FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Two companies that want to build a natural gas pipeline from the Bahamas to Florida would be required to pay for the cleanup of more than 300,000 tires left underwater in an attempt to construct artificial reefs more than 30 years ago.
Tractebel North America Inc. would have to clean up about 229,000 tires and AES Corp. would be required to remove about 117,000 more as a condition to get permits from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and to mitigate the damage pipeline construction would cause.
If construction goes as proposed, Tractebel would harm about seven acres of reef and AES would harm about 3.3 acres.
An estimated 2 million tires were dumped in the waters off of Fort Lauderdale in the late 1960s and early 1970s in an attempt to create an artificial fishing reef. However, the bundles of tires broke apart and drifted on to nearby reefs, killing corals and sponges.
Environmentalists are critical of the tire-removal plan, saying it would only prevent future harm to reefs and cause a net loss of coral from the pipeline work.
NBC6.net.
