March 22, 2011 • 29 mins
It's no secret that pollution and human development threaten the ocean's ecosystems. But could shipwrecks and other machines be used as artificial reefs to replace the slow-growing coral reefs? Tune in as Scott and Ben take a closer look at reefs.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Welcome to
car Stuff. This is a special underwater edition of Car Stuff. Man. Yes,
you've been with us while we go underground listeners, and
(00:20):
you've also been with Scott and I while we go
to uh some different different types of topics that people
haven't usually seen before. Now when I say underwater, though,
I'm sure probably I've already seen in the title of
this this UH podcast that we're talking about artificial reefs.
And you may think, well, what the heck does that
really have to do with cars, But you'll find out
that there's an awful lot of machinery that's blow the surface. Yeah,
(00:44):
let's start with let's start with one simple observation here, Scott. Uh.
A lot of ships are huge, and uh so huge
in fact that when they are decommissioned, a decomm action ship,
of course, is one that is no longer used on
the sea or in water. When they're decommissioned, they can
(01:07):
actually present a huge problem from disposal. You know, what
do you do with this thing that is longer than
most buildings, larger than a lot of buildings, you know,
And what we wanted to talk about is something that
I think is very out of the box and creative
(01:27):
and creative answer to this problem. And I'll be honest
with you, it gets it touches the soft side a
little bit, does it really? The softy? Yeah? The guy? Yeah.
Why is that? Because what they're doing and we should
say this is this is a suggestion that came to
us from one of our fellow podcasters. That's right, Sarah Dowdy.
(01:50):
Sarah said, uh, you know, hey, I stumbled across this, Uh,
this article in the most recent recent National Geographic that
was February two, seventh edition at seven February two eleven
edition of National Geographic, and the articles telled relics to
reefs and it was about well, sinking things and making
reefs right. And in this article, which I think is
(02:12):
by Stephen Harrigan, Uh, they cover the um. They open
with the process of sinking a ship the General White
s Vandenburg. And now what they're doing is they take
this ship which is over five feet long, they blow
it up to get it to to try to get
(02:34):
it to sink down, and once it sinks down, they
basically they artificially create a shipwreck and then once it
sinks down, the hope is that becomes a habitat for
marine life, for fish that would normally live in a
natural coral reef. Yeah, it's something made of rock or
you know whatever. Whenever it happens. The thing is this
(02:56):
this happening, Uh was May of two thousand nine, right,
it was just off a Key West. They said it's
seven miles off of Key West. So it's a it's
prime you know, diving snorkeling type area diving, I guess
in this case because you're talking about a pretty deep
deep sea wreck really, but yeah, it's it's and it's
not something that is brand new to us, not at all. No,
(03:17):
we've been doing this for a long long time. Um.
You know that. One one of the facts from this
article here is that UM fisherman really enjoy uh, you know,
fishing around under underwater reefs and they've been on that
Shipwrecks are are prime fishing fishing sites. According to the article,
UM and since the eighteen thirties, American fishermen have been
(03:39):
creating artificial reefs using things like logs that are relaced together, um,
you know, just branches sinking, you know, trees that they
find on the on the ground. I've I've heard people
doing this around here. If you take Christmas trees and
sink them off of your own private dock somewhere and
create a habitat for fish. Um, this is not you know,
the coral reef that we're talking about, but um, it
(04:00):
turns out that you know, when you sink an object
like a like a ship, it just becomes a magnet
for coral and and sponges and starfish and everything. It
becomes a breeding ground. Really and we uh and those
fishermen are also uh not just dropping logs. Uh. They
there are other vehicles involved. Yeah, that's the thing, all right.
(04:22):
So yeah, this is where you know, back in the
eighteen thirties. Sure, they're sinking logs and they're you know,
they're creating crafting these uh these well made um very
environmentally friendly, I guess uh um um artificial reefs in
their own little pond or whatever beaver would make it.
That really reefs. This is more like a fishing habitat.
So I mean, the the modern version of this, it's
(04:43):
mentioned in this uh in this article. You want to
go ahead and list off some of the things. Yeah, sure,
Scott they've got um subway cars, which makes sense to me. Uh,
and they've got oil drilling drilling rigs, which is just crazy.
Those are huge. Those are guard angel and yeah and
the one that the one that surprised me the most,
(05:04):
battle tanks. Oh yeah, yeah, that's right now. You know what.
That one didn't surprise me very much at all. Really,
I gotta say, because um, I had I think I've
mentioned this guy before. I had a great uncle who
worked at General Motors. He was a designer right around
you know the whole um you know, the Corvette days. Guy. Um.
I don't remember the branch of military he's in, but
(05:25):
I do clearly remember him telling me that he had
a military jeep that it was part of he was. Um,
he was a soldier. He was a UM, I don't
know what position he held. He was an officer, had
his own kind of private military jeep for use and
after the war it was sunk off the coast of
Florida as part of a reef. And you know kind
(05:46):
of thing that brings cheers to his eyes. Um. He's
he's no longer with us, but him, he uh, he was.
He definitely got emotional when he's talking about it because
it was his his baby for a long long time.
And the military sank a bunch of these as as
tanks and other machinery to create artificial reef off the
coast of Florida. And um, I guess I remember hearing
(06:07):
that from a long long time ago. But um, so
I know they've been doing it for a long time.
I know they've got a lot of um, you know
ships as well, large ships that they've sunk. You know
what the biggest one is? It is it? Let's see
I that's all right, all right, there's a get this, Ben,
there is a an aircraft carrier that we that we
(06:29):
have sunk. The United States have sunk this in the
Gulf of Mexico or Scanni. Right, that's right, very good pronunciation.
I'm gonna try to do it myself. But uh, um,
where was this? This is about twenty years so miles
out from Pensacola, and this is sunk in may may
have two thousand six. Um. Here's the crazy thing about this, Ben.
This is an eight hundred and eighty eight foot long
(06:53):
ship that they sunk in two hundred and twelve ft
of water. This is the largest ship in the world.
That's been intentionally sunk as a as an artificial reef.
This is just crazy. It's enormous and you can look
at you can watch video of this thing going down.
You can watch um of course, there's there's still photographs
and you could read all kinds of articles about it
because it was big news when it happened, and you
(07:13):
can visit it too, right, Yeah, that's right, because it's
again it's a reef. It's a reef, and it's divery
habitat you know, I mean, well it's a fish habitat. Um.
You know. One thing that I read about this man
that I thought was kind of interesting. It took thirty
seven minutes to sink this thing. You would think it
would have taken a lot longer. Now they use five
pounds of explosives to do it, and they thought it
(07:34):
would take about four and a half hours to sink.
It sank in thirty seven minutes. I know, they're very
effective at sinking this thing. However, they did it, they
did it really well. Now a lot of it um.
You know. Of course it was all cleaned out because
you think about environmental concerns with something like you, especially
on a on a warship. You wanna get rid of
anything that might be hazardous to the marine life. Oh sure, Yeah,
(07:55):
there's a lot of a lot of junk on those things.
I mean and by a junk, I mean that there's um, well,
there's there's copper wire. Sure, there's of course fuel and
and you know leftover remnants for electrical wire exactly. Yeah,
so you got the same thing I do. That They
spent eight point four million dollars for the sinking budget,
I guess to sink this thing. This is coming from
the U. S. Government National Artificial Reef Plan um for
(08:18):
sinking the Vandenburg. Oh that's for the Vandenburg. I'm sorry,
I thought that was for the for the the know
the I think the I think the Oriskany is more expensive,
it would larger. But yeah, on the Vandenburg alone, right,
Uh cost them over eight million to sink it, which
is funny. You know that's still five foot ship. That's
(08:38):
a big ship. It is. It is a big ship.
It's a big job. It's big demolition jobs. It's just
to me, you know, having the emotional issues I have
about spending money already. Man, Uh, it just seems so
counterintuitive to me. To spend money instead of instead of
like restoring the ship or maintaining it, to spend the
money sinking it. Yeah, but you know what it would
(09:00):
it cost you know, well, I don't know, I'm guessing
ten times that to to restore the thing or keep
it afloat. And then they wouldn't really do what they
have a purpose for it because they have they have
advanced beyond that point. You know, it's it's it's old tech.
So they take they take out the copper wire, right, Yeah,
they take out to copper wire, they take out you know,
they clean the fuel tanks, of course, they clean you know,
the engines are taken out. Um. One thing that I
(09:22):
noticed on let's go back because I want to talk
just for a moment about the Riscannie. Yes. Um. One
one thing that I actually I watched this the sinking
of this thing, because I couldn't help myself. I had
to see it. Um. And it didn't take very long
they did kind of you know, I didn't watch all
thirty seven minutes. Of course, they just watched you know,
the the quick version, just the highlights exactly. But one
(09:44):
one really interesting thing is there was a small boat
that they had placed on board. Now this is a
rusty aircraft carrier, but there's a boat on top of
the deck of this thing, like where the planes would land. Yeah, yeah,
exactly where the planes would normally land. And the boat
apparently has the controllers and electric roics to detonate the explosions.
And then when the boat below it sinks away, this
(10:04):
thing kind of floats on it bobs to the surface,
floats on top, and they go order to retrieve that.
So the detonation devices, the relay, I guess, is in
that boat. So if you watch the video, that's the
story with that, because I searched for a while to
try to figure out what that boat was doing there. Um,
you know, they keep a safe zone of course, you
know when they do the blast, because you'll see the
blast and it's very very impressive. Uh five pounds, I
(10:26):
think they said of plastic explosives are used, um, and
to blow the holes in the in the in the hull.
But that boat was just a mystery to me at
some point. So wait, wait, wait, wait, was there someone
on the boat? No, no, there is no one on
the boat. You know, I would totally do that job
if it's safe enough for the electronics. Man, I bet
I could make it a yeah, but what if it
gets sucked under with the ship. You see this thing,
(10:48):
this thing went two and twelve feet down. Well that's
pretty deep. You know what you'd still do it, wouldn't you? Well,
I feel like I've made it a matter of public records.
Got no. I kind of have to to one more
quick thing about this before we go move on, because, uh,
one more little piece of trivia about this boat. The
(11:10):
specific boat, um John King John McCain was was um
not stationed, but what would you say, deployed on this boat? Yeah?
He um, this is the this is the ship that
he took off from before he was shot down over
Hanoi when he was captured. You know, he spent five
years UM as a prisoner of war in nine seven.
(11:31):
He uh, that's this is the boat that he took
off from before he was shot down. Sixty seven. What
a you know, what a weird experience. I wonder if
he does, if he dives recreationally or anything, because if
if I was him and I could dive down to
that thing, I just can't imagine. I don't know, I
don't know how, I don't know how you would handle
because you know a lot of these um ships and
(11:53):
military implements that he sunk. UM A lot of times,
there'll be veterans on hand that are watching, you know
that maybe served that's spent you know, four terms on
this or four tours rather and you know they've they're
they're kind of a little bit teary eyed about it
because you know this was home to them for so long.
It's very strange. It's it's very strange to see something
(12:13):
like this demolish something that saved your life so many
times or kept you alive in some way. And uh,
and you're but but it's not it's not dying. In fact,
you could argue that it's having a rebirth. Uh. Here's
what happens when a reef, or when an artificial reef
is created. So you've you've uh sunk your battleship. Okay,
(12:36):
I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Yeah, so or your you know,
your old refrigerator or your subway cars. And and what
scientists have noticed is that most of these artificial reefs
sort of evolved in roughly predictable stages. So first, uh, first,
when the current hits something that's an abnormal kind of
(12:58):
vertical structure. Then it's starts making a feeding spot plankton
uh starts really um, I guess you would say pervading
the water. So then your sardines and your minnows come in.
And who follows your sardines and your minnows but your
predators bigger fish. Yeah, you're bigger fish to fry the
tuna in the shark. And then you see other creatures
(13:18):
who come in saying, oh this is pretty this is
pretty nice. Hole here there's a little nook or cranny
I can hide in. And that's where you get like
your eels and your groupers and other things hiding. And
then of course the uh, the wait and catch you
predators like barracuda show up, and then you know, months
or years later, depending on how the ocean works, the
old structure will be covered with algae uh, coral sponges. Um.
(13:44):
And I think I especially like the phrase that Mr
Harrigan uses here. Uh, so I'm gonna quote you, Mr Harrigan.
Sprouting life everywhere like a giant chia pet, very aptly described,
because that's what it looks like to me. Um, you know,
take on a form that doesn't even look like its
original self. I mean, I have a major you know,
of course, an aircraft carry is gonna look like an
(14:04):
aircraft carrier. I think for decades it's gonna it's gonna
be there, I would think, so yeah, but yeah it uh,
it's a very hairy appearance. Appearance really um, lots of
lots of life around it. And that's one of the
arguments that some marine biologists are saying, is that now
instead of creating life, because a lot of people see
this as a way too to um and I'm going
(14:26):
to quote the article again, to boost the ocean's capacity
to create fish, Now, that means that it creates a
breeding ground. That's is is likable you know, to the
fish in some ways some way, um, you know, causing
them to to spawn or you know, to to bring
more life into the ocean. Um, the biologists are argues.
Some biologists argue that what it does is it draws
(14:47):
fish from true reefs, from the natural occurring reefs, to
these artificial reefs, which are then fished or over fished
by fisherman because they know where the sites of these
things are and they know what what's gathering down there. Right.
So the question then becomes are we actually helping? Are
we just robbing Peter to pay Paul as it were? Yeah,
(15:08):
exactly like that phrase. By the way, thank you. I
like that. We hardly ever get a chance to use it,
especially because I have a lot of friends named Peter
and Paul. So it's just awkward if I bring it
all that used it all the time, and uh, I've
been working trying to work that in for years now.
It's I'm sorry, I didn't no, no, no, I know,
I don't mean in the show, I just mean in
everyday speech. So you know you're gonna take this in
(15:31):
a kind of a weird direction here. Let's go weird.
You yourself could become a reef someday part of a
reef anyways, do you know what I'm talking about? I
have an inkling, but I think most people do not.
Look you can be eternalized. I guess if you want
to say it, called that a reef. You could become
(15:52):
a reef. And there's a there's a company here, and
one of just one of the companies, I think there
are several that are doing There's a company called It's
Colonel Reefs. And what they do is they mix your
cremated remains in a concrete mix that's then poured into
this uh, this this shell. I guess you call it
um um again, an artificial reef structure kind of like
(16:15):
rea or yeah, yeah, they called a reef ball, or
they call it a kind of like a bee hive
almost the way that's with with holes board through it.
Very very fish friendly, I suppose, um, you know that
that can here, you know, Plankton's and things like that
can adhere to um. But the interesting thing about this
is that, you know what that's interesting enough already that
you can be mixed in with this thing and then
(16:37):
placed in these in these designated areas. Um. You know,
they create this this giant they're creating a giant reef
where they're building a bunch of these together. But it
becomes a whole ceremony with your family. Um. You know,
they can help in the process of of making the
cast if they like to, uh, you know, adding the remains.
There can be a whole ceremony with the thing. You
can go out on a separate ship and watch it
(16:57):
being lowered, and there'll be a plaque inside the uh
you know, um, like a brass plaque maybe that's that's
mounted inside the the structure, the structure itself, the concrete. UM.
You can you can place your handprint in the structure
if you want. UM. You can have UH created pet
remains mixed in with your remains if you want to.
You can have other cream created remains if you want.
(17:19):
Let's say, how husband wife want to do this and
you know, they wait until the second person passes away
and they create one. UM. It's it's really kind of
an interesting angle on this, and I think, you know,
there's so far a lot of people have been doing this.
I don't know, I don't have numbers on how many
have been done to date. UM, but it seems like
an interesting option and it seems, you know, it's almost
(17:42):
is in the qualifies as another form of what people
are calling like green burial, which is UM. You know,
a green burial for people who are not familiar with
it is essentially the terrestrial version of what people are
doing at internal reefs, for example. UM. And in a
green burial, of course, UH, the emphasis is on becoming
(18:03):
a part of the landscape, you know, not being pumped
with a bunch of preserving chemicals and dropped into concrete box.
Or concrete shaft and there's definitely, uh, there's definitely an
argument to make for it. I myself being you know,
as I told you, this is this thing is hitting
my soft spot. This idea that you could save, you
(18:25):
could in a in a way make try to make
the ocean better place. Um or try to fight against
some of the extinctions and uh, some of the mass
deaths that we have in the ocean nowadays. Um. But
I'm glad it's working out for using uh created remains
to to build effective artificial reefs, because we've learned there
(18:48):
are things you cannot build a reef with very good
you know what. I'm glad you said that because I
was gonna bring up something called the Osbourne reef. I'm
sure that's what you're talking about. This is this is
one of those infamous failures in reef building. Consider this
a Scottland Ben mini podcast episode called when Good Intentions
Go Wrong. Yeah, this is let's call it what not
(19:09):
to Do. Okay, Now, UM, here's the thing, Ben, When
when did all this go down? This is during the
nineteen seventies. Okay, in the nineteen seventies. Uh, there is
this idea that they were going to build a artificial reef.
And we've been talking about near Fort Lauderdale. But this
is about I don't know, like I said, in the seventies,
(19:32):
this early mid seventies. Okay, alright, So they have this
real good intention of of building a natural like an
artificial reef, um to really expand on a on existing
natural reef. Okay, that's the that's the idea. What happened was,
and I'll quote this or they turned into an environmental fiasco,
(19:52):
is what it says in this article. Yes, um, I'll
go ahead, no, please do well. It turns out that
although it may sound like a really good idea to
take tires out of landfills up to two million I
think car tires, car tires, discarded car tires. Uh. It
may sound like a good idea to take these out
of the landfill and make them into something that wildlife
(20:13):
can use, but that only works if the wildlife can
use it. That's right now, we're talking two million tires.
So this is tires that would fit on five hundred
thousand cars. Okayiod cars. That's a lot of cars. Two
million tires. You can imagine what this is like. If
you can't, uh, there are photos online, I'll tell you that.
(20:34):
So they built this huge concrete foundation. What they did, yeah,
they what they did was they they tied all of
these tires together. They sunk them to make this read that.
They've got these big clusters of tires right, two again,
two million tires. It's an awful lot of tires. The
problem with this is Ben, like you said, it's only
good idea if they can use it, and it turns
out that vulcanized rubber is not a good material for
(21:00):
coral really to develop on, not good place to build.
It's not a it's not an ingredient in a healthy
coral breakfast now. And no one at this point really
knew that that's the problem. I mean, like they said,
they had a good intent supposed to be, uh you know,
just an absolute solution to the problem because here we're
doing away with a lot of waste on land. Um,
hopefully it's gonna be put to good use underwater. Not
(21:22):
the case. It wasn't. Yeah, it wasn't so much as
everybody wins as it was the Osborne Reef waste tire
removal project. Yeah, that's right, because what happened was it
wasn't very long before you know, of course, nothing really
grew on these things and not you know, I mean
you'll see some silt and that's about it. On shore,
maybe a tiny little bit of things that have just
(21:44):
fallen on top of them. Um, but they all broke apart,
you know, whatever is holding together broke apart. They scattered.
Then hurricanes hit, um, you know, as they do Florida often,
and uh it really it just scattered the tires everywhere.
It smashed them into the natural reefs, destroying what was there. Um.
That's probably the biggest thing is that it destroyed that.
(22:05):
But it's spread out, these two million tires over an
area that covers more than thirty four acres then, which
is huge when you consider how long it would take
to cover thirty four acres in a way that would
let you to pick up that trash. And you know
what they're they're evenly scattered. When you look at photos
of this thing, um, and you can find photos of
(22:27):
the Osbourne tire reef, it looks almost purposeful. It does,
because they're laid out very evenly on the ground, and
but it covers thirty four acres and imagine what it
takes just to to surface one tire. Imagine the effort
that it takes to bring one tire back up to
the surface. Because this is the this is the seventies,
is before some entire technology we have today. So these tires,
(22:48):
they weren't light an well no, no, I mean they're
still heavy. They're heavy no matter what. These are tires
of all types, tractor tires, car tires, everything. Um, it's
it's an enormous job. Up. I was estimated at the
time that it would cost about thirty million dollars to
clean up the tires. So this is you know the problem.
Now You've got these tires that are doing absolutely no good,
(23:10):
but but jamming things up out there and causing difficulty.
Uh So, um, Coastal America organization whose job to bring
I'm gonna reading from the art of player, an organization
whose job is to bring together federal agencies to perform
large marine projects coordinated and coordinated an effort to uh
to remove the tires. Okay, this is in two thousand seven, then,
(23:32):
so Coastal America is working with the Navy and the
Coastguard divers who use it as part of a training exercise. Okay,
they to this been doing this they had to, or
actually they were able to reduce the cost from thirty
million down to two million because it now becomes a
training exercise for the military. Okay. So they found out
that that they were able to extract about a thousand
(23:55):
tires um each day from the reef area. Okay, Now
that sounds like a lot of tires, right when you're
talking about two million dollars. Okay, Now that it would
take three to five years is what they would expect
that it would take to do this, right, and their
goal is to remove and now it says their goals
remove about seven hundred thousand of two million tires. Now,
(24:16):
that's three to five years to remove seven hundred thousand
at a thousand tires every day. So that's as we
find out later because I've got an update from uh
let's see, I don't know where this is from anyways.
Let's just it's it's saying that, Um yeah, I know
that's funny. Right. So, um, Now they find out that
(24:37):
it's not possible to continue that rate. Okay, not possible
to bring up a thousand a day every day for
the next three to five years, and that's only less
than half of the material. Uh, they find out that, UM,
you know, there's also the problem with weather conditions, UM,
the assets availability, you know, like when are they gonna
have the ships availble to bring the tires up to
(24:58):
are they going to have the trucks to then haul
the tires away once they get them to the processing plant. Um,
it turns out that, you know, it's just not possible
to get that many done it. This thing is going
to take years and years and years and years of
extremely difficult work. UM. So right now, I don't know
where it stands right now, because this latest update that
(25:19):
I have is from I think it's from two thousand nine,
and I was still kind of up in the air now. Originally, UM,
there's a there's this is way back. This isn't like
two thousand one. UM. A small tire retrieval program was
conducted in two thousand one by someone from uh NOVA
Southeastern University, and he had a thirty thousand dollar grant
(25:43):
from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That's Noah, and
UM that he was able to bring up sixteen hundred
tires for from a cost of about seventeen dollars per tire.
Now that gives you an idea. I mean, the guy
had thirty thousand dollars for this, this retrieval program. Then
then we jumped up to, you know, seventeen dollars a tire.
(26:05):
It's kind of it's pretty expensive when you're talking about
two millions. Yea, seventeen times two million, that's what I'm thinking.
What's at three point four billion or something like. I
don't know. I'm a way off of I'm not a
math maker too much, so yeah, it's too much anyways.
But so then we jump forward to you don't want
to do in this train episode and that situation, and
it just is is it's a nightmare, Ben, It's got
(26:26):
to be. It really is. Take a look at the
photos and you'll see what we're talking about. But this
has got to leave a lot of people just holding
their heads every day, like, what what are we going
to do to fix this? Now? Let's not no, don't
don't be disappointed. Listeners were not ending this on a
down note. We're gonna take it up a little. Um.
The whole reason we're telling you about this, this example
(26:47):
of an artificial reef gone wrong and some of the
pros and cons of these is because we want to
hear from you guys. Do you think that artificial reefs
are a good idea, a good way to dispose of,
you know, things like car bodies or large ships. Um,
do you think that they in the long term help
(27:08):
or hurt uh the undersea ecology. I was almost going
to say economy. Well, of course, and you've gotta remember
the way that they're cleaned to. I mean they have
to be uh, Like we talked about that Vandenberg and
I think that they at the eight point four million
that they spent on the Vandenberg, sevent of that went
into environmental concerns and cleaning of the ship. So, um,
that's a That's a major point too, is that if
(27:29):
you're you know, this isn't just pushing a car off
a dock. There's a lot involved with this, and it's
not just you know, individuals sinking cars. You don't sink
your car. Don't go sink your car. No, don't do that.
Don't do that. So yeah, it's not just someone pushing
a car off a docket, you know, near a beach somewhere.
It's uh, if this is a an effort by a
(27:50):
group or you know, several groups together to make a
an official um artificial reef. I guess all right, everybody,
so go ahead and think on that, and let us
know what you think about artificial reefs. A. Is it
a good idea? B? Do you have a better idea? Uh?
(28:10):
And see why? And D would you would you go
for the eternal reef idea? Would you become part of
a reef yourself? Oh that's a good question. What about you, Scott?
Would you? Um? Yeah, I think I do it. I
really I don't have any real tie to the sea
though I'm not. I'm not a sailor or anything like
a mariner. No, you know, I want to be shot
in space, but I'm not an astronaut. I guess technically
(28:32):
we will both be. You'll be a sub mariner and
I'll be an astronaut. Oh boy, yeah, I don't know.
Might go the traditional route. Yeah, so let us let
us know what you think about that. Um. I think
I would be okay with being in the coral thing
because I would be able to say, well, I'm helping
new life or whatever. But man shot into space, Scott,
maybe I could become part of the body's exhibit. Oh, man,
(28:53):
be careful what you wish for you're hoping in the
seat of a car. Okay that I would be okay
with the driving man. That's what they call me. Weird. Wow, yeah,
it would be correct. I mean. That's our new profile
picture on Facebook where you can find this, and you
can also find us Twitter and holad us on our
blog or talk to us directly about artificial reefs, becoming
(29:14):
to reef yourself and your thoughts on the subject at
our email car stuff at how stuff works dot com
For more on this and thousands of other topics. Is
it how stuff works dot com. To learn more about
the podcast, click on the podcast icon in the upper
right corner of our homepage. The how Stuff Works iPhone
(29:35):
app has arrived. Download it today on iTunes.
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Welcome to
car Stuff. This is a special underwater edition of Car Stuff. Man. Yes,
you've been with us while we go underground listeners, and
(00:20):
you've also been with Scott and I while we go
to uh some different different types of topics that people
haven't usually seen before. Now when I say underwater, though,
I'm sure probably I've already seen in the title of
this this UH podcast that we're talking about artificial reefs.
And you may think, well, what the heck does that
really have to do with cars, But you'll find out
that there's an awful lot of machinery that's blow the surface. Yeah,
(00:44):
let's start with let's start with one simple observation here, Scott. Uh.
A lot of ships are huge, and uh so huge
in fact that when they are decommissioned, a decomm action ship,
of course, is one that is no longer used on
the sea or in water. When they're decommissioned, they can
(01:07):
actually present a huge problem from disposal. You know, what
do you do with this thing that is longer than
most buildings, larger than a lot of buildings, you know,
And what we wanted to talk about is something that
I think is very out of the box and creative
(01:27):
and creative answer to this problem. And I'll be honest
with you, it gets it touches the soft side a
little bit, does it really? The softy? Yeah? The guy? Yeah.
Why is that? Because what they're doing and we should
say this is this is a suggestion that came to
us from one of our fellow podcasters. That's right, Sarah Dowdy.
(01:50):
Sarah said, uh, you know, hey, I stumbled across this, Uh,
this article in the most recent recent National Geographic that
was February two, seventh edition at seven February two eleven
edition of National Geographic, and the articles telled relics to
reefs and it was about well, sinking things and making
reefs right. And in this article, which I think is
(02:12):
by Stephen Harrigan, Uh, they cover the um. They open
with the process of sinking a ship the General White
s Vandenburg. And now what they're doing is they take
this ship which is over five feet long, they blow
it up to get it to to try to get
(02:34):
it to sink down, and once it sinks down, they
basically they artificially create a shipwreck and then once it
sinks down, the hope is that becomes a habitat for
marine life, for fish that would normally live in a
natural coral reef. Yeah, it's something made of rock or
you know whatever. Whenever it happens. The thing is this
(02:56):
this happening, Uh was May of two thousand nine, right,
it was just off a Key West. They said it's
seven miles off of Key West. So it's a it's
prime you know, diving snorkeling type area diving, I guess
in this case because you're talking about a pretty deep
deep sea wreck really, but yeah, it's it's and it's
not something that is brand new to us, not at all. No,
(03:17):
we've been doing this for a long long time. Um.
You know that. One one of the facts from this
article here is that UM fisherman really enjoy uh, you know,
fishing around under underwater reefs and they've been on that
Shipwrecks are are prime fishing fishing sites. According to the article,
UM and since the eighteen thirties, American fishermen have been
(03:39):
creating artificial reefs using things like logs that are relaced together, um,
you know, just branches sinking, you know, trees that they
find on the on the ground. I've I've heard people
doing this around here. If you take Christmas trees and
sink them off of your own private dock somewhere and
create a habitat for fish. Um, this is not you know,
the coral reef that we're talking about, but um, it
(04:00):
turns out that you know, when you sink an object
like a like a ship, it just becomes a magnet
for coral and and sponges and starfish and everything. It
becomes a breeding ground. Really and we uh and those
fishermen are also uh not just dropping logs. Uh. They
there are other vehicles involved. Yeah, that's the thing, all right.
(04:22):
So yeah, this is where you know, back in the
eighteen thirties. Sure, they're sinking logs and they're you know,
they're creating crafting these uh these well made um very
environmentally friendly, I guess uh um um artificial reefs in
their own little pond or whatever beaver would make it.
That really reefs. This is more like a fishing habitat.
So I mean, the the modern version of this, it's
(04:43):
mentioned in this uh in this article. You want to
go ahead and list off some of the things. Yeah, sure,
Scott they've got um subway cars, which makes sense to me. Uh,
and they've got oil drilling drilling rigs, which is just crazy.
Those are huge. Those are guard angel and yeah and
the one that the one that surprised me the most,
(05:04):
battle tanks. Oh yeah, yeah, that's right now. You know what.
That one didn't surprise me very much at all. Really,
I gotta say, because um, I had I think I've
mentioned this guy before. I had a great uncle who
worked at General Motors. He was a designer right around
you know the whole um you know, the Corvette days. Guy. Um.
I don't remember the branch of military he's in, but
(05:25):
I do clearly remember him telling me that he had
a military jeep that it was part of he was. Um,
he was a soldier. He was a UM, I don't
know what position he held. He was an officer, had
his own kind of private military jeep for use and
after the war it was sunk off the coast of
Florida as part of a reef. And you know kind
(05:46):
of thing that brings cheers to his eyes. Um. He's
he's no longer with us, but him, he uh, he was.
He definitely got emotional when he's talking about it because
it was his his baby for a long long time.
And the military sank a bunch of these as as
tanks and other machinery to create artificial reef off the
coast of Florida. And um, I guess I remember hearing
(06:07):
that from a long long time ago. But um, so
I know they've been doing it for a long time.
I know they've got a lot of um, you know
ships as well, large ships that they've sunk. You know
what the biggest one is? It is it? Let's see
I that's all right, all right, there's a get this, Ben,
there is a an aircraft carrier that we that we
(06:29):
have sunk. The United States have sunk this in the
Gulf of Mexico or Scanni. Right, that's right, very good pronunciation.
I'm gonna try to do it myself. But uh, um,
where was this? This is about twenty years so miles
out from Pensacola, and this is sunk in may may
have two thousand six. Um. Here's the crazy thing about this, Ben.
This is an eight hundred and eighty eight foot long
(06:53):
ship that they sunk in two hundred and twelve ft
of water. This is the largest ship in the world.
That's been intentionally sunk as a as an artificial reef.
This is just crazy. It's enormous and you can look
at you can watch video of this thing going down.
You can watch um of course, there's there's still photographs
and you could read all kinds of articles about it
because it was big news when it happened, and you
(07:13):
can visit it too, right, Yeah, that's right, because it's
again it's a reef. It's a reef, and it's divery
habitat you know, I mean, well it's a fish habitat. Um.
You know. One thing that I read about this man
that I thought was kind of interesting. It took thirty
seven minutes to sink this thing. You would think it
would have taken a lot longer. Now they use five
pounds of explosives to do it, and they thought it
(07:34):
would take about four and a half hours to sink.
It sank in thirty seven minutes. I know, they're very
effective at sinking this thing. However, they did it, they
did it really well. Now a lot of it um.
You know. Of course it was all cleaned out because
you think about environmental concerns with something like you, especially
on a on a warship. You wanna get rid of
anything that might be hazardous to the marine life. Oh sure, Yeah,
(07:55):
there's a lot of a lot of junk on those things.
I mean and by a junk, I mean that there's um, well,
there's there's copper wire. Sure, there's of course fuel and
and you know leftover remnants for electrical wire exactly. Yeah,
so you got the same thing I do. That They
spent eight point four million dollars for the sinking budget,
I guess to sink this thing. This is coming from
the U. S. Government National Artificial Reef Plan um for
(08:18):
sinking the Vandenburg. Oh that's for the Vandenburg. I'm sorry,
I thought that was for the for the the know
the I think the I think the Oriskany is more expensive,
it would larger. But yeah, on the Vandenburg alone, right,
Uh cost them over eight million to sink it, which
is funny. You know that's still five foot ship. That's
(08:38):
a big ship. It is. It is a big ship.
It's a big job. It's big demolition jobs. It's just
to me, you know, having the emotional issues I have
about spending money already. Man, Uh, it just seems so
counterintuitive to me. To spend money instead of instead of
like restoring the ship or maintaining it, to spend the
money sinking it. Yeah, but you know what it would
(09:00):
it cost you know, well, I don't know, I'm guessing
ten times that to to restore the thing or keep
it afloat. And then they wouldn't really do what they
have a purpose for it because they have they have
advanced beyond that point. You know, it's it's it's old tech.
So they take they take out the copper wire, right, Yeah,
they take out to copper wire, they take out you know,
they clean the fuel tanks, of course, they clean you know,
the engines are taken out. Um. One thing that I
(09:22):
noticed on let's go back because I want to talk
just for a moment about the Riscannie. Yes. Um. One
one thing that I actually I watched this the sinking
of this thing, because I couldn't help myself. I had
to see it. Um. And it didn't take very long
they did kind of you know, I didn't watch all
thirty seven minutes. Of course, they just watched you know,
the the quick version, just the highlights exactly. But one
(09:44):
one really interesting thing is there was a small boat
that they had placed on board. Now this is a
rusty aircraft carrier, but there's a boat on top of
the deck of this thing, like where the planes would land. Yeah, yeah,
exactly where the planes would normally land. And the boat
apparently has the controllers and electric roics to detonate the explosions.
And then when the boat below it sinks away, this
(10:04):
thing kind of floats on it bobs to the surface,
floats on top, and they go order to retrieve that.
So the detonation devices, the relay, I guess, is in
that boat. So if you watch the video, that's the
story with that, because I searched for a while to
try to figure out what that boat was doing there. Um,
you know, they keep a safe zone of course, you
know when they do the blast, because you'll see the
blast and it's very very impressive. Uh five pounds, I
(10:26):
think they said of plastic explosives are used, um, and
to blow the holes in the in the in the hull.
But that boat was just a mystery to me at
some point. So wait, wait, wait, wait, was there someone
on the boat? No, no, there is no one on
the boat. You know, I would totally do that job
if it's safe enough for the electronics. Man, I bet
I could make it a yeah, but what if it
gets sucked under with the ship. You see this thing,
(10:48):
this thing went two and twelve feet down. Well that's
pretty deep. You know what you'd still do it, wouldn't you? Well,
I feel like I've made it a matter of public records.
Got no. I kind of have to to one more
quick thing about this before we go move on, because, uh,
one more little piece of trivia about this boat. The
(11:10):
specific boat, um John King John McCain was was um
not stationed, but what would you say, deployed on this boat? Yeah?
He um, this is the this is the ship that
he took off from before he was shot down over
Hanoi when he was captured. You know, he spent five
years UM as a prisoner of war in nine seven.
(11:31):
He uh, that's this is the boat that he took
off from before he was shot down. Sixty seven. What
a you know, what a weird experience. I wonder if
he does, if he dives recreationally or anything, because if
if I was him and I could dive down to
that thing, I just can't imagine. I don't know, I
don't know how, I don't know how you would handle
because you know a lot of these um ships and
(11:53):
military implements that he sunk. UM A lot of times,
there'll be veterans on hand that are watching, you know
that maybe served that's spent you know, four terms on
this or four tours rather and you know they've they're
they're kind of a little bit teary eyed about it
because you know this was home to them for so long.
It's very strange. It's it's very strange to see something
(12:13):
like this demolish something that saved your life so many
times or kept you alive in some way. And uh,
and you're but but it's not it's not dying. In fact,
you could argue that it's having a rebirth. Uh. Here's
what happens when a reef, or when an artificial reef
is created. So you've you've uh sunk your battleship. Okay,
(12:36):
I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Yeah, so or your you know,
your old refrigerator or your subway cars. And and what
scientists have noticed is that most of these artificial reefs
sort of evolved in roughly predictable stages. So first, uh, first,
when the current hits something that's an abnormal kind of
(12:58):
vertical structure. Then it's starts making a feeding spot plankton
uh starts really um, I guess you would say pervading
the water. So then your sardines and your minnows come in.
And who follows your sardines and your minnows but your
predators bigger fish. Yeah, you're bigger fish to fry the
tuna in the shark. And then you see other creatures
(13:18):
who come in saying, oh this is pretty this is
pretty nice. Hole here there's a little nook or cranny
I can hide in. And that's where you get like
your eels and your groupers and other things hiding. And
then of course the uh, the wait and catch you
predators like barracuda show up, and then you know, months
or years later, depending on how the ocean works, the
old structure will be covered with algae uh, coral sponges. Um.
(13:44):
And I think I especially like the phrase that Mr
Harrigan uses here. Uh, so I'm gonna quote you, Mr Harrigan.
Sprouting life everywhere like a giant chia pet, very aptly described,
because that's what it looks like to me. Um, you know,
take on a form that doesn't even look like its
original self. I mean, I have a major you know,
of course, an aircraft carry is gonna look like an
(14:04):
aircraft carrier. I think for decades it's gonna it's gonna
be there, I would think, so yeah, but yeah it uh,
it's a very hairy appearance. Appearance really um, lots of
lots of life around it. And that's one of the
arguments that some marine biologists are saying, is that now
instead of creating life, because a lot of people see
this as a way too to um and I'm going
(14:26):
to quote the article again, to boost the ocean's capacity
to create fish, Now, that means that it creates a
breeding ground. That's is is likable you know, to the
fish in some ways some way, um, you know, causing
them to to spawn or you know, to to bring
more life into the ocean. Um, the biologists are argues.
Some biologists argue that what it does is it draws
(14:47):
fish from true reefs, from the natural occurring reefs, to
these artificial reefs, which are then fished or over fished
by fisherman because they know where the sites of these
things are and they know what what's gathering down there. Right.
So the question then becomes are we actually helping? Are
we just robbing Peter to pay Paul as it were? Yeah,
(15:08):
exactly like that phrase. By the way, thank you. I
like that. We hardly ever get a chance to use it,
especially because I have a lot of friends named Peter
and Paul. So it's just awkward if I bring it
all that used it all the time, and uh, I've
been working trying to work that in for years now.
It's I'm sorry, I didn't no, no, no, I know,
I don't mean in the show, I just mean in
everyday speech. So you know you're gonna take this in
(15:31):
a kind of a weird direction here. Let's go weird.
You yourself could become a reef someday part of a
reef anyways, do you know what I'm talking about? I
have an inkling, but I think most people do not.
Look you can be eternalized. I guess if you want
to say it, called that a reef. You could become
(15:52):
a reef. And there's a there's a company here, and
one of just one of the companies, I think there
are several that are doing There's a company called It's
Colonel Reefs. And what they do is they mix your
cremated remains in a concrete mix that's then poured into
this uh, this this shell. I guess you call it
um um again, an artificial reef structure kind of like
(16:15):
rea or yeah, yeah, they called a reef ball, or
they call it a kind of like a bee hive
almost the way that's with with holes board through it.
Very very fish friendly, I suppose, um, you know that
that can here, you know, Plankton's and things like that
can adhere to um. But the interesting thing about this
is that, you know what that's interesting enough already that
you can be mixed in with this thing and then
(16:37):
placed in these in these designated areas. Um. You know,
they create this this giant they're creating a giant reef
where they're building a bunch of these together. But it
becomes a whole ceremony with your family. Um. You know,
they can help in the process of of making the
cast if they like to, uh, you know, adding the remains.
There can be a whole ceremony with the thing. You
can go out on a separate ship and watch it
(16:57):
being lowered, and there'll be a plaque inside the uh
you know, um, like a brass plaque maybe that's that's
mounted inside the the structure, the structure itself, the concrete. UM.
You can you can place your handprint in the structure
if you want. UM. You can have UH created pet
remains mixed in with your remains if you want to.
You can have other cream created remains if you want.
(17:19):
Let's say, how husband wife want to do this and
you know, they wait until the second person passes away
and they create one. UM. It's it's really kind of
an interesting angle on this, and I think, you know,
there's so far a lot of people have been doing this.
I don't know, I don't have numbers on how many
have been done to date. UM, but it seems like
an interesting option and it seems, you know, it's almost
(17:42):
is in the qualifies as another form of what people
are calling like green burial, which is UM. You know,
a green burial for people who are not familiar with
it is essentially the terrestrial version of what people are
doing at internal reefs, for example. UM. And in a
green burial, of course, UH, the emphasis is on becoming
(18:03):
a part of the landscape, you know, not being pumped
with a bunch of preserving chemicals and dropped into concrete box.
Or concrete shaft and there's definitely, uh, there's definitely an
argument to make for it. I myself being you know,
as I told you, this is this thing is hitting
my soft spot. This idea that you could save, you
(18:25):
could in a in a way make try to make
the ocean better place. Um or try to fight against
some of the extinctions and uh, some of the mass
deaths that we have in the ocean nowadays. Um. But
I'm glad it's working out for using uh created remains
to to build effective artificial reefs, because we've learned there
(18:48):
are things you cannot build a reef with very good
you know what. I'm glad you said that because I
was gonna bring up something called the Osbourne reef. I'm
sure that's what you're talking about. This is this is
one of those infamous failures in reef building. Consider this
a Scottland Ben mini podcast episode called when Good Intentions
Go Wrong. Yeah, this is let's call it what not
(19:09):
to Do. Okay, Now, UM, here's the thing, Ben, When
when did all this go down? This is during the
nineteen seventies. Okay, in the nineteen seventies. Uh, there is
this idea that they were going to build a artificial reef.
And we've been talking about near Fort Lauderdale. But this
is about I don't know, like I said, in the seventies,
(19:32):
this early mid seventies. Okay, alright, So they have this
real good intention of of building a natural like an
artificial reef, um to really expand on a on existing
natural reef. Okay, that's the that's the idea. What happened was,
and I'll quote this or they turned into an environmental fiasco,
(19:52):
is what it says in this article. Yes, um, I'll
go ahead, no, please do well. It turns out that
although it may sound like a really good idea to
take tires out of landfills up to two million I
think car tires, car tires, discarded car tires. Uh. It
may sound like a good idea to take these out
of the landfill and make them into something that wildlife
(20:13):
can use, but that only works if the wildlife can
use it. That's right now, we're talking two million tires.
So this is tires that would fit on five hundred
thousand cars. Okayiod cars. That's a lot of cars. Two
million tires. You can imagine what this is like. If
you can't, uh, there are photos online, I'll tell you that.
(20:34):
So they built this huge concrete foundation. What they did, yeah,
they what they did was they they tied all of
these tires together. They sunk them to make this read that.
They've got these big clusters of tires right, two again,
two million tires. It's an awful lot of tires. The
problem with this is Ben, like you said, it's only
good idea if they can use it, and it turns
out that vulcanized rubber is not a good material for
(21:00):
coral really to develop on, not good place to build.
It's not a it's not an ingredient in a healthy
coral breakfast now. And no one at this point really
knew that that's the problem. I mean, like they said,
they had a good intent supposed to be, uh you know,
just an absolute solution to the problem because here we're
doing away with a lot of waste on land. Um,
hopefully it's gonna be put to good use underwater. Not
(21:22):
the case. It wasn't. Yeah, it wasn't so much as
everybody wins as it was the Osborne Reef waste tire
removal project. Yeah, that's right, because what happened was it
wasn't very long before you know, of course, nothing really
grew on these things and not you know, I mean
you'll see some silt and that's about it. On shore,
maybe a tiny little bit of things that have just
(21:44):
fallen on top of them. Um, but they all broke apart,
you know, whatever is holding together broke apart. They scattered.
Then hurricanes hit, um, you know, as they do Florida often,
and uh it really it just scattered the tires everywhere.
It smashed them into the natural reefs, destroying what was there. Um.
That's probably the biggest thing is that it destroyed that.
(22:05):
But it's spread out, these two million tires over an
area that covers more than thirty four acres then, which
is huge when you consider how long it would take
to cover thirty four acres in a way that would
let you to pick up that trash. And you know
what they're they're evenly scattered. When you look at photos
of this thing, um, and you can find photos of
(22:27):
the Osbourne tire reef, it looks almost purposeful. It does,
because they're laid out very evenly on the ground, and
but it covers thirty four acres and imagine what it
takes just to to surface one tire. Imagine the effort
that it takes to bring one tire back up to
the surface. Because this is the this is the seventies,
is before some entire technology we have today. So these tires,
(22:48):
they weren't light an well no, no, I mean they're
still heavy. They're heavy no matter what. These are tires
of all types, tractor tires, car tires, everything. Um, it's
it's an enormous job. Up. I was estimated at the
time that it would cost about thirty million dollars to
clean up the tires. So this is you know the problem.
Now You've got these tires that are doing absolutely no good,
(23:10):
but but jamming things up out there and causing difficulty.
Uh So, um, Coastal America organization whose job to bring
I'm gonna reading from the art of player, an organization
whose job is to bring together federal agencies to perform
large marine projects coordinated and coordinated an effort to uh
to remove the tires. Okay, this is in two thousand seven, then,
(23:32):
so Coastal America is working with the Navy and the
Coastguard divers who use it as part of a training exercise. Okay,
they to this been doing this they had to, or
actually they were able to reduce the cost from thirty
million down to two million because it now becomes a
training exercise for the military. Okay. So they found out
that that they were able to extract about a thousand
(23:55):
tires um each day from the reef area. Okay, Now
that sounds like a lot of tires, right when you're
talking about two million dollars. Okay, Now that it would
take three to five years is what they would expect
that it would take to do this, right, and their
goal is to remove and now it says their goals
remove about seven hundred thousand of two million tires. Now,
(24:16):
that's three to five years to remove seven hundred thousand
at a thousand tires every day. So that's as we
find out later because I've got an update from uh
let's see, I don't know where this is from anyways.
Let's just it's it's saying that, Um yeah, I know
that's funny. Right. So, um, Now they find out that
(24:37):
it's not possible to continue that rate. Okay, not possible
to bring up a thousand a day every day for
the next three to five years, and that's only less
than half of the material. Uh, they find out that, UM,
you know, there's also the problem with weather conditions, UM,
the assets availability, you know, like when are they gonna
have the ships availble to bring the tires up to
(24:58):
are they going to have the trucks to then haul
the tires away once they get them to the processing plant. Um,
it turns out that, you know, it's just not possible
to get that many done it. This thing is going
to take years and years and years and years of
extremely difficult work. UM. So right now, I don't know
where it stands right now, because this latest update that
(25:19):
I have is from I think it's from two thousand nine,
and I was still kind of up in the air now. Originally, UM,
there's a there's this is way back. This isn't like
two thousand one. UM. A small tire retrieval program was
conducted in two thousand one by someone from uh NOVA
Southeastern University, and he had a thirty thousand dollar grant
(25:43):
from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That's Noah, and
UM that he was able to bring up sixteen hundred
tires for from a cost of about seventeen dollars per tire.
Now that gives you an idea. I mean, the guy
had thirty thousand dollars for this, this retrieval program. Then
then we jumped up to, you know, seventeen dollars a tire.
(26:05):
It's kind of it's pretty expensive when you're talking about
two millions. Yea, seventeen times two million, that's what I'm thinking.
What's at three point four billion or something like. I
don't know. I'm a way off of I'm not a
math maker too much, so yeah, it's too much anyways.
But so then we jump forward to you don't want
to do in this train episode and that situation, and
it just is is it's a nightmare, Ben, It's got
(26:26):
to be. It really is. Take a look at the
photos and you'll see what we're talking about. But this
has got to leave a lot of people just holding
their heads every day, like, what what are we going
to do to fix this? Now? Let's not no, don't
don't be disappointed. Listeners were not ending this on a
down note. We're gonna take it up a little. Um.
The whole reason we're telling you about this, this example
(26:47):
of an artificial reef gone wrong and some of the
pros and cons of these is because we want to
hear from you guys. Do you think that artificial reefs
are a good idea, a good way to dispose of,
you know, things like car bodies or large ships. Um,
do you think that they in the long term help
(27:08):
or hurt uh the undersea ecology. I was almost going
to say economy. Well, of course, and you've gotta remember
the way that they're cleaned to. I mean they have
to be uh, Like we talked about that Vandenberg and
I think that they at the eight point four million
that they spent on the Vandenberg, sevent of that went
into environmental concerns and cleaning of the ship. So, um,
that's a That's a major point too, is that if
(27:29):
you're you know, this isn't just pushing a car off
a dock. There's a lot involved with this, and it's
not just you know, individuals sinking cars. You don't sink
your car. Don't go sink your car. No, don't do that.
Don't do that. So yeah, it's not just someone pushing
a car off a docket, you know, near a beach somewhere.
It's uh, if this is a an effort by a
(27:50):
group or you know, several groups together to make a
an official um artificial reef. I guess all right, everybody,
so go ahead and think on that, and let us
know what you think about artificial reefs. A. Is it
a good idea? B? Do you have a better idea? Uh?
(28:10):
And see why? And D would you would you go
for the eternal reef idea? Would you become part of
a reef yourself? Oh that's a good question. What about you, Scott?
Would you? Um? Yeah, I think I do it. I
really I don't have any real tie to the sea
though I'm not. I'm not a sailor or anything like
a mariner. No, you know, I want to be shot
in space, but I'm not an astronaut. I guess technically
(28:32):
we will both be. You'll be a sub mariner and
I'll be an astronaut. Oh boy, yeah, I don't know.
Might go the traditional route. Yeah, so let us let
us know what you think about that. Um. I think
I would be okay with being in the coral thing
because I would be able to say, well, I'm helping
new life or whatever. But man shot into space, Scott,
maybe I could become part of the body's exhibit. Oh, man,
(28:53):
be careful what you wish for you're hoping in the
seat of a car. Okay that I would be okay
with the driving man. That's what they call me. Weird. Wow, yeah,
it would be correct. I mean. That's our new profile
picture on Facebook where you can find this, and you
can also find us Twitter and holad us on our
blog or talk to us directly about artificial reefs, becoming
(29:14):
to reef yourself and your thoughts on the subject at
our email car stuff at how stuff works dot com
For more on this and thousands of other topics. Is
it how stuff works dot com. To learn more about
the podcast, click on the podcast icon in the upper
right corner of our homepage. The how Stuff Works iPhone
(29:35):
app has arrived. Download it today on iTunes.
CarStuff News
Hosts And Creators
Scott Benjamin
Ben Bowlin
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.