Artificial reefs lure real dollars to Dade
5/25/2004 8:05:36 PM by Anabelle de Gale
It's what lies beneath our waters: Ships, planes, Army tanks, radio antennas. Oh, and a margarita bar. Some call it sunken junk. Fish call it home. Divers call it heaven. DERM just calls it successful.
The wrecks have all the lure of a good ghost story on the high seas but it wasn't pirates who sunk them. The sinkers: Miami-Dade's Department of environmental Resource Management.
DERM created the artificial reef program in 1981, when it sunk a tugboat named the Orion. Now, dozens of wrecks pepper the bottoms of 12 permitted sites scattered around Miami Dade's 45 miles of coastline. "
We try to spread the wealth a round,"' said Brian Flynn, the program's special projects administrator.
The bulk of the reef program is funded by state grants and donations. Close to 80 percent of the artificial re e f s a re ships seized by U.S. Customs on the Miami River.
And while the program was originally created to increase marine habitats, it has experienced a different increase in numbers: dollars.
The wrecks draw millions of divers and fishermen from around the world, translating into a $419 million annual bump in the county's economy, Flynn said.
"The local dive industry was very limited before the program," he said. " Visitors would go to the Keys." But today, Miami's reefs are no longer just a pit-stop for tourists heading south. DERM has created an underwater theme park. And like real ship wrecks, they, too, tell tales.
Like the two M-60 Vietnam-era tanks that sit 45-feet below sea level off Miami Beach.
Once occupied by soldiers, an army of grouper and angel fish have now claimed it. Lobsters peek out from the tanks' open hatch and soft coral waves from the artillery cannons like a patriotic flag. The two tanks, which came from a U.S. Army base in Anniston, Ala., have sat 50-feet apart on the ocean's floor since 1995.
The tanks are one of the most popular spots, said tour operator Peter Tsitrian of Tropical Divers. The Miaminative's cheeks and nose are permanently sunburned and his shoulders f reckled. He earned those freckles. An occupational hazard of having an office under the rays.
"The best place in this city is underwater. There's no politicking, no holdups, no scams ... Just you and the fish,"' said the captain. It's no sales pitch. You know Tsitrian believes it from watching his eyes dance as he talks about the feeling he gets deep down.
Among others on DERM's treasure map:
* The Ostwind. The 89-foot luxury sailing yacht belonged to Adolf Hitler, who is said to have often used it with his mistress, Eva Braun. The yawl was commissioned in 1939 by Hitler to promote Nazi supremacy in racing. It had sunk eight times and fre q u e n t l y changed hands since the end of Wolrd War II, when the U.S. Navy seized and converted it into a training vessel for the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md. Since 1989, it has rested in about 250 feet of water off the coast of Miami Beach, although its exact coordinates are not known.
* A Boeing 727 airliner. The Spirit of Miami originally flew for Northwest Orient Airlines. It later logged 18 million miles with Eastern and Pan A m b e f o re the two airlines shut down. In 1992, it was donated to the artificial reef program. You can find the jet in about 65 feet of water off Key Biscayne.
* A Jose Cuervo tequila bar. It was Sinko de Mayo off the coast of South Beach three years ago, when the tequila sellers dropped the 16-ton concrete margarita bar in honor of the Mexican holiday. The eight-foot-high, 12-footwide bar has six bar stools and a Mexican-style fish decor. The watering hole sits 20 feet under the sea, just east of Fisher Island.
* A water tower. For more than 70 years, the tower was the welcome sign to thousands of South Beach visitors and residents coming across the MacArthur Causeway. In 1997, the pink tower re t i red from quenching thirst and became one of the tallest artificial reefs in Florida, standing 70 feet high in 100 feet of water. The 750,000gallon water tank is just off the coast of M i d - B e a c h .
* Radio antennas. A pyramid of 19 Radio Mambi antennas now sits in about 25 feet of water near Miami Beach.
"The artificial reefs have put us on the map as a dive destination. People love to dive wrecks. The wilder it is, the better," said Nelson Marti, owner of Mermaids Dive Center in North Miami Beach, a store and dive certification school. "Most anything you put down t h e re brings new fish and that's what we want.
Not that all scientists agree. Some marine biologists believe the artificial reefs just relocate existing fish from natural reefs.
"The problem is you are taking what few fish are out there and concentrating them, making them easier to catch," said Jim Bohnsack, a research biologist for the National Ocean & Atmospheric Association's fisheries in Miami. "As a scientist, I have seen no data that has shown it has increased the fish population. But Flynn, the DERM project's coordinator, and others say there hasn't been any evidence showing the reefs have decreased the population.
What we do know: This place w h e re fins and feet meet is landing South Florida some attention. Scuba Diving magazine recently came out with "The 20 best dives in the Sunshine State." Miami-Dade's artificial reefs made the list.
Said the magazine: "Perhaps better known for flamboyant South Beach and haute couture, Miami has a double life as an oft-overlooked dive Mecca."