Osborne Reef

Tires in Osborne Reef (2007)

The Osborne Reef is an artificial reef off the coast of Fort Lauderdale in Florida (USA). It is about 2 km off the coast at a depth of twenty meters and covers an area of ​​26.3 hectares. The reef is mostly made up of Dolossen , but it gained fame mainly because it was expanded with two million old car tires in the 1970s.

What began enthusiastically as the ideal, aesthetic disposal option for old tire dumps, ended as a fiasco . There were virtually no marine life and the steel tires that were used to bundle some of the tires corroded. Hurricanes washed loose tires all the way up to the beaches of North Carolina , destroying natural coral reefs . There is also concern that toxins will be released from the tires in seawater and damage flora and fauna.

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Over the next few years, the tires will gradually be salvaged from the sea. A pilot project in 2001, in which 1,600 tires were upgraded, came to the conclusion that this would result in costs of around 16 dollars per tire. The United States Navy will continue to recover the tires as a training program for their divers in the years to come.

See also

• Artificial coral reef
• Reef ball

Web links

• “Eco-disaster instead of a marine paradise” , Tages-Anzeiger website, February 27, 2007
• "Two Million Tire Artificial Reef to be Removed Off Florida Coast; Smothering Corals, ” UnderwaterTimes.com, August 22, 2006

Coordinates: 26 ° 6 '27.8 "  N , 80 ° 3' 54.1"  W.