factors, such as fishing industry tracking data the state agency used to develop estimates.
Recent federal regulations restricting offshore catches of grouper, red snapper and other fish are already beginning to take their toll on the area recreational fishing industry.
“We’ve been losing ground,” said Vic Tison, who runs a charter boat fishing service and is chairman of the North Florida Chapter of the Recreational Fishing Alliance. “We’re getting less and less areas to fish. Where’s that going to leave us?”
Adding to the frustration for anglers is a restricted zone instituted around Mayport Naval Station last year.
With little public notice, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers added a 380-foot no-vessel zone on a 2½-mile stretch of water surrounding the base.
Tison said it has already blocked many of his charter excursions that used to sail near the base.
Roy Crabtree, the Southeast regional administrator for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries, said the agency takes into account the economic impact when implementing restrictions. In addition, Crabtree said recreational and commercial fishing interests were represented on the panel that made the decisions.
SolutionsWhile Shine concedes there is little sports anglers can do about the restrictions, he thinks the problem can be mitigated by creating new areas for fishing.
He said creating artificial reefs within 3 miles of shore would put those waters under state jurisdiction, cutting the federal government out of the equation. In addition, Shine wants artificial reefs to be sunk in the St. Johns River near the Mill Cove area in order to offset the restricted zones around the Mayport base and Blount Island.
“It increases access to fishing opportunities,” Shine said. “The federal government is drawing boxes on a map that are shutting down fishing and access in those areas.”
Crabtree said Shine’s proposal could provide some increased access in the face of the federal restrictions.
“If they were to put artificial reefs in state waters over there, that may provide access in fishing for anglers of a variety of species,” he said.
Tison acknowledged Shine’s proposals could keep the recreational fishing economy stable.
“It’s very important,” he said. “We’re getting less and less areas to fish continually. … Anytime you put a rock down or a structure down in the water, it’s going to create fishing habitat, and that gives the anglers more areas to fish.”

By Matt Dixon 
Morris News Service

Pier’s success provided by artificial reefs for fish

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Transition from old Twin Spans to Slidell Fishing Pier almost done

Slidell, LA —  St. Tammany leaders are now targeting late April for the opening of the Slidell Fishing Pier.  The wooden bridge leading to the old Twin Span bridge is done, and the early reviews are good.

“I think it came out a lot better than I expected even,” St. Tammany Parish Councilman Richie Artigue said.  Artigue predicted the pier will get a lot of use once it opens.See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the leader in  science based, proven, fish protection.

It was originally conceived by former Parish President Kevin Davis, as a way to use part of the old bridge as a Pensacola-style fishing pier.  The wooden bridge includes two gazebos.

“This is going to be one of the best things parish government ever did for the people of the parish, Councilman Artigue added.  “We’ve got many, many people who don’t have boats, can’t go out fishing.  This is going to be the place for people to bring their families, bring their kids, and come out here and catch a fish.”

The delay comes because it took longer than expected to run utilities, water, sewage and electricity.

“If anything,” St. Tammany Parish Spokesperson Suzanne Parsons-Stymiest said, “the last couple of months, when we had to postpone the opening from the original date, has really enforced for us how much the public wants this.”

Eventually, the fishing pier will include 24-hour security and lighting.  To pay for those services, people fishing should expect to pay a fee, perhaps in the neighborhood of $5, according to parish leaders.

“We want it to be clean, we want it to be lit, we want security,” Suzanne Parsons-Stymiest added.  “We want the availability of amenities such as a bait shop, so that fee is going to be put directly back into the operation of the fishing pier.”

All of that, as well as a bait shop and a restaurant will be in place “eventually” parish leaders said Monday, although perhaps not on opening day.

Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries agents dropped hunks of concrete into Lake Pontchartrain near the pier, to create artificial reefs for fish.  And that’s the bottom line for why parish leaders believe the pier will be successful, because fishing experts say, fish will be plentiful under the pier.Doug Mouton / Northshore Bureau Chief
Email: dmouton@wwltv.com | Twitter: @dmoutonwwl

Space ships for fish habitat

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Florida Today reports that Cape Canaveral officials are seeking federal approval to add more material — including segments of NASA and military rocket launch towers — to an existing 4-square-mile area called the Brevard County Artificial Reef Site 2.

Brevard plans to add parts of bridges, vessels, boulders and other materials to the existing artificial reef.County officials also hope to add portions of old defunct launch complexes from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and Kennedy Space Center. That could help the military and NASA defray costs of disposing of old launch complex material. “Instead, they can invest in a local project,” Culver said.

“We would want the structural beams, the large tower-type materials that they have out there,” Culver said. “There may be more than we can actually use.”

See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the leader in  science based, proven, fish protection.

The launch pad materials would first have to be inspected for anything hazardous. No fiberglass, fuel lines, toxic paints or asbestos would be allowed.

Past reef efforts include four giant liquid storage tanks used on the Titan missile program — the so-called Titan Reef — sunk in the fall of 1994 in conjunction with the U.S. Air Force. In July 1989, the Air Force donated materials from obsolete launch pads for another artificial reef.

No specific towers are identified in the Defense Department permit application.

Artificial Reefs and Seagrass

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Article of the Week 2 – Artificial Reefs

Posted by laymanc

Coastal ecosystems may be the most anthropogenically-altered on the planet.  Habitat loss, over-fishing, nutrient loading, and many other impacts have fundamentally changed the structure and function of these systems.  Many of these impacts operate over rather large spatial scales (think global warming or the loss of migratory fishes); however, most marine ecology actually is conducted at the smallest scales.  Foundational ecological theory took root in experiments conducted in coastal intertidal zones, often at scales of a meter or less.  But ecologists now are challenged to develop approaches that better fit the large scales at which human impacts are altering coastal ecosystems.

In terrestrial systems, “landscape” ecology is a well-developed sub-discipline.  Yet tenets of this are rarely applied in marine systems.  This study was among the first to do so and to use manipulative approaches as we constructed a series of artificial reefs in the Bight and specifically chose locations within different “seascape” contexts.  This allowed us to examine the importance of relatively large-scale (hundreds of meters) features in determining local fish community structure.  That is, instead of just examining small-scale aspects of the reef itself, we included much larger scale factors (such as seagrass cover) and used these to explain the makeup of fish communities.

See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the leader in  science based, proven, fish protection.

We found that the amount of seagrass at large spatial scales was one of the most important features determining to number and identity of fishes using these artificial reefs.  Specifically, reefs that had more seagrass within 100 m had more fishes.  This may be explained by the fact that many reef species like grunts, snapper and lobster that use reefs during the day migrate out into the surrounding seagrass at night to feed.  However, not all species of fish responded to the amount of seagrass in the same way.  For example, the number of white grunts increased with more seagrass cover within the seascape, but the number of French grunts decreased.  This means that changes in the cover of seagrass within large areas surrounding reefs can affect both the number and types of fishes using reefs.  Human activities that cause even subtle changes to seagrass habitat can impact reef fish communities even before the complete loss of seagrass habitat.

Largest man-made reef in the world protects fish habitat

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Anglers have high hopes for debate over value of artificial structure

A motion made at the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council meeting last week in Mobile, Alabama, could be the first step to protecting what has been regarded as the largest man-made reef in the world – the vast forest of energy-related structures in the offshore waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Dr. Bob Shipp’s request to have Council staff clarify the definition of what qualifies as artificial structure could pave the way for rigs and other vital reefs to be classified as Essential Fish Habitat.

“For anglers who have been greatly concerned about the impact of this Administration’s directive to summarily remove all non-producing energy structures, this is a very welcome development,” said Pat Murray, president of Coastal Conservation Association. “This is a chance for the Gulf Council and NOAA Fisheries to take a stand to protect that habitat, and we are grateful to Dr. Shipp for presenting this opportunity.” See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the leader in  science based, proven, fish protection.

In a misdirected response to the Gulf oil spill, the U.S. Department of Interior issued a directive in October of 2010 ordering that all non-producing rigs be plugged and any remaining structure removed within five years of the issuance of that directive. There are approximately 3,500 offshore structures in the Gulf of Mexico and the directive, known as the Idle Iron Policy, would immediately impact roughly 650 structures that have not produced oil or gas within five years of the directive issue date of Oct. 15, 2010.

“Anglers have already noted with alarm the disappearance of some rigs that have been in place for years – sometimes decades – that provided the base for flourishing ecosystems,” said Murray. “It is a completely avoidable tragedy, and we hope that the Council and NOAA Fisheries will do what it can to halt this needless destruction.”

Sen. David Vitter (R-La) and Rep. Steve Palazzo (R-Ms) have filed legislation that would prevent rigs and other structures from being summarily removed from the Gulf of Mexico, but both bills face a difficult road through the current Congress. A decision by NOAA Fisheries to declare artificial structures Essential Fish Habitat would be a significant addition to legislative efforts.

In 2009, Dr. Shipp and Stephen Bortone published a paper on the importance of artificial noaa

red vsnapper

habitat on the management of red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico which credits the deployment of energy structures in the mid-20th century for greatly increasing the harvest potential of red snapper.

“If the habitat limitation hypothesis is correct, and I believe it is, then it would be necessary to maintain or even increase the amount of artificial habitat in the northern Gulf of Mexico to keep pace with fishing pressure,” said Dr. Shipp. “Taking it out makes no sense whatsoever.”

To learn more about this issue, visit the Rigs to Reefs page on the CCA website, www.JoinCCA.org.

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CCA is the largest marine resource conservation group of its kind in the nation. With almost 100,000 members in 17 state chapters, CCA has been active in state, national and international fisheries management issues since 1977. For more information visit the CCA Newsroom at www.JoinCCA.org.

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