NYC subway cars sleepin wid da fisches...

[cteno4]

http://www.popularmechanics.com/how-to/blog/old-new-york-subway-cars-coral-reefs

 

Jeff

[Densha]

I don't really believe that they are doing this only for the coral reefs. I think it's just cheaper than recycling them. It's also a big waste of materials, which now have to mined again.

[cteno4]

Im not so sure its cheaper at all as they have to clean out the cars rather well and then there is the cost of dumping. I think Its more for the pr of creating the fishing reefs.

 

jeff

[katoftw]

They spend 3 days tearing each car apart. And the metal could be sold to make a profit. So I dont see this as an attempt to cheap out on recycling.

 

I watched a program about mega factories and they showed how the current gen of rolling stock was made. And showed what they did with the old rolling stock, as shown above.

Edited January 31, 2015 by katoftw

[kvp]

The redbird dumping was financially viable, since they didn't strip the asbestos and even the paint was toxic. Newer, stainless steel ones are more of a publicity act and the cars are stripped more throughly. The heavy bogies and underframe equipment went to the scrap in all cases and most newer cars even miss the fronts and some of the side panelling. Also there are some armored vehicles that were dumped at the redbird reef and the main reason was the slightly radioactive armor plating material, that couldn't be safely scrapped. Overall i would prefer cleaner and more durable concrete reef structures to subway cars.

[katoftw]

Well that is not very good then.

[cteno4]

The current scrapping for reef stuff like this is pretty strictly controlled for removal of any hazardous materials. Kvp where did you see that there was any radioactive materials dumped there? In the old days stuff was like this was just dumped, but no more. Like noted they were stripped down to a pretty thin frame and that actually works well fro the artificial reefs. It is also a pr thing to so some pho $$ there.

 

These are not a worthless thing. If planted in the right area you can get a great artificial reef going that really aids in both juvenile and adult fish species. Trick is finding the right areas and doing proper testing which takes a long time to do. But on the whole they work more than fail. Concrete artificial reefs require they be made to give the hiding spaces and surface area to be really effective.

 

Jeff

[ozman2009]

The Australian navy has done this with some of it's retired ships, lead paint and all. No doubt others do too.

[kvp]

where did you see that there was any radioactive materials dumped there?

On the dumping photos you see the tanks being dumped with their armor plating still installed. Older cold war era plates were made from depleted uranium, the same material used in A10 ammo. It's slightly radioactive as it's a byproduct of the nuclear fuel process. Very heavy and quite strong but the plates can't be smelted and modern reactive plates have replaced them in service. Getting rid of them is a problem.

[E6系]

Irresponsible and wasteful.

[cteno4]

Kvp,

 

The armored vehicles dumped were phased out because they did not have heavy armor on them. Please find a reference that says that any depletes red uranium armor was dumped there. Sounds like you are just assuming that they have deleted uranium armor on them.

 

Jeff

[kvp]

 

The armored vehicles dumped were phased out because they did not have heavy armor on them. Please find a reference that says that any depletes red uranium armor was dumped there. Sounds like you are just assuming that they have deleted uranium armor on them.

Yes, the official documents about the reefex project state no harmful materials in the tanks and the fact that some of these types of tanks had them doesn't mean the ones dumped there were actually equipped (afaik the non upgraded ones were retired in the 80ies). Also the offical documents about the redbirds state that the amount of asbestos in the cars is minimal and since they are underwater, they pose no inhalation danger to humans and the paint on them is not an environmental concern. Still i would rather avoid eating fish and other seafood caught in the area. I know that the same is true for seafood that got in contact with wastewater from fukushima or other nuclear accidents or even more so.

 

Personally i still prefer the purpose made concrete reef structures as they are nicer to the environment and contain no scrap iron or other metals that could be otherwise recycled. Not to mention some of the redbirds got destroyed by Sandy, so they are not as sea proof as a reef should be. On the other hand, as a publicity stunt, tossing old cars into the sea is something special and gets the message through that the rolling stock has been updated.

[cteno4]

Kvp,

 

There were no radioactive tanks dumped there, the public stink would have been enormous if they had, federal regs for a long time would have stopped it. Please be careful when stating something like this as fact when you were just making a long assumption.

 

Any reef in shallow water and sandy bottoms is prone to storm damage (and so are natural reefs). On issue with concrete reefs on sandy bottoms can be settling (some use internal foam banks to add some buoyancy) getting buried and erosion in current areas. The long term best solution for artificial reefs is still in research as it takes a long time to assess the data and do more studies. It's not a simple research project though as the situations can vary a lot and different results have been seen in very similar situations.

 

Jeff

[miyakoji]

Not my area of expertise, but there's quite a lot of reading to be done on this topic.  Densha, E6, you may have a point about about it being a waste, obviously this steel won't be scrapped and reused.  However, it appears that there's a fair bit of economic value in creating reefs, and lighter materials (an automobile body, for example) don't work well, they just disintegrate.  It's true that concrete is an option, but it takes a lot of heat, which requires energy.

As for pollutants, I doubt any public project like this, especially done in the last 35 years, has escaped a complete checkup by the EPA and other agencies.  One of the aircraft carriers that was sunk to become an artifical reef, the USS Oriskany, was actually towed back to shore to have more hazardous material removed, which was a component material in wire insulation.  Seems to me that the environmental review was thorough.

 

This page on the Delaware State gov's website http://www.dnrec.delaware.gov/fw/Fisheries/Pages/Red%20Bird%20Reef%20sinkings.aspx about two ships, a tug and a tanker, says that "all greases and buoyant materials that might be harmful to the marine environment" were removed, and that the vessels were inspected by the U.S. Coast Guard before being sunk.

 

Here's another page http://www.oldsaltblog.com/2015/01/redbird-reef-subway-cars-fish-and-hurricanes/ that mentions the benefits to sea life of these artificial reefs, and that their movement on the seafloor during recent hurricanes has helped oceanographers understand how those storms affect underwater currents.

 

Here's a page on Virginia's website with more about the preparation of the cars: http://mrc.virginia.gov/vsrfdf/redbird_info.shtm

[E6系]

Hello,

 

I mean to say that the metal had already been mined, smelted and delivered.  Such a waste to use only once.

[Melandir]

This artificial reefs could be good for scuba diving

[cteno4]

Yes great scuba diving, but the main benefit is for fish and other invertebrate life. These reefs many times go in areas where existing reef or other fish habitats have been destroyed or marginalized and provides shelter and food to these fish. If done in the right spot in the right way you can see dramatic comebacks of decimated fish populations. Unfortunately metal structures have been the easiest and many times the fastest and best forms to get an artificial reef started fast. Concrete does work, but there is still lots of ongoing work to determine how to do these best and it takes many years to assess and hard to compare things in different areas as there can be other variables at play. Concrete is also not clean, it takes a lot of energy and co2 emmissions to make the concrete (although there is a great new technology to use power plant heat and co2 in concrete emmissions). Plus you do need to use steel rebar to strengthen concrete structures some.

 

It's a work in progress and the total investment in resources is pretty tiny in the overall global scope to see if has significant environmental payoff to repair damage done by us humans. I think in the future there will be more resource limited solutions used for artificial reefs on a much more targeted basis as conditions for success are better understood. Ships and trains are just the first, easy and fast ways of seeing how this might work out. The use of ships in the us for artificial reefs is declining rapidly in favor of recycling (those contain thousands of times more recyclables).

 

I've done a number of educational products and exhibits on reefs, environmental issues, and global warming so have had to steep myself in this stuff now and then. You would love one game I did called hot topics where there is an issue like this with a character having to make a decision on it and they have 16 characters presenting their arguments for and against. The players job is to find the 3 strong arguments on both sides of the issue and weed out the weak (emotional or not well supported by facts) arguments, irrelevant arguments, and mis statements of facts. After you got your score when you went back to the arguments there where then more explanations about what was up with that argument to learn about it. Turned out to be the perfect little computer game to get a class of students up to speed on an issue and ready to debate it in class and such.

 

Cheers

 

Jeff