PASCAGOULA, Mississippi — A 107,000-gallon tank once used to store liquid hydrogen at NASA’s Stennis Space Center was sunk in Fish Haven 13, which is located 23 miles south of Pascagoula, to form an artificial reef.

The 98,000-pound tank was deployed on Oct. 26 in 85 feet of water by the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources‚ Artificial Reef Bureau, according to a DMR news release.

It was the department’s 113 artificial reef deployment since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Katrina destroyed nearly all of Mississippi’s artificial reefs.

The tank, and two smaller ones sank on the same day, were donated by the Stennis Space Center.

The sphere was built in the 1960s and used as a reservoir for liquid hydrogen in case of an emergency during testing at the second stage of Saturn V.

“The sphere was no longer needed after the Saturn V program ended,” said Bryon Maynard, a lead system engineer in the NASA Engineering and Test Directorate at Stennis. “A lot of people forgot what it was or what it had been built for. It became known as the ‘big round thing’ — the BRT. Everyone who visited out here would ask about it.”

The BRT sank in less than 10 minutes with the help of air bags attached to the top by Matthews Brothers of Pass Christian to make sure the container sank in an upright position on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. To ensure safety — proper clearance for passing shipping vessels — the tank was sank in 85 feet of water to gain enough clearance for the vessels.

Kerwin Cuevas, Artificial Reef Bureau director, said the BRT has a safe clearance of 50 feet. The 37-foot-tall, 45-foot-wide tank has a relief of 35 feet off the bottom.

Cuevas said the new structure will immediately attract baitfish that ultimately will attract predators such as red snapper, mangrove snapper, grouper and trigger fish.

“The funds used to deploy the BRT were the Emergency Disaster Relief Program funds from NOAA due to Hurricane Katrina,” Cuevas said. “This was a joint effort between Stennis Space Center, Mississippi Gulf Fishing Banks and the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources.

“We would like to thank Mr. Bryon Maynard from Stennis Space Center, who was instrumental in getting the tanks donated for reef material. The BRT and the other two tanks will provide excellent reef fish habitat fish for a long time. This new habitat will also offer our fishermen of Mississippi more offshore fishing opportunities.”

Partnerships such as these, along with federal funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration after Katrina and continuous effort by the Artificial Reef Bureau have helped to restore Mississippi’s inshore and offshore artificial reefs, Cuevas said.

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