Used Tires as artificial reef

[Mark Eakin]

                           Subject:                         Time:   10:36 AM
                           RE>Used Tires as artificial reef Date:   6/16/98

I strongly recommend that tires NOT be used for artificial reefs unless you are in an area where you can garantee that there will be no storm surge that reaches reef depth.  Tropical cyclone generated waves can readily rip apart the tire mats, allowing individual tires to be readily moved about.  A tire reef I know of in Florida was torn apart by a Hurricane near miss in the late 1970s.  The tires were transported from 500 - 1500 m off shore, onto the beach.  Most were cleaned up subsequent to the storm, but some had been wedged into boulder rip-rap and remain to this day.

Artificial reefs need to rely on materials too heavy to be transported by storm waves.

Cheers,
Mark